Las Vegas free press. (East Las Vegas, N.M.) 1891-1???, 1892-03-07
IRRIGATION IN NEW MEXICO.


eral, contributes an article to the
Irrigation Age on the progress of
irrigation in the territory, from
which we extract the following:
The traveller from the east enters
New Mexico at the north boundary
of the county of Colfax. AT Max
we'll City, thirty-four miles south OF
the boundary line, he is in the irriga-
ton system supplied with water by
the Vermejo river.
This system has twelve miles OF
twenty-foot canal and about forty
FIVE miles of eight to sixteen foot
canals and laterals. There are twenty
lake basins under this system, ten of
which have been improved as reser-
voirs, having a storage capacity of
from 2OO,to 5000 acre feet, and a
total capacity for all the reservoirs OF
10000 acre feet. On this system
there are $50 feet of siphon pipe, six
feet inside diameter, the same length
of lume eight feet wide and four
feet deep, masonry, dams and cul-
verts, cast iron outlet gates to reser-
voirs, drops of facines or wickerwork
aprons with cobblestone riprapping,
and other substantial and permanent
structures. This system covers 30
600 acres of rolling prairie land,
north of the Vermejo and west of
the Red river.
Ten miles further south is the
Cimarron system, which has ten
miles of main canal, twenty feet
wide at bottom and four feet deep,
and forty miles of smaller canals
and laterals, from eight to sixteen
feet wide and two to three feet deep.
This system has one large reservoir
covering 475 acres, with the greatest
depth of twenty four feet, and hav-
ing total capacity of 5000 acre
feet. There are four other smaller
reservoirs, with an additional capa-
city of about 1000 acre feet, and
several lake beds not yet improved.
This system covers $4,000 acres of
light, sandy prairie land between the
Cimarron and Red rivers, and sur
rounding the growing town of
Springer, the county seat of Colfax.
The effective value of all these
canals and prairie reservoirs has been
to collect the spring rise and low
perennial flow of these two streams,
while very small per cent only Of
thessummer flood water is as yet
utilized, leaving still three sources. OF
water supply practically untouched
first, the summer torrents; second,
the underflow through the quicksand
and coarse gravel beds below the
present river channel; and third, the
artesian flow in the porous sandstone
of the Dakota group, (which crops at
the surface all along the eastern base
of the Costilla and Taos ranges, dip
deep under the foothills and first prai
rie region to crop out again along
the walls of Red river canon, ten or
twelve miles southeast of Springer.
To catch and store the summer
flood water more than half a dozen
large mountain reservoirs, with pro-
posed dams from seventy-five to 200
feet in height,and with areas of from
500 to 5000 acres have already been
located and considerable detail work
done, from which careful estimates
have been made, going to prove the
economic value of such storage reser-
voirs.
To collect some of the sheet water
or bedrock underflow there is in con-
temptation a sheet-pile dam, to ex-
tend across the entire river bottom
and carried down TO bedrock. This
dam will be completed this fall on
the Vermejo river, and if successful
others will follow shortly.
As to the artesian flow, well was
sunk last year five miles southeast of
Springer, at the forks of the Cimar-
ron and Red rivers, and struck a
flowing stream at $50 feet deep,
which has continued TO flow without
any diminution for the past twelve
months, supplying stream of about
one-half cubic foot per second from
an eight-inch pipe. Other drills are
now at work at three or four differ