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THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



IRRIGATION FARMING ISN'T JUST PLAY 



BY W. F. WILCOX 



In the Denver Field and Farm 



THE irrigationist is compelled to put much more 

 work into fitting his ground than does the rainbelt 

 farmer. Nowhere in the dry region do farmers make 

 their fields look so attractive as do those of the irriga- 

 tion districts. 



The plowing must be done deeply so as to leave 

 no dead furrows or ridges. For this purpose the new 

 two-way plow is admirably adapted. The harrowing 

 must be perfect, reducing all lumps to fineness. Then 

 after the plowing and harrowing, a big float or leveler 

 hauled by three or four or more horses is pulled over 

 the field, packing and leveling it. If any especially 

 uneven places remain, a slip or scraper or similar device 

 is used to remove the high places and fill the low ones. 

 The great aim is to make the surface perfectly smooth 

 so that water will run over it. 



After the field has been properly prepared and 

 the seed placed in the ground, much work must still 

 be done with the marker or furrowing machine, which 

 is pulled across the field the way the water is to run, 

 making furrows from thirty to thirty-six inches apart 

 according to the nature of the crop, condition of the 

 soil, slope, etc. Then with the team work done there 

 are the patient days and days of applying the water. 

 The seed will seldom germinate until water is applied. 



If it is new land, a new ranch or farm, ditches 

 must be plowed and prepared leading from the nearest 

 canal. All this is hard work and requires time. When 

 once the water is at the ranch, then the laterals and 

 head ditches must be constructed along the highest 

 points so that each field may be covered. With the 

 ditches completed and the water at hand, the farmer 

 proceeds to apply it. 



Irrigation is not automatic. It isn't anything 

 like starting a phonograph and sitting down to listen. 

 When you have turned in the water you have started 

 something and you have to stay with it, regardless of 

 fatigue, hunger or want of sleep. The head ditch 

 runs across the upper end of the field. This carries 

 the main head. Every twenty to thirty feet, a part 

 of the water is cut out into another ditch and this 

 supplies the lateral from which at right angles the 

 marks or furrows run across the field. It is a deli- 

 cate task to cut out the water at the proper places 

 and to regulate the flow until at last just the right 

 amount is running in each of the marks. 



You work and work for hours and think you have 

 each of the marks running just right, each uniformly 

 carrying just the right amount. You start along the 

 head ditch to take a final look, and lo and behold, 

 only about a third of the rills are running, No one 

 has any idea of the way the soil will wash until he 

 tries to set a head of water. So back and forth he 

 goes, regulating and regulating; placing a bit of stone 

 here, a sage brush there, some straw or weeds or 

 wood here, endeavoring to check the flow. 



Finally at last after wearied effort the water 

 reaches a normal flow and ceases washing. The marks 



run uniformly, each carrying just the proper amount 

 of water down through the desert field. It is a trying 

 task. There are fields so situated and located that 

 irrigation is rendered comparatively easy. There are 

 thousands of others with a little slope where irrigation 

 becomes more of a burden. 



Once the water is set running- right, the irriga- 

 tionist may leave and attend to other work, always 

 returning, however, every few hours the first half 

 day to look at it and see if it is running right. Perhaps 

 a straw will wash down here, then another, soon a 

 bit of silt collects, then a dam forms, one section ceases 

 running and a double proportion is thrown on to the 

 next section, all of which causes trouble and when 

 the irrigationist returns he finds all the water running 

 down one or two furrows with disastrous results, 

 washing out a channel in his nicely prepared field. 



But the matter of starting the water at the head 

 is not the whole thing. Despite all that can be done 

 in many fields there will be low places. Here the 

 tendency is for the marks to fill up with silt during 

 the first irrigation. Once a mark fills up, the water* 

 lops over into another; then the double head over- 

 flows into another and so it goes the water following 

 its natural course across the low place in the field 

 with the result that the part of the field beyond the 

 low place gets no water. 



The irrigationist goes down into the field with his 

 gum boots and attemps to clean out the marks and dike 

 them up. It is a hard task. No sooner has he gotten 

 each mark diked up and the water flowing than they 

 fill up again and run over. In trying to get the water 

 over he digs up as much grain in the low place as the 

 land beyond would raise were it irrigated. All the 

 time he wallows about in the saturated soil to the top 

 of his gum boots, sweating and fuming and with 

 mosquitoes drilling .22 holes in various parts of his 

 anatomy. 



After once running nicely, the water will, like 

 Tennyson's brook, go on forever in the rows. But 

 after forty-eight hours or so, sometimes sooner, ac- 

 cording to the slope and condition of the soil, the 

 irrigationist must re-set the water. Seeing it running 

 on so nicely and knowing that an attempt to re-set 

 it on another part of the field is like stirring up a 

 hornet's nest or disturbing a wild cat, he dreads it, 

 but it has to be done. So he moves the water down 

 onto another part of the field and goes all through the 

 work again. This is his task the livelong summer. 



The second irrigation is not so bad. The sets at 

 the head of the marks remain. They are firm and 

 undisturbed so that all he has to do is to turn the 

 water from the laterals at the proper places and 

 with but a fraction of the former work has the water 

 running again. Alfalfa fields irrigate best. The 

 ground not being newly plowed is hard and firm and 

 does not wash. Moreover, the head ditches and 

 laterals remain permanent and the work of plan- 

 ning and setting is reduced to a minimum in com- 

 parison with irrigating grain fields. But each spring 

 the alfalfa fields have to be marked and this is some 

 task for a team on account of the big tough roots. 



