Amador ledger., 1900-05-18
irrigation IS INVESTIGATED
Water Necessary for Crop
Production.
TESTS At The WYOMING EXPERIMENT STATION
Storage Reservoirs Are Needed. Sec.
retary Of Agriculture Sends Out
Bulletins.

The Department of Agriculture has
in press an interesting bulletin pre-
pared by Prof. B. G. Buffum, showing
the results of his irrigation expert
ments for the past nine years at the
Laramie, Wyoming Experiment sta
tion.
Professor Buffum states that the
time has now arrived when many irri-
gated districts have so far developed
that scarcity of water is keenly felt,
and the good of the community de-
mands that there shall be no unneces
sary waste of the limited supply. The
knowledge lacking in irrigation, and
which must in some way be obtained
before our ater supply will be either
wisely or correctly used, is how much
water is required to secure the best re-
suits, and when and by what means it
can be most economically and efficiently
applied.
Some of the experiments have been
made with a view to determining the
effect of the use of greater or less
quantity of water upon the crop re-
turn OF a given area. Professor Buffum
presents tables showing the crop re-
turns from various plants on which
different quantities of water were used,
but they are not conclusive and more
experiments are needed. In general,
however, the tables show larger yields
where the larger quantities Of water
were used, but the increased yields are
not in proportion to the increased
quantities of water used. The varying
conditions affecting the quantity of
water needed by crops are fully dis
cussed in the bulletin. Most plants
cultivated in the arid West were intro
duced from more humid regions, and
not economical in their water require
ments. Selections of drought-resisting
varieties may make possible a great
extension of the present irrigated area.
Methods, too, of cultivation and irri-
CATION have much to do with the guam
tity of water used. Flooding as a. rule
requires more water than irrigatiug in
burrows, and it has been observed that
grass and grain, which are usually irri-
gated by flooding, produce more thrifty
growth on ditch banks and higher
ridges and knolls where the roots are
supplied from beneath rather than
from the surface. This fact has led in
some localities to the adoption of the
rill system with such crops as cover all
the land.
The Laramie river is type of many
of the western rivers whose waters are
used for irrigation. Professor Buffum's
tables and diagrams show that the
river furnishes the greatest supply of
water in May and the early part OF
June, and that all crops except native
hay require the most water laterin the
season-the latter half OF June and the
first half Of July. This means that
irrigated farming along the Laramie
river must be limited to native hay
and the small area of other crops
which can be irrigated with the sum-
mer flow of the river, unless the spring
floods are stored for the use of those
crops requiring later water. In
Wyoming this is not SO great hard
ship as a like condition would be in
some other States. The fact that the
greater part OF the land in that State
is beyond the reach of water makes
stock raising the leading industry of
the State and the great need of that
industry is winter feed for the stock
which runs on the open range during
the summer months. But native hay
is light crop, even when irrigated
and storage reservoirs would make it
possible to cultivate an increase of area
of other forage crops which yield much
more heavily than native hay.
Professor Buffum emphasizes the
fact which is brought out by almost
every recent writer on irrigation, that
the present system OF giving irrigators
title to the use of a continuous flow of
a stream of a given size is not neces-
sary and is moreover wasteful. He
shows that some systems of rotation
by which the owner of seventy acres
can have the use of larger head than
one second-foot for short periods dur
ing the season will more nearly corre-
spond in great saving OF water.
The bulletin can be obtained by ap-
plying to the Secretary of Agriculture,
Geo. E. Mitchell.
The preservation of many of the
farms on the lowlands is really depend
ent upon the forestization of the noun
tains and the irrigation of the arid
regions. AS it is now the water from
the melting snow and ice of Colorado
Rockies, instead of being stored where
it is needed, sweeps DOWN through the
arid region in rocky channels, washes
away farms in Kansas and Nebraska,
and breaks through levees in Mississippi
and Louisiana, causing uncalculable
damage to government and private
property and loss of human life.