The Globe-republican., 1894-06-01
IRRIGATION.
Continued from first fage.


letters showing that this could be read
lily done were it not for several unfortu-
nate conditions in our state administra-
ton. 1 shall not 90 into the details of
this matter, as l have no desire to mix
irrigation with politics.
believe these obstacles are all sur
mountable, and that there will be moth
ingiin the way that will stop US from
reaching
which l will now explain. Some of you
may have travelled through New Eng
land where roads are bordered with
houses and where there is nothing to
show where one village ends and the
next one begins; or through southern
California where the train takes you for
hours through succession Of gardens
and orchards where twenty years ago
was desert. Twenty years from now,
if my judgment is good, you may have
the pleasure of driving from station to
station in this valley, passing garden
after garden on a cottonwood shaded
street. l am not given to visionary
flights, nor am one of the enthusiasts
who believe that all western Kansas can
be irrigated. do not believe that the
''underflow' is supplied from some mys-
FERROUS unknown source, nor that it is
inexhaustible Such theories should re-
ceive no attention except TO show their
falsity. A man attempted to prove to
me the other day that the underflOw in
his vicinity was ''sure enough mex
haustible. The railroad company tested
its supply by speeding its pumps up
from three thousand to six thousand
gallons per hour. The maximum speed
of pumping would have irrigated fifty
acres, and yet he was lowering the wat
er on that short test on many hundred
acres. The supply is not ineXhaustible.
1t is limited, and we can never irrigate
ali the land, even in this valley. But l
want to call your attention to one par
tieular in which you are especially for
tunate. This valley has been provided
by nature with an immense storage res
ervoir miles wide, hundreds Of miles
long and hundreds of feet deep; filled
by rains and freshets and protected from
evaporation. AS the surplus steam in a
boiler above a certain safe pressure linn
it escapes by the safety valve into the
air. so, when this reservoir becomes full
it flows into the river bed and escapes
into the air. You may talk all you
please about dams for artificial reser-
voirs (Which will pay in SOME cases.,
still you cannot devise SO practical a
storage as that which nature has given
you, and submit that in general it is
better engineering and better public
policy to let the water 60 into that great
reservoir and pump it up when and
where it is needed, than to impound it
behind dams where it will evaporate.
l mention this partly because the eX-
tent of evaporation is not generally un-
derstood. While authorities quote a
reasonable maximum and 6 inches day
as having been known once or twice in
the worlds history, could tell you of
fourteen and one-half inches evapora-
ton in western Kansas in II hours.
There is another point might men,
ton that is not any too well understood.
You people have coined the word I'M
derflow, but the flow is slight. Water
moves in the sand of the river bed, in
an iron pipe, out of an aperture, or into
the bottom of well, exactly in proper
ton to the slope or pressure, and where
the slope is feet per mile the flow is
about mile year.
Two things are needed in the valley
people and pumps. People who will
cultivate thoroughly and who are. in
each neighborhood. congenial among
themselves. Pumps may be operated
by steam. gasoline or wind according to
the conditions to be filled.
You have canal companies with more
water than people. Others with people
and no water. Capital that will control
the lands and put onto them both peo-
pie and pumps at the same time, may
sci! the lands at figure below the value
of single crop Of potatoes or alfalfa.
and still double the amount invested.
1t must, however, be done understand
ingly, and with a conservative policy as
to water supply. know of no class of
investments in the United States that
are safer than Arkansas Valley colori-
cation intelllgently handled, and 1 see
no reason why we may not, after re-
moving the few obstacles and securing
the needed legislation, make the valley
one continuous village of groves. or.
chards, gardens and houses.
Hon. D. NJ. Frost, Of Garden City,