Page 38 



BETTER FRUIT 



April 



Figure 13— HEAD FLUME WITH OPENINGS TO SUPPLY 

 WATER TO FURROWS 



Figure 11— SECTION OF CEMENT HEAD FLUME 



cubic feet per second, water enough at 

 the rate of a second foot per 160 acres 

 to supply 96,000 acres of land, or nearly 

 twice as much as was watered by the 

 Sunnyside canal in 1910. 



With water rights valued at $100 per 

 acre, which is materially less than many 

 have been sold for in different parts of 

 the state, this water would be worth 

 $9,600,000. This amount of land in its 

 raw state, with water right, would at 

 present prices be worth $20,000,000 to 

 $35,000,000. The foregoing is illustrative 

 of conditions in many parts of the state, 

 and should be sufficient argument in 

 favor of better construction, which will 

 be necessary before the most efficient use 

 of our water supply can be realized. 



At the time most of the canals of this 

 valley were built no better construction, 

 as a rule, was possible or justified by 

 existing conditions. The prime object 

 was to get water on the land. So long 

 as there was an abundance in the stream 

 a loss of fifty per cent or more by seep- 

 age from the ditches was a matter of 

 small concern, and to have considered 

 structures of masonry or concrete, or 

 lining canals with cement at $10 per bar- 

 rel would have been ridiculous. The 

 history of this valley has been repeated 

 in most of the other districts, and the 

 pioneers in canal building and irrigation 

 did well and deserve great credit for 

 what they did. But conditions now are 

 not what they were twenty-five years 

 ago, or even five years ago. The gen- 

 eral development in this and other of our 

 irrigated districts has been marvelously 

 rapid — almost beyond our power to 

 realize. The old leaky and temporary 

 wooden flumes and other structures have 

 served their purpose, and have about had 

 their day. 



We are now, I believe, in the begin- 

 ning of a new epoch in irrigation devel- 

 opment, one in which the methods and 

 practices of the earlier days will have 

 little part. We are ready to build for 

 the ages, and a start has been made. 

 Some of the works that have gone in 

 during the past five years should be in 

 service a thousand years from now. At 

 Clarkston and some other places the 

 open ditches have been abandoned and 

 pipe lines substituted at great expense, 

 thus eliminating seepage losses alto- 

 gether. Several of ;he irrigation com- 

 panies have begun to line their canals 

 with concrete, and more of it will be 

 done each year until finally a large per- 

 centage of the irrigation ditches all over 

 the state will doubtless be rendered 

 water tight in this way and the present 

 waste from seepage stopped or reduced 



to a minimum. Besides the saving of 

 water there would be other important 

 benefits and objects in lining the chan- 

 nels. The danger from disastrous breaks 

 would be reduced, less inspection and 

 fewer patrolmen would be required, the 

 common trouble and expense due to the 

 growth and necessary removal of aquatic 

 plants would be eliminated and the 

 growth of clover, willows, thistles and 

 other noxious weeds, usually found to be 

 a nuisance along canal banks, would be 

 largely prevented; all tending to materi- 

 ally reduce the cost of maintenance and 

 operation. 



In building the more important sys- 

 tems, such as the Yakima high line, the 

 Horse Heaven canal and others of this 

 class, concrete lining will be generally 

 considered as a necessity, but improve- 

 ment of existing canals is going to be 

 a matter more difficult of accomplish- 

 ment, especially where all the land under 

 them is developed and there is no oppor- 

 tunity for the owners to make use of 

 water on other land. Though the lining 

 would save thirty to fifty per cent of the 

 water diverted from the streams and 

 make it available for other lands the 

 owners will not voluntarily go to the 

 expense of making the improvement, 

 and there is now no means of compelling 

 them. Future legislation will doubtless 

 prevent the acquirement of rights so 

 large that the appropriator can afford to 

 waste it in transit, and it would seem 

 only fair to the state to make provision 

 also whereby water which has already 

 been acquired materially in excess of a 

 reasonable need can be condemned, and 

 used where it will do most good. 



In many places a much better use of 

 water would obtain by abandoning small 

 parallel ditches and combining the flow 

 of all in one well built canal, under a 

 single management. By improvement, 

 also, in systems of ditch management 

 great savings of water are possible. The 

 practice, for instance, of measuring all 

 water to consumers, as has been done on 

 the Prosser canal and a few others for 

 several years, would, if generally adopted, 

 result in a much more economical use. 



While the waste of water from canals 

 and distribution ditches, everywhere 

 apparent, must be checked before best 

 use is attained there are other ways of 

 misuse, less evident but equally great, 

 equally in need of correction and much 

 more difficult to control. These are 

 associated with the application of the 

 water to the land, and consist principally 

 in surface run-off, evaporation from the 

 surface of the soil and deep percolation 

 into the subsoil. The first is due in part 



to the steepness of much of the land 

 irrigated and largely to careless handling 

 of the water and lack of attention; the 

 excessive evaporation results chiefly from 

 lack of cultivation; percolation losses, the 

 most serious of the three and most diffi- 

 cult to appreciate and control, are occa- 

 sioned generally by the combination of 

 shallow or very porous soil and subsoil, 

 and a lack of skill on the part of the 

 irrigator. 



Much has been said and written as to 

 methods of reducing these losses, but the 

 degree of success will in all cases depend 

 upon many variable- conditions, and into 

 the problem the personal equation will 

 always enter as one of the most import- 

 ant factors. We may line the ditches or 

 pipe the water to the land, and know 

 when we have reached the limit of econ- 

 omy in conveyance, but who can saj' 

 when we have reached the limit as to its 

 use on the farm. 



This brings us to the question that is 

 ever being asked and never answered. 

 How much water is required, maybe for 

 alfalfa, for potatoes, for garden truck; 

 but here most often it is; "How much 

 water is required for the commercial 

 orchard?" This question as to the actual 

 water requirements of crops, or rather as 

 to the best possible use of the water in 

 their production, is the most important 

 and at the same time the most compli- 

 cated and difficult problem that we have 

 to solve in connection with irrigation. 

 The actual amount of water that enters 

 into the growth of a plant, or is trans- 

 pired in the production of one pound of 

 dry matter, is nearly constant, and may 

 be determined with a fair degree of 

 accuracy, as has been done in the case of 

 many of our farm crops, but under field 

 conditions some additional allowance 

 must be made to provide for other neces- 

 sary losses, which vary widely with 

 differences of soil, climate and tillage. 



"An inch to the acre" was the rule in 

 the early days, which amount, continuous 

 flow for seven months, is equivalent to a 

 depth over the surface of nearly ten feet. 

 Experience and better farming have 

 demonstrated fully that for most con- 

 ditions this was an excessive use, and 

 contracts made in more recent years have 

 stipulated much smaller quantities. A 

 second foot per 160 acres continuous 

 flow for a period of seven months, 

 amounting to thirty-two inches in depth, 

 has been a common allowance specified 

 by many irrigation companies, while 

 some few do not give so much, and one 

 at least limits the use to six inches for 

 the irrigation season. 



