Cost of Pumping Water. 183 
specific case, Each orchardist must ascertain his own condi- 
tions and then confer with trustworthy manufacturers or their 
agents as to what will meet his requirements. 
As a surety of the general proposition that pumping is fea- 
sible and profitable even from deep wells, reference can be made 
to the Santa Clara Valley, where the most numerous recent in- 
vestments in pumping outfits have been made:— 
There are about 1,500 irrigating plants of all kinds in this valley 
proper. About goo of them have been put in during the past three years. 
Many of them are centrifugal pumps run by steam. These are the larger 
plants, where from 15 to 4o H. P., and in some few instances a larger H. P., 
are used, and the size of the pumps range from 4 inches to 12 inches. 
Most of the smaller plants are run by gasoline, though several use crude oil, 
and many of these are also centrifugal. Some of these are deep-well 
pumps, and they are very satisfactory in raising water from a greater depth 
than 100 feet. From 100 to 400 or 500 feet they work admirably. 
The cost of pumping differs materially in the different kinds of power, 
sizes of pumps and depth of wells. Figuring from what may be a safe 
average of the actual cost of fuel, a No. 4 pump, centrifugal, with gasoline 
as power, at 70 feet depth, would cost $3.00 per day. This would result in 
600 gallons per minute, 36,000 gallons per hour, or 360,000 gallons per day 
of ten hours. Such a stream of water is calculated to irrigate about 5 acres 
per day—equivalent to a little more than 234 inches of rain. But these fig- 
ures being of the best experiments, a better and safer estimate would prob- 
ably be 4 acres per day or an equivalent of about 2 inches of rain. 
But, generally speaking, it is safe to say that at a cost of about $3.00 
per acre for the water the orchards of Santa Clara County can, under the 
present process, be irrigated, two or three times, at $6.00 to $9.00 per 
acre per year. The average cost of plant is about $1,200,* 
These calculations are chosen because they represent aver- 
age conditions and include a large number of small plants. 
There are many cases citable in which pumping plants of great 
capacity with small lifts are supplying the amount of water indi- 
cated at even one-third of the cost mentioned. But plants of 
such capacity require considerable investments and should be 
submitted to competent experts for estimates of cost and effi- 
ciency. 
THE MINERS’ INCH. 
There is a slight difference in the miners’ inch in some of 
the different mining districts, but for irrigation purposes usually 
the measurement is as described by section 1415 of the Civil 
Code, which specifies a miners’ inch in this State as that quan- 
tity of water which will flow through an opening of one square 
inch in the bottom or side of a vessel, under a pressure of four 
inches above the opening. Fifty of these miners’ inches are 
equal to a discharge of one cubic foot of water per second, which 
is called a “second-foot,” of which one miners’ inch is the fiftieth 
part. 
*C. M. Wooster, of San Jose. 
