The Goodland republic. [volume] (Goodland, Kan.) 1891-1907, 1895-05-31
suCcRss BY IRRtaAFIoE.


leaving their homes and going to the
irrigated lands of Colorado and paying
$50 an acre for land and $40 an acre for
a water right. Why? Because it has
been demonstrated that farming under
irrigation is a success on % and 20 acre
tracts.
But why should these men leave
their homes and go on to the deserts Of
Colorado to irrigate when they could
enjoy the same advantages where they
are and at a much less cost?
The time is coming when the big irri-
CATION ditch viii have to give way to
the more satisfactory and more econo-
mical pumping plant. Already some Of
the land owners on the big bitches
have sold their water rights and have
put in pumps. The reason for this is
that while the ditch water costs from
81 to S. per acre, the same amount
from a pumping plant will cost little
Or nothing after the first cost.
There is hardly a county in the state
Of Kansas but what could be irrigated
from pumps and windmiIls, at very
light expense when compared with the
cost Of irrigable lands in Colorado and
Utah. The soil is of a better quality. the
markets are nearer and land is cheap
.er. Altogether they present superior
facilities to anyone who will grasp the
opportunity and commence irrigating
from the underground streams.
The population of the United States
will pass the 100000 mark before the
dawn of 1896, the great public domain
is thing of the past, no new country
will offer itself for settlement, and by
force of numbers the American farm of
100, 200 and 400 acres will soon be
obsolete also. They will be cut up
into 20 and 40 acre farms, being put
under intense cultivation and irrigated.
The consumption of food by the mil
lions in the great cities is growing
larger year by year and the demand for
farm produce will require that the soil
be brought up to the upmost limit of
production. This can only be done by
irrigation, which is a great stimulator
to growing crops and an unparalleled
fertilizer for the soil. Even where the
rainfall guarantees a successful har-
vest, irrigation can be made to pay,
and double and treble the present
yield.
No section of country in the United
States offers better opportunity to
the intending irrigator than does west
ern Kansas Here can be had a soil
that has no superior, climate that is
pregnant with the essentials that is
needed in growing crops of all kinds,
water supply that is inexhaustible and
enVirOned by the greatest markets of
the west. That irrigation can be and is
a success has been proven beyond a
doubt. All that is neeued to make of
this vast domain a great garden is a
little labor and little money.
Forty acre tracts are all that is need
ed by any farmer, and one-half of this
should be put into pasture and orchard.
Intense cultivation must take the place
of the loose field method now in vogue.
More attention must be given to rails
ing fruits and vegetables. The soil
must be better titled and batter taken
care of. Fields that now, in favorable
years produce only from 10 to 20
bushels of wheat, under irrigation can
be made to yield 70 and so.
This future is before the west and
the sooner its inhabitants recognize
this fact, the sooner they will be placed
beyond want and destitution, and en-
JOY the luxuries and pleasures hitherto
unknown to them.