182 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



CALIFORNIA'S LESSON FOR EASTERN FARMERS 



By RALPH W. WOODARD 



President of Woodward Co , Fresno, Cal. 



AFK\Y years ago the great inland valleys of 

 California the San Joaquin and Sacramento 

 were desert wastes. We call these valleys but they 

 are really great level plains between two mountain 

 ranges. These two valleys are roughly seventy 

 miles wide and six hundred miles long or as large 

 as the states of Vermont, Xew Hampshire, New 

 Jersey, Massachusetts, Delaware and Connecticut 

 combined. 



A few years ago these valleys were considered 

 as of no value except for grazing purposes. A little 

 later great canals were constructed and water taken 

 from the rivers to irrigate the plains. This put 

 thousands of acres under cultivation and what was 

 once a desert became a veritable garden. In a 

 short time these valleys were producing twice as 

 many raisins as are produced in Spain, three-fourths 

 of the nuts produced in the United States, all of 

 the dried apricots produced in the United States and 

 other products on a similar scale. 



But there still remained thousands of fertile 

 acres which could not be reached by the canal sys- 

 tems. Some of this land is foothill land, where it 

 is impractical to build long canals, and some of it 

 is a great many miles from the source of the canal 

 systems. 



Then the gas engine came, and the result is 

 described as follows in a government report : 



"Before the first irrigation of grain was at- 

 tempted near Fresno the land could scarcely be sold 

 at $2.50 an acre, but as soon as the results of irri- 

 gation became known, land sales increased, and $25 

 to $30 per acre was given freely for the raw land. 

 which now, when in deciduous trees or vines, is 

 worth $250 to $500 per acre. The citrus lands of 

 the foothills, that now sell for $1,500 to $2,000 per 

 acre when in full bearing groves would be value- 

 less without irrigation." 



In 1910 nearly three hundred thousand acres 



were irrigated by 



pumping in this 



state, and while 



these are the latest 



figures available, 



it is safe to say 



that in five years 



this figure has 



been doubled. So 



irrigation by 



pumping is no 



longer an experi- 

 ment. 



The first gas 



engines that were 



m a n u f a c tured 



were crude and 



troublesome a f - 



fairs. But the gas 



engine of today 



that is, the high 



grade gas engine; 



I am not speaking 



of the cheap clap- 



trap engine costs less to operate in proportion to 

 the service that it gives than any tool on the farm. 



The average cost of repairs on hundreds of 

 Lauson engines which we have sold during the last 

 few years was, during the year 1914, eighty-two 

 cents per engine. These engines are doing all sorts 

 of work under all sorts of conditions. 



Now, let us figure the total cost per acre of 

 irrigation with a gas engine and centrifugal pump. 

 The amount of water required varies with different 

 crops and different kinds of soil. Under average 

 conditions, however, where the water in the well 

 is twelve feet from the surface a fourteen horse- 

 power engine and a six-inch pump will deliver one 

 thousand gallons per minute, or six hundred thou- 

 sand gallons in a day of ten hours. This will flood 

 five acres a day with water four inches deep, or in 

 other words is equal to four inches of rain, and will 

 soak down in the ground about four feet from the 

 surface. Engine distillate costing seven cents per 

 gallon can be used in the regular type of Lauson 

 engines, as it burns clean because of the perfect 

 mixture and the large, hot spark that is generated 

 by the high grade Sumter Magneto. 



It requires fourteen gallons of this fuel for a 

 ten-hour run with a fourteen horsepower engine 

 the Lauson is economical in fuel consumption and 

 about thirty cents' worth of cylinder oil, or a total 

 oil cost of one dollar and twenty-eight cents less 

 than twenty-six cents per acre. A plant of this size 

 sells complete for about eight hundred and fifty 

 dollars and is sufficiently large to irrigate forty 

 acres. Assuming that the land is irrigated three 

 times a year and allowing eighty-five dollars, or 

 ten per cent, for plant depreciation, it makes a total 

 cost of less than one dollar per acre for each irriga- 

 tion. Remember these figures are based on the 

 cost of this pumping plant in the west, where the 



One thousand gallons of water per minute. This (i-inch centrifugal pump 



screen cooled portable engine. 



bv 



14 II. T. T.auson 



