The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1889-03-02
WASTE OF WATER.

WASTE OF WATER.
Matter Which Should bo Investigated
by Farmers Everywhere.
The value of irrigation for crops is
never fully appreciated, nor the var
ious modes fairly understood, until
one has experience in them. Profess
slonal treatises on the subject are help
full, and study of them necessary to
best results, but a little practice, with
good Judgment and some genius, are
OF much more value; besides, one never
comprehends the usefulness nor the
practicability of it under the many and
various circumstances where it might
be practiced, until he has gone and
done 1t himself. I remember many
places in the Eastern States where
not only irrigation of gardens and
lawns, as we'll as great fields, is prac-
ticable, easy and cheap, but call to
mind many a household where they
pump and draw all their lives every
drop Of water used, and for all their
stock, and where the ''dry spell'' cuts
of their garden stuff and the grass
dies into brown patches and the shrub
berry suffers in the front yard, all be-
cause they never had attention called
to source of supply of water, abund-
ant, clear and excellent, so near and so
located that a few days. work would
bring it to the very door; where a
beautiful spouting fountain and a re-
freshing pool with pretty fish playing
in it and bordered with magnificent
water plants might take the place Of
the dusty chicken-wallow; and grass,
green and fresh all summer, that of
unsightly weeds. I know many a
| place where a lovely brook might be
brought to the farm buildings, and
after supplying, by pipes or troughs,
| every other need could be so turned as
to carry every particle of useless slop
and refuse and offensive matter away
to the fields and meadows, where it
| would be useful; contributing at the
| same time to the cleanliness and health
| fulness of the surroundings and to the
cultivation of refined habits in the
growing family. If every farmer who
may chance to read this, all over the
Middle and Eastern States, and es-
| pecially the southern part of the coun-
try, where almost all of them assume,
| without thought that their only de-
| pendence for watered fields is the
clouds-if they would look over the
geography of all the land around for a
mile or two, and take water level
along to examine the grades of the
surface, the majority of them would be
surprised to find that a living brook
might have been flowing for an age
past through their fields and by the
house and barns and to the lawn and
! gardens, and even to furnishing an
abundant and refreshing drench OF
water to whole fields of crops strug-
Cling through protracled drouth.
The commonest error is to presume
that irrigation is not needed to any i'm.
portant degree, and therefore not prac.
ticable, in those regions subject to reg.
ular rains; to suppose that the practice
is costly and, therefore, it wou,l not
pay, is also not necessarily true.
could find dozens of places in almost
every community where, if severa:
farmers would join, water might be
had for all future time for a few days
work with pillow and scraper on the
supply ditch, and the irrigating ditche:
made in a few hours with the pillow
alone. And then when the dry spell
is at hand, one man with judgmen
| could turn the water into three, five, OIL
even ten and more acres every day, tt
the Joy and gladness of his heart il
watching the thirsty soil drink it in
and to behold the grateful countenance
of the parched crops as they put or
holiday attire and start afresh toward
the goal of a bountiful fruition. I an
we'll acquainted with the regions O.
Ohio, Indiana and Illinois where tile
draining has almost redeemed the lanl
and made it habitable, and I d.
not hesitate to say that even il
those very regions, at least par
tial system of irrigation, in thu
most practicable places, would pay
as great a profit on the cost as thu
draining, and even in the more un
promising sections, the advantage O
water in every field, added to thu
other, would in time make the practice
generally popular. There is many ;
village and town could have pretty
babbling brook flowing in every gutter
if they only knew it, and it is surpris
ing to me, now that look back, to see
how people and places are blind tt
their advantages. One needs to spend
a season where water is appreciated
and it's value and various uses discov.
cred, to get his eyes opened to the
blessing of having plenty of it every.
where-under control. Take the aver.
age farm of the Middle, Western and
Southern States where house and barns
water is pumped for every purpose
add where only the best of them are
provided with ponds in the fields, and
the owner, if he could have a brook
where he could want it, would place a
value on it of $500 to $4,000 or more
and the selling price of the farm would
be increased to that extent by provid.
ing that almost priceless boom Giving
water for stock in every feld.' The
possibilities almost everywhere are
great; the practicability in thousands
and thousands of cases would astonish
| all who would investigate the matter.
j. G. Irwin, in n. Y. Tribune.