SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR 
275 
are thin, hungry, and poor — more so than the Drift soils that 
cover the granites of New England and northern New York 
Having studied both rocks and soils in the Northern and 
Southern States, and in the vicinity of Washington, where 
the writer spent four years, remarks on agricultural geo- 
logogy might be extended to any length; but to many 
rea<lers, the theme may not be interesting, and we should 
approach it in its relations to cotton, corn, or wheat- cul- 
ture before unscientific readers will see the point of the 
discussion. If one of these were to ask the reason why 
Alabama has drawn labor and capital enough to make it 
the banner State in the production of our great staple, al- 
though much younger than Georgia and the Carolinas, 
the true answer would be that the great attraction was in 
the strata from which her soils are mainly formed. The 
rocks and alluvial deposits of Alabama share largely in 
the remains of animals, and in all the earthy elements that 
support life ; and, therefore, it is but natural that the State 
should early become the greatest producer of cotton in the 
sunny South. Some districts may lack water, and suffer 
from periodical drouths ; but these facts do not show any 
defects in the other constituents of fertility. Indeed, with 
a fair supply of water, there is not a little land m the 
planting States whose crops would be doubled. 
Artesian wells, reservoirs, canals, dams, ditches, and 
other appliances for irrigation may soon be as common 
here as in Southern Europe. The reasons why some 
soils are nominally exhausted sooner than others are vari- 
ous. The physical condition of the land, and the amount 
of rain water that passes through it have as m.uch to do 
with the removal of all soluble fertilizing atoms, whether 
organic or inorganic, as the removal of annual crops. Too 
little attention is paid to getting tilled earth in the best 
attainable state to hold the food of plants about their roots. 
If full of hard lumps, or over-charged with coarse sand, an 
excess of dry air in summer below the surface, operates 
most injuriously at one time, while at another, a flood of 
water literally washes off the available food of growing 
crops. Much of the time we have too little rain ; but 
w'hen it does come two or three inches fall in one or ..two 
hours, serious damage is done by the suddenness of 
the shower, rather than by the quantity of water that falls 
in the aggregate. L. 
RAISING WATER FOR IRRIGATION. 
Dr. Daniel Lee — Dear Sir — Please allow me to 
seek from you information upon the subject of irrigation, 
by elevating water by machinery, which is of great im- 
portance to me and to this entire section of country. Our 
fields are now entirely bare of any kind of vegetation, and 
a good crop has not been made here for three years, en- 
tirely for want of rain. The Spanish Jesuits wlio erected 
the Indian missions here and over Mexico, constructed ir- 
rigating dams and ditches upon this stream, the San An- 
tonio River, and these irrigable lands are now producing 
the only corn in the country. The question, then, has 
become quite common among those in the vicinity of a 
permanent stream : How can I irrigate my land 7 Know- 
ing you to possess the information, and believing you 
willing to communicate to those for whose benefitand im- 
provement you have so nobly spent your life, I venture to 
inquire. What is the cheapest and most efficient wheel, 
pump or other machine for efrvating water from 20 to 35 
feet, when propelled by a water power of 6 feet fall, and 
an unlimited supply of water 7 Can a machine capable of 
elevating one ton or more per minute be driven by a band 
from the pofver wheel 7 
I am anxious to know your opinion of the pumps des- 
cribed by B P. Johnson, Secretary New York Agricultur- 
al Society, in Transactions for !851, appendix pp 66 and 
67, and particularly the one called Appold’s Centrifugal 
Pump. Can either of litem be obtained! What is the 
probable price for one of the capacity I have mentioned t 
and what kind of wheel and searing would be best for 
the locality described 7 What average amount of water 
may be elevated one foot per hour by a moderately sized 
Wind Mill in a prairie country where there is almost con- 
stantly a considerable breeze! Can you refer me to a 
machinist who can furnish me with accurate specifications 
and estimates of this class of machinery 7 Such as is not 
bulky we can best purchase North, as lumber is here 
worth S60 per thousand and labor correspondingly dear. 
Your attention to the above queries, so far as may be 
convenient, will confer a very great benefit upon us. 
Please mention what kind of machine the Cornish Engine 
is, referred to by you in July number, 1855, of the Southern 
Cultivator. Very respectfully, 
A. E. Edgeworth. 
San Antonio^ Texas ^ July, 1857. 
P. S. — In the same article you say that “no pains will 
be spared to illustrate all the principles of this new 
science (Ag’l. Engineering) in your next course of lec- 
tures From whom can they be obtained 7” 
Although the above letter was written with no appar- 
ent expectation that it would be published, yet the subject 
matter is of so much interest to our readers, and to call 
out all possible information for the benefit of our corres- 
pondent, it is inserted in the Cultivator. If Mr. Edge- 
worth has at his command a water-power of six feet fall, 
permanent thoughout the year, with an abundance of 
water, he may do almost what he pleases in the way of 
irrigating the land in the vicinity. He asks if a ton of 
water per minute can be elevated from 20 to 35 feet 7 
Let us see ; — Six tons falling six feet in ten seconds or one- 
sixth of a minute, would exactly balance, or equal one ton 
falling 36 feet in 60 seconds. In mechanics, however, 
about one-third loss by friction of machinery ^should be 
allowed ; therefore, as two is the third of six, and added 
thereto make eight, eight tons of water falling 6 feet, as 
indicated, should elevate one ton 36 feet. Something like 
this result is attainable in practice. A broad pitch- 
back wheel some ten feet in diameter, having buckets of 
large capacity for holding v/ater let into them a little above 
the centre of the wheel, would drive an endless chain 
armed with buckets, and working on two pulleys, one in 
the water below to be raised, and the other at the height 
it has to be elevated. All chain pumps are made on this 
principle, in which flat pieces of metal rising in a tube, 
lift the water in place of proper buckets. This tube might 
be made one or two feet square, and fitted on the inside 
with well ironed plank, whose four corners should be sup- 
ported by four chains descending from the central ones, 
to lift the column of water as the chains passed up and 
over a broad pulley. Two central chains would probably 
be sufficient. In common chain pumps, only one is used; 
and we may add, that all the water elevated from wells 
at the water stations on the Georgia Railroad, to fill loco- 
motive tenders, is raised by chain pumps worked by 
hdrse power. Of course your water-power will work 
force-pumps, if you prefer them to buckets of any kind. 
We liave not at hand a copy of the Transactions of the 
New York Siate St'cieiy for 1851, and cannot, therefore, 
give any information in referei,ce to the pump named. 
Wind mills having generally given place to steam pow- 
er where they were formerly in use, we have paid little 
attention to their recent improvements, Messrs. Fowler 
& Wells, of the city of New York have had, and probably 
