IRRIGATION ROUND TABLE 



121 



enough water last year. He thinks he can raise over seven hundred 

 bushels. 



Question: It would be especially favorable on that type of 

 soil, w^ould it not — irrigation would show up better.^ 



Mr. Work: I wouldn't want to say about that. I don't know. 

 I don't think there is any use irrigating potatoes unless you make 

 all other conditions right for a good yield. 



Mr. Kilbourn: Has anyone tried drilling or driving wells and 

 coupling them up together? 



Mr. Parcell: I have five wells with two inch pipe eighteen feet 

 below the surface, but I find when the water table gets low a little, 

 I can't pump as much as I like. Ordinarily in the spring I can get 

 sixty to seventy -five gallons a minute with a two and one-half inch 

 rotary pump, two hundred feet from the spring. Putting in a two- 

 inch suction pipe and coupling it to the well, I get about forty gallons 

 a minute. This is for strawberries. 



Question: Does the rotary pump work well? 



Mr. Parcell: Pretty well. It wears a little. The connection 

 is much above the surface. There is a pipe line which goes down 

 for each well, then they are coupled together, and one pump draws 

 from the center of the system. The wells are eighteen feet below 

 the surface. 



President White: What is the objection to putting the pump 

 at the stream? 



Mr. Parcell: It is quite a distance away, and if I want to 

 pump a certain amount of water three hundred feet, I have to carry 

 it six hundred feet from the stream, and by using the suction pipe, 

 that would take off half of the stream, and one can just as well pump 

 it. That removes the strain. 



Mr. White: Certain conditions are necessary in order to make 

 irrigation successful. You want a well drained condition of your 

 soil to begin with. If your soil is impervious, you might get a 

 saturated condition for your crop. 



Mr. Work: Your soil must be receptive of moisture, and in 

 such condition as to drain well. Suppose you give a heavy applica- 

 tion of water and then have a big rain. There is a possibility that 

 you will have done harm by giving that extra water if your soil does 

 not drain well. 



