The Winslow mail., 1911-06-17
WATER is VALUABLE
Liquid in a Reservoir Is Like
Money in a Bank.
Should Be Used Only When and Where
1t Will Do the Most Good and
Made to Go as Far as 1t
Possibly Can.

How many farmers are there in the
country who know what is meant by
the term Duty of Water?" Not
many. Yet they have been living in
an arid section and irrigating their
fields for years. They have seen the
value of water increase year after
year, and they know that water in a
reservoir is like money in a bank, and
should be used when and where it will
do the most good, and made to go as
far as possible.
One farmer uses a certain head OF
water and with it covers five acres OF
his farm in a day. Another farmer
vses the same head and irrigates only
!% acres with it. The duty of the
water in the hands and on the land
of farmer No. is double the duty in
the hands and on the land of farmer
No. 2.
1t behooves every farmer, then to
know what duty he is getting out of
his water, and, if he finds that he is
not up to the standard, he may take
the necessary steps to improve the
position of his bitches or may, during
the fall and early winter, cut off the
high spots and fill in the low spots of
the field and in this way increase the
duty of his water two, three, and even
| fourfold
There are two general ways of
speaking of the duty of water. One
| ic t1 cfo tho IF q
second foot of water will take care Of
and the other is to speak of the num-
Der of acre feet of water used per
acre.
We used to figure that land In this
section needed one second foot of wa
ter for every 40 acres. and in this case
the duty of water was 40 acres per
second foot. Later we raised this
duty to so acres per second foot; then
we made the duty 80 acres per second
foot, and for a long time 1t was the
custom to provide second foot OF
water for each 80-acre tract. Now we
are figuring the duty of water to be
100 or 120 acres per second foot.
Can we do better than this? We
certainly can, for in southern Cali
fornia, where water is scarce and val
liable, they make a second foot of wa
ter take care of 300 acres, and where
sub-irrigation, by means of under
ground pipes, is used, the duty in
some cases has reached 1000 acres
per second foot.
This method, however, of figuring
duty is not the best by any means, for
1t presupposes a continuous flow OF
one second foot throughout the irri-
cation season The farmer when he
irrigates usually wants more than a
second-foot head, and he uses it for a
few days or weeks and then uses no
water at all for a period. Hence, the
second way of stating it, which is in
acre feet per acre, is usually the best
way.
A second foot of water running for
"a hours delivers approximately two
acre feet (To be exact, it delivers
two acre feet in "a hours, II minutes.)
Let us say the irrigating period is 120
days, and one second-foot would de-
liver in that time approximately 24O
acre feet. If this were applied all at
once to 100 acres, it would cover it to
a depth of "a feet, and we would
say that the duty of water in this
case is "a acre feet per acre.
The duty of water, then, in acre
feet per acre, is the number of acre
feet of water applied to each acre OF
land, during the entire season. 1t
varies the country over, from one acre
foot per acre, to 10 or II acre feet per