The Fort Worth gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-189?, 1891-05-21
SOMETHING ON IRRIGATION.

The Florida Agriculturist tells US that
Judge Speer of Oakland, Orange county,
Fla, is completely irrigating 100 acres
devoted to truck farming by lifting water
from lake with a simple steam vacuum
pump. The pump is one going into quite
general use in that state for irrigation pur-
poses, and for throwing water from drain
| age canals running through low lands that
have been reclaimed from the swamps by
ditching 1t is pump with greater capac-
ity than any other pump known, all things
considered. There is no engine, and very
little of anything else that could be called
machinery.
After seeing this in the Agriculturist we
wrote to an acquaintance in Orange county,
Fla, for further Information. He replied
that the statement referred to was entirely
correct. The pump is simplicity itself, in
consequence of which nc engineer is neces-
sary-the fireman to keep up steam is the
only requirement. You merely fire up and
| turn on steam-this is all there is to do. On
this account the pump is comparatively in
expensive both as to original cost and as
to operation. 1t can be arranged TO lift
water 200 feet.
We did not get the name of this vacuum
pump now being employed in Florida, and
would not pretend to hold out the idea that
it is not one in common use in other local
tiles. The one now being worked by Judge
| Speer raises 2,261, 100 gallons of water in
twentyfour hours with steam pressure
| of less than ten pounds to the inch. The
cost of running it is covered by the small
quantity of fuel necessary and the employ
! ment of one ordinary hand. The results,
even in that region of heavy rainfall, are
highly satisfactory to Judge Speer, now
! after two years of practical demonstration.
| In former article we gave it as our
| opinion that water lifted by steam from the
| Trinity and other similar streams in Texas,
to be employed in irrigating the adjacent
second bottoms above overflow, might be
| made to pay. These foregoing showings
| place the thing upon basis admitting OF
! calculations. Of course irrigation pays
best where water can be directly run upon
| the lands from artesian wells, or from
| streams flowing at higher level than the
lands under cultivation, yet with these
| lights, as now before US, it would appear
| that water raised by steam can be made to
pay, especially in truck farming. If it can
be made TO pay in florida it could certainly
be made to pay here where an artificial
water supply is undoubtedly much more
| needed than there.
| \ correct system of irrigation in agri-
| culture means land giving to crops the
full benefit of all the plant food there is in
! it. Plants can take the food that sustains
and develops them only as solution in
| water. The richest soil ever handled by
| the chemist is, so far as concerns plants,
| simply poverty itself in time Of drouth. In
such time clean quartz sand or pure ground
| glass is its equal in every respect. On the
| moment when soil becomes ''dried out"
| as we say, the plant set in il enters upon
| period of starvation, and, like an animal,
| begins the consumption of its own sub
| stance. In other words, it begins ''falling
| off, - and as a consequence, when the rains
| finally come and supply the needed moisture
| TO enable it to resume feeding, consider
| able time is required to bring it back to its
! normal condition-in very many cases that
| condition has scarcely been reached ere an
other period of drouth is on, leaving the
plant to starve back without having ac-
quired any particular gain. Plants and
| animals are more alike in this regard than
most persons would suppose. Say you pen
| pig and feed it into thrifty condition,
then starve it into extreme poverty, then
feed it up again, then starve it again
what could you expect to make of it? A
miserable lank and lean scrub at best.
But if you supply it regularly along with
all the food it needs you keep it continually
on the gain until it is eventually developed
into fine animal Just so with plants
| the parallel is perfect.
Irrigation in agriculture means, further
| more, certainty of heavy yields for each
and every season to the fullest capacity of
the soil. OF course this presumes the crop
grown to be one suited to the climate in
which an attempt is being made to grow
it. We could not claim for irrigationthat it
would make oranges a success in Iowa or
craIberries success in Texas. but any crop
that We grow here at all can be well grown
under q regular water supply.
Irrigation in agriculture means, addi-
tionally, a regular growing season for
crops, extending from the latest spring
frosts to the first heavy frosts. OF fall.
Without it our seasons for many crops in
the South are as short as are the seasons in
Canada We hasten to get our crops set
early in spring to give them the benefit of
what we call the growing season" At
the end OF that season we harvest them
and then leave the land lying idle to sesd
itself in noxious weeds until the next
growing season" has opened up with the
following spring, drawing our supplies the
while from California, or Colorado. or
some other distant region where the people
have forged ahead OF Us in an appreciation
of the advantages of irrigation. This kind
Of thing is simply tantamount TO run
ming good business on less than half time
when we might just as well run it On full