Arizona republican., 1908-11-21
THE WIGGINS SYSTEM
 0F SUB1RR|GAUON
A Plan Especially Adapted to the
 Great Southwest.

Kansas City, Mo, Nov. 17.-(Speciai
 correspondence of The Republican.)-
 What promises to prove of great im-
 portance to the agricultural world,
 and the reclamation of the Great American Desert, has just been in-
 vented by Prof John l.. Wigins, of
 Kansas City. According to the in
 ventor his system of sub-irrigation
 will revolutionize the old system now in vogue and by means of drilled
 wells and the ordinary wind mill. vast tracts of arid lands in Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona can be
 made to bloom like the rose"
 Sub irrigation is not new thing,
 by any means, but the inventor of the new tile making machine de-
 clares he has solved the problem Of economical and scientific irrigation by
 manufacturing an endless tile of ce-
 ment and sand which will cost from
 SO per cent to 75 per cent less than
 heretofore He says any farmer can
 install his system at nominal cost per acre, and when once ready for use it costs nothing to operate. A number of cutoff valves and a man
 to look after them is all that is re- duired. He says by the use of small hand machines one man can lay from
 600 to 500 feet of tile per day. and with the power machine from 10000
 to 23,OO0 lineal feet per day can be made The average cost per acre to install the Wiggins system of sub irrigation, according to Prof. Wiggins, is from s3O to $50 per acre.
 Speaking of his new invention and it's possibilities, Prof. Wiggins said:
 My machine simply makes a con tinuous cement tile for very much less thar anything ever before at tempted. which reduces the cost of installation to the minimum. It digs
 the ditch. automatically mixes the sand and cement and deposits the tile as it moves along. The depth of the
 ditch varies according to the char acter of soil to be irrigated; suf- ficienrly deep, however, to not inter fere with cultivation. When the tile is well seasoned the wire screen is placed over each port, or hole in the small laterals, and then covered over This completes the work SO far as the tile making machine is concerned. An ordinary bored well that will
 furnish fifty barrels of water per day
 will successfully irrigate ten acres of land. A wind mill can be used
 a greater part of the growing season but where large tracts are to be l irrigated it might be well to employ gasoline engine to pump the water into an elevated tank. or reservoir. A main line, or conduit. is laid across the center of the tract to be irri- gated. At distances ranging from twelve to eighteen feet part are laid lateral lines. These laterals are per ! forated: each hole being securely protected by a copper wire screen which prevents roots or mud from clogging them up. In this manner the water percolates through each open | ing in the small tiles and by cap ! Hilary attraction it is evenly distrib- uted over. or rather under, every | inch of land within the tract under | the system.
 "Sub-irrigation by the use of ordi- nary wells will, I believe, reclaim millions of acres of land in the so- called American Desert, and provide happy and prosperous homes for thou sands of thrifty farmers. In practi- cally every large valley, and even on
 the high table lands in the arid west.
 water can be found at depths ranging ! from 30 to 300 feet. These lands are | today absolutely worthless, but with my system, they can be made very valuable indeed. These are public lands subject to homestead entry and can be taken up by anyone.
 No. the department of agriculture has not offered to buy my invention | I understand experts have recently | investigated it, but I would not sell | it. The general public may have my invention by paying very small royalty per acre. This is good enough
 for me. A syndicate is now arranG- | ing to manufacture the power ma chine and establish experimental sta tions in the several arid sections, and I presume it will be only short time until many thousands of acres will be placed under sub-irrisation | The Bell-Adams company of Kansas
 City will have charge of the work