The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-07-12
RIGHT IN SHAWNEE co.
Farmers Are Trrigating Consider
able Areas With Success.
A JOURNAL" REPORTERS VISIT

To }. S.Austfn's Irrigated Farm North
OF the CIty-Frank Rood IrriEates
With a steam Engine.
Successful irrigation is being carried
on by ]. S. Austin at his farm three miles
northwest of town on the lower Silver
Lake road. Frank Rood near East In
dianola is also irrigating, but the systems
of the two are different
Mr.. Austin has his water stored in
pond or reservoir, while at the Rood
farm the water is pumped by steam
engine and sent Immediately into the
irrigating bitches. Their experiments
are being watched with interest by farm
ers generally.
Mr.. Austin raises vegetables for the
market and has twenty acres of rich bot
tom land for this purpose. Near the
center on the highest part of the
plat, the pond has been made. It
is one hundred feet long, fifty wide and
four and one half feet deep. The banks
are thrown up from the ground and the
bottom was scraped out but very little, as
this would have made the location too
low to send the water to all parts of the
farm. This reservoir was made in
week.
The water for the pond is drawn by a
big wind mill, which stands beside it.
When running at full speed it raises
seventy gallons of water minute, and
it ia kept in gear all the time. This
keeps the pond we'll filed.
At one end of the reservoir a trough
lets the water out into the first ditch
| which carries it to one running at right
angles The latter runs at right angles
to the rows of cabbages and caulihow-
ers. Mr.. Austin takes his hoe, lets
the water in between the rows, one
place at a time and them dams it up
| again in regular western Kansas style.
| The water goes clear to the end of the
rows and does not, as some claim, all
sink into the ground at the beginning.
At the other end of the pond a long
six and a quarter inch pipe carries the
water to another lot of caulifower and
cabbage, where it is distributed as on
the other side Mr.. Austin will put in a
second pipe running in an opposite di-
rection and then water can be carried to
any part of the place.
When the reservoir was first built, no
matter how much the windmill poured
into it, it all soaked away. Seven wagon
| loads of gumbo dumped into the bottom
made it SO that it holds water all right
now. The banks have been sowed to
blue grass.
! Mr.. Austin has had the plant in opera
| ton but few weeks and has not had
occasion to irrigate any since the Fourth,
| when there was a good rain, but he has
used it enough to demonstrate its feasi-
bility and show that it is a success. He
got very late start with it this year, but
expects to use it great deal this fall in
raising celery. The proper time for ar
engagements to be made is in the fall of
the year, SO as to have the concern in
good working order by spring and give
the ground good soaking before the
crops are put in. Mr.. Austin says that
he will soak his land both spring and
autumn so as to keep it full of moisture
Now that Mr. Austin and Mr.. Rood
have taken the initiative, doubtless other
irrigating plants will be put under way
in the vicinity in the near future