118 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



that the irrigation equipment that was installed 

 consisted of inefficient pumps and engines using 

 an expensive fuel and, in a large number of in- 

 stances, the land under cultivation cannot be seri- 

 ously considered as suitable for any other crop. 

 The land so planted yielded fairly well for a time, 

 as drainage in a new country is materially better 

 than after it is settled up, for the manifest reason 

 that the quantity of surface water increases in the 

 low lands as adjacent acreage is put under culti- 

 vation, and the water frequently raises until the 

 crops are drowned out. Alkali works up to the 

 surface, and many irrigators, not being used to 

 the scientific consideration of their problem, used 

 water to excess and actually ruined their land for 

 alfalfa or any other crop. 



There is ample evidence of this waste of water 

 in some of our older settled communities. Right 

 adjacent to the city of Fresno may be seen many 

 thousands of acres that at one time were con- 

 sidered as choice as any land in Fresno county and, 

 were it not for the fact that the owners of this land 

 were obsessed 

 with the idea that 

 the more water 

 they used the 

 greater crops they 

 could grow, this 

 land would still 

 be under cultiva- 

 tion and of great 

 value. As it is, it 

 is nothing but an 

 alkali waste. 



Higher lands 

 are always better 

 drained ; quite 

 often they are 

 more easily 

 checked a n,d 

 levelled and the 

 soil is superior in 

 every way, less 

 liable to frost, and may be planted to deciduous or 

 citrus fruit and become in the course of four or five 

 years immensely valuable. The raising of water 

 upon these higher levels is not a serious matter, 

 and it is well within the truth to state that it is pos- 

 sible now to pump water against a head of 100 

 feet for less money than the early settler could 

 raise water 25 feet. In California this is well 

 known and the statement is never questioned, but 

 to anyone not conversant with the circumstances 

 it may seem an exaggeration. 



Water measurement used to be almost entirely 

 by the miner's inch, but of late years an endeavor 

 has been made to do away with this, owing to the 

 fact that very few of the Western States use the 

 same standard and for that reason the miner's inch 

 will not be used here. The standard of measure- 

 ment is the acre foot or the second foot, and to ex- 

 plain these two measurements, will say that a sec- 

 ond foot of water is a flow equal to one cubic foot 

 per second ; that is, about 7^2 gallons of water per 

 second or 450 gallons per minute, while the acre 

 foot involves quantity only, being the amount of 

 water necessary to cover one acre of land one foot 



A Youni 



Roswell, 

 Between 



deep. This amounts to 43,560 cubic feet of water 

 or 325,851 gallons. It takes a pump of the capacity 

 of one second foot flow twelve hours and six min- 

 utes to deliver one acre foot of water, hence if we 

 know the crop, the soil and water conditions it is a 

 matter of very simple calculation to ascertain the 

 size of plant necessary, the flow per minute and all 

 pertinent facts in connection therewith. 



With this information before us we will as- 

 sume a specimen condition. For instance, a pros- 

 pective irrigator selects 160 acres of land, and pro- 

 poses to plant one-half to alfalfa during the first 

 year, or figures that by the end of the third year 

 he will have the entire tract in alfalfa, in the mean- 

 time setting out other crops that will come later 

 into bearing. While the amount of water necessary 

 to raise alfalfa varies with the soil conditions, it is 

 fair to take 2 l / 2 acre feet per season as the amount 

 that will have to be pumped, in view of the fact 

 that there is considerable rainfall throughout the 

 State that may be depended upon to help out the 

 irrigator during a certain season. This will mean 



that enough water 

 will have to be 

 pumped during 

 the season, which 

 averages a b o u, t 

 two hundred days, 

 to cover his 1()0 

 acres of land 2^ 

 feet deep, making 

 a total of four 

 Innulred acre feet 

 of water. In other 

 words, this means 

 that he will need 

 a pump and 

 enough power to 

 deliver two sec- 

 ond feet contin- 

 uously, or two 

 acre feet per day 

 of twelve hours. 

 For the sake of making a specific showing we will 

 assume that it is necessary to raise this water hO 

 feet. Now we will begin to demonstrate how it is 

 possible for this man to make money under these 

 conditions. 



In the first place, if first-class 'equipment is 

 purchased his plant will be 65 per cent efficient. 

 Right here he is cutting down his cost as compared 

 with old-style equipment because very few of the 

 plants put in ten years ago were even 40 per cent 

 efficient. He will need about 25 H. P. to elevate 

 this water, and throughout the major portion of 

 the State of California the oil will not cost over 2J/2 

 cents a gallon, and this is probably the most diffi- 

 cult statement for the Easterner to understand, and 

 it is necessary to go into a little bit of detail as to 

 why this is so. 



The California oil refineries are different in 

 that they have to refine asphaltum base oil and in 

 refining this oil they make several different prod- 

 ucts ranging from gasoline down to what is called 

 fuel oil. This latter oil is a product of all refining 

 processes in California and is produced in large 

 (Continued on Page 132.) 



N. M. Kaffir Corn Has Ileen Planted 

 the Rows. 



