Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1894-05-24
WIND MILL IRRIGATION.

visited Ell GoodWlnS market garden
Wednesday morning. This farm"
or rather ten acre truck garden, is
located about one-half mile east of
town, and is at present under a high
state of cultivation. The place is
Systematically laid out, and Is Guilt
waited entirely by irrigation, wind mills
pumping the water into ponds, from
which it is drawn off into bitches, and
thence turned, whenever needed, upon
the ''plats" or beds of growing vege-
tation.
Mr.. Goodwin cultivates all kind of
vegetables and fruit, and upon a large
portion of his ground grows three crops
during a season For instance: early in
the season he plants radishes and
lettuce; in between these rows later he
plants onions; after the radish and
lettuce crop had been gathered he
plants late cabbage, and the onion crop
can be gathered before the cabbage
begins to crowd it. Thus he obtains
in one season a crop of radishes and
lettuce, crop of onions and one of
cabbage off the same plat of ground.
HIS cabbage last year grown in this
way averaged over three pounds to the
head and over five thousand heads to
the acre, and he sold them at an aver
age of three and one half cents a
pound, bringing him something like
$4,000 an acre for the third crop alone.
He has four acres of grapes from which
he also realizes a handsome income,
not to mention other small fruit in
great profusion.
Heretofore Mr.. Goodwin has been
irrigating from two small ponds which
we're supplied by ordinary farm wind
mills. He has enlarged one of his
ponds to more than three times its
former size and is putting up II foot
ideal steel irrigating wind mill and an
8-inch Frizell irrigating pump. The
two former wind mills will be taken
down and one of the ponds abandoned
as the plant which he is now putting
in is guaranteed TO furnish all the
water from the one enlarged pond that
he can use. The capacity of his two
farm pumps has been sufficient to
supply all the water at certain seasons
of the year that was required for his
garden plats, vinvHrd and other fruit,
but with the asSuA.H - that the plant
which he is now putti"r 4 will more
than supply the demands ~ expects to
make his farm still more productive.
1t is safe to say that there are not
many eighty nor even one hundred and
sixty acre farms in this section of the
country which give their owners better
returns.
This is simply an illustration of the
possibilities of the Arkansas and Paw
nee valleys. There is not farm any
where in either of these valleys in Paw
nee county which can not aud should
not be divided up into smaller tracts
and cultivated similarly to Mr.. Good
wins, and with equal profit. Potatoes
and cabbage, and alfalfa for stock and
its seed, are crops that are always in
demand at good prices. And there is
| no danger for some time to come
of an over-productiOn of either of
these crops il this section. Why, then,
raise 33 cent wheat and buy potatoes
and cabbage grown in Utah and Ari-
IONA at Sl.00 a bushel and five cents a
pound? Every foot of the valley land
along the Arkansas and Pawnee can
be proitably cultivated to these crops
| by this system of wind mill irrigation
| leaving the p-lands for the guilty alton
of wheat, corn, and other crops, which
| from the very nature of thi ngs will
| always bring smaller returns. AS Mr.
| FriZell said in his article on wind mill
| irrigation last week the question is
"Shall we irrigate or emigrate?" We
| believe that a careful investigation of
the subject will convince any intelli-
gent person that wind mill irrigation
is not only practical, but profitable, and
that all the low land in Pawnee county
can in reality be m lde to ''blo ssom like
the rose" and produce fruits and
vegetables in abundance, if divided W
into ten, twenty thirty, or even fifty
acre farms, and cultivated after the
style and method adopted by Mr.. Good
win.-Larned Optic.
IT HAS been given out, and on good
| authority too that Senator PETER has