Omaha daily bee., 1895-11-23
TIrE sunAa,p pnLr.
Progress of Irrigation by Means of
Artesfop wells

Artcsinn wells.
A hopeful beginning has been made here
and there in the subard belt in the 6irec-
tion Of irrigation by arteslan wells, says u.
V. Smailey ID the Chicago Times II srald.
Several towns in both South and North Da-
kota have wells for fire protection and gem
eral water supply, but until recently 1t was
believed that the expense or well was too
great for profitable farming in the wheat
and corn regions by this sort Of irrigation.
well costs from $4,000 to $4,000. according
to the depth tits necessary to sink to reach
the water-bearng strata. At Mellets, S. D.,
farmer manages to irrlgate nearly 800
acres from single well by the aid Of a
small storage reservoir, the whole irrigation
plant costing him only about $1,000. This
year he got about thirty-hve bushels OF
wheat to the acre, while his nelghbors
ment In both North and South
Dakota to organize local companies
to sink artesian wells and furnish
water to farmers at fixed annual rental
per acre. One well. sunk where four quarter
section farms corner, will furnish water to
all four OF course the land must slope IA
vorably for the distribution of the water by
gravity over the fields. l believe that irri
CATION by artesian wells is destined to have
great development throughout the subarid
belt and that there will be spots and patches
OF veTdure and rural wealth all over the belt
by the end of the next two decades. We
must not look for dense and continuous set
tlement from this method of procuring mois-
ture, however There is no great lake or
water underlying the surface of the earth
which can be tapped at any point and relied
upon to supply copious stream. The sub
terranean water Is held in the porous sand
stone rock under pressure from its sources in
the distant mountains One well relieves the
pressure over a considerable area. Two or
three in the same vicinity would probably
exhaust 1t altogether How close together
la -.
is still matter of theory The probability,
however, Is that where one well is successful
a second one sunk mile away will greatly
diminish its flow.
Last year a prophet came out of the desert
in South Dakota preaching a new method of
tllage, which he claimed will convert the
subarld region into flourlshing farms without
any sort of irrigation from wells or streams.
His name was Campbell. l do not know
where he lives, but l ran across his tracks
here. Last winter he talked to some of the
commercial bodies in ST. Paul and Mnneapo-
lis and printed small pamphlet. He is
coming up here before long to give nstruc-
tion to a few enterprsing farmers in his
system. Campbell claims that by repeated
stirring Of the soil the moisture is brought up
from the subsoil by capillary attraction and
is ample for maturing crops in the dryest
seasons. This msthod has always been
practiced with Indian corn, but most farm
ers ignorantly suppose that they run the
cutivator between the rows only for the pur-
pose of killing out weeds An old Penn
sylvania farmer living here tells me that his
father, in Erie county. used to say that one
cultivation was as good for the corn as three
showers. Campbel's idea is to apply the
corn method to wheat and to do 1t more thor
oughy than is done in the raising of corn.
He proposes to run a peculiar sort of culti-
vator over the wheat fields again and again
during the period between the first sprouting
of the plants and the hardening of the, stalks
OF course tse grain must be put in with drills
and gocde deal would be trampled by the
a firm in Philadelphia is ready to make to
order for this purpose Campbell claims that
thirty or ever forty bushels can be raised
TO the acre year after year. The 500 Rail
road company Is going to have a forty-acre
tract in the northern part of Stutsman
county tillsl on the Campbell plan next
year, and b. s. Russell pioneer settler OF
this town. has undertaken to see that the
work is done. The company will have the
tools sent ON in the spring. The experiment
will awaken great deal of interest through
out the Jim River valley. The valley is on
the eastern border of the subarid belt In
the northern part of 1t there is sufficient
rainfall to make about as good an average
wheat record as that Of Minnesota, but in the
central and9 southern portions an abundant
times since the first settlement of the coun-
try If Campbell's idea is correct there are
great possibilities in the future for this re-
gion. 1t will in time become densely peopled
and carefully TILED in small farms.