Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1895-05-02
c. T. SWEET. In Dakota Farmer.

80 AhS SAAbN bhS III a "
ng in u fair State, to make the soil
produce bountifully and with certainty,
each season, is water, 1 determined
last spring to try in a small way what
irrigation would do. While / was not an
experienced irrigator, / had seen some
hing of it in Colorado between 1877
and 1885, during which time l lived in
hat state.
/ have a beautiful level tract of 200
acres of land on the James river bot
tom, lying about twelve feet above the
surface of the water in the stream, and
sloping gently from the banks of the
river; an ideal field for irrigating. 1
laid off twelve acres for Il patch of po-
tatoes, and five acres for corn, and
determined to pump water on that
amount of land from the river if it
proved to be necessary. The ground
was plowed early, about six inches in
depth. 1t should have been at least
ten. The blowing was followed up
each day with the harrow, and after
the piece was finished, it was twice
thoroughly cross-dragged. The pota-
toes were planted about May 1st with
an Aspinwall planter. The seed was
cut to n and two eyes, except very
small potatoes which were planted
whole, and put in the ground to the
depth of -four inches, one piece to the
hill, thirteen inches apart. The rows
were forty rods long, running at right
angles to the coursc of the river, with
a gradual descent of about a half inch
to the rod in the direction from the
stream.
Weeds appearing in about a week
after planting, the ground WI s
thoroughly narrowed, which was o n
tiuued at short intervals until the
plants were about three inches high.
The first cultivation was with an or
binary four shovel riding corn pillow,
and the second with a riding disk corn
c%ultivator, which hills the potatoes up,
leaving a shallow furrow or ditch be-
tween the rows, just right for conven-
lent i~rrigating. Owing to my pump
being delayed / did not get to irrigat-
ing until June Goth, which was fully
two weeks too late, as the ground had
become quite dry ard some of the pota-
toes had commenced to blossom. The
pump was a No. 5 Horizontal Centri-
fugal pump, made by the American
, Well Works, Aurora, Ills, and cost
laid down here S140; water is raised by
the pump to the height of fourteen
feet, being drawn through twenty-four
feet of six inch suction pipe, and dis
charges directly into the main ditch
leading to the field about seventy-five
yards away. The pump il rated at 1850
gallons per minute. with a speed of $50
revolutions, but as | ran it at over 600
it did considerably more work; ] esti-
mated it at about $500 gallons, or near
ly a barrel a second. At first the pump
was run by twelve horses and a com
mon horse power. The work was a
little harder than threshing grain,
for the feed" was there all the time.
For the second and third ~irrigations a
fourteen horse power threshipg engine
was used, which gave much better sat
isfaction. About 1000 pounds of soft
coal was consumed per day of ten
hours.
The bitches were made with a com
mon sixteen inch pillow, turning out
four burrows and leaving a dead fur
row. from which the loose dirt was
thrown out with a shovel. The lnain
ditch, only seventy-tive yards in length
led to the field and emptied into a
lateral ditch, at the head of the rows
of potatoes, that is the lateral ditch
ran al right angles to the potatoe
- III fa11 ~ nhna,f
inch to the rod. A gate. made by nail
ing boards together in the shape OF a
V was put in the lateral ditch. raising
the small bitches or burrows be-
tween four or five rows of potatoe.
One man attended the gates, keeping
an ever flow into the burrows between
the rows, and another man followed
the water down the rows, preventing
il from damming, overlooking, and
breaking from one furrow into another.
As soon as the water had wet the
ground thoroughly, and flowed the
entire length of the rows, the head
irrigator removed the gate, having
previously put in another to water the
next five or six rows, and so on until
the whole field was gone over.
The expense was for coal, engineer
and two irrigators. About three acres
was a good average days work of ten
hours.
Three or four days after the first
irrigation the potatoes were cultivated,
but were not cultivated after the Sec
ond and third irrigations, which neg
lect. l suspect, made a great difference
in the yield. They were watered the
last time July 25th, "the hot windy
day that burned everything up al over
the northwest" The corn ground was
prepared, planted with a ch~eck-rower,
worked and irrigated h same as the
potatoes. But on account of a failure
in the supply of coal, and because !
supposed that it would rain sometime,
and produce a crop of corn anyhow,
only one acre was irrigated, and the
half of that only once.
Now for the result. The potatoes
were dug with a J. Y. Hallock $40 dig
ger, which in our soil answer every
purpose of a more expensive one, and
turned out seventy-eight bushelsto the
acre. A small weld, but under the
very adverse circumstances, eminently
satisfactory. A large portion OF the