Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1892-07-07
HERE is A SAMPLE.
Engineer McWilIiams Writes an
Interesting Article On
Artesian Irrigation.
A Practical Test of the Ditch and
Furrow System in This
State.
How the Engineer Goes to Work
to Plat Out the Dakota
Farm.

Z to Plat Out the Dakota
= Farm.
Irrigation is on trial in South
several parts of the eastern states
this year on a small scale and the
area of irrigated land in the Western
and Pacific states is increasing every
day. Hundreds of men are engaged
steadily building bitches, dams, etc,
in California, Arizona and New
Mexico. South Dakota farmers are
taking great interest in the subject
and a number of them have so much
faith in what they read and are told
by persons who have visited or lived
in a country where the artificial
watering of land is practiced, that
they are investing money in plans
There are to the writer's knowledge
nine crews of men at work building
bitches in South Dakota. The state
engineer reports forty artesian well
boring outfits at work in the state.
The accompanying illustration rep
resents proposed irrigation works
including artesian well, reservoir,
main, lateral and sublateral bitches,
on one quarter of the 640-acre farm OF
the Artesian Well 81 Power Company,
of Aberdeen. The land is situated
one and One-nalf miles north from
ClaremOnt, and thirty miles from
Aberdeen. The company proposes to
sink a well and hope to secure
sufficient water to irrigate the whole
section. They have purchased an
interest in n of the many successful
well boring outfits now operating in
the James river valley. S. H. Cram
ner, president of the above company,
intends to give irrigation a Thorough
test in this part of the state. The
method of distribution will be the
'ditch and furrow SYSTEM" generally
conceded by i~rrigators to be the most
successful. BY this method the
farmer can water his growing crop,
thus enabling him to raise a greater
yield than by the flooding system. The
flooding system, j.. e., covering the
land with water in the fall and spring
for a few days, will assure a large
yield each year, but the ditch and
furrOw system assures a much greater
harvest, and repays the irrigator for
the extra expense.
The 100 acres here illustrated lies
exceptionally well, the land sloping
from the reservoir naturally permits
of all the main and lateral bitches to
be parallel, except the one taken from
the reservoir near the well. This
allows the farmer to plOw the soil as
though no bitches were present.
The irrigation engineer in his
work first assume an elevation fer
some permanent landmark. For the
above work 100 feet was assumed to
be the elevation of the doorstep of a
house and the figures on the map rep
resent the differences therfrom. For
example, the elevation in the bottom
Of reservoir is l07 Feet, at the north
east corner 97.3 feet, thus showing a
difference of nine feet and seven
tenths. Whenit is known that from
II foot to six foot fall per mile
is sufficient for irrigation purposes,
the reader can readily perceive by
observing the elevations that water
may be carried to all parts, excepting
a narrow strip on the west side where
the land commences to rise. This will
be irrigated from a reservoir on the
quarter section west, the water being
carried in an underground pipe direct
from the well. The ditch which
takes its supply from the reiervoir
near the well is intended to be suf-
ficiently large to carry water enough
to irrigate the 100 acres north. The
small, crooked lines between the
lateral bitches are sub-lateral and
carry the water upon the land. They
dlS luuS NiJh a NulIiNdlpl NSig
quickly after the grain is sown.
There are many creeks and rivers
in the Dakotas, Minnesota and Wis
consin which could be utilized for
irrigation purposes. No water is
better for irrigation that that which
flows in small streams, for the reason
that they carry more silt or decayed
vegetable matter, acknowledged to be
the best fertilizer. The waters of the
James, Cheyenne, Sioux and many
other streams in Dakota a and will
be used for irrigating thousands of
acres. These streams do not flow or
carry enough water to irrigate all the
land in their respective valleys, with
out going to large expense for build
ing large storage reservoirs. 1t would
pay to build them, were there not
an artesian basin to be tapped. But
there are many very favorable points
for the building of reservoirs of
sufficient capacity to irrigatc from
AoU dCltS W o,oVO dSlCS, anu UiiCg
should be used.
The best material for the building
dams is brush interviewer, and where
possible faced up with masonry.
Where brush dams are properly built
no freshet can tear them out. They
soon fill up with sand and silt float
ing in the water, and leak but very
little, some not at all. The masonry
wall will prevent at once all leaks.
The strongest power known is the
ocean wave, and the brush dams or
~jetties at the mouth of the Missis-
sippi river and the Columbia river
successfully stand up against the