The Richfield recorder. (Richfield, Idaho) 1909-1931, 1911-12-14
ECONOMICAL DISTRIBUTION OF
IRRIGATION WATER

ECONOMICAL DISTRIBUTION OF
IRRIGATION WATER
BY l.. NJ. Winsor, Utah Agricultural
college.
According to many historians, ir-
rigation is one of the oldest applied
arts; one writer even claims that it
is made a distinctive feature of the
middle status of barbarism. Anc-
lent Egypt became the granary of
the world as a result of natural ir-
rigatiOn through the oyerflOwing of
the Nile; through irrigation Chal-
dea. Assyria, and Babylonia, located
as they were in a practically rainless
country along the valley of the Ii
girls and Euphrates, rose to enyiable
prominence and dominion.
The Chinese, the Romans and the
Moors, all made use of irrigation.
In this country we find evidence
of it as practiced by the ancient in
habitants of this continent and later
in the gardens of the old Mission
Fathers of southern California. Num-
erous other examples to prove the
Importance of irrigation as a factor
in nation-building might be cited
Jul " the AuSlO-OdAOu IdCC lut art
had its birth but little more than
half a century ago.. This seems
doubly strange when we look into
history and find that at this time
over $4,000, 900 acres of land had
been reclaimed by irrigation in diff
ferent parts of the world. Perhaps
this car be explained on the theory
that the Germanic peoples have AL
ways written history much faster
than they have read it.
However this may be, the first at
tempt by the Anglo-Saxons to reclaim
the arid wastes of and a made in
the summer of 1S47, in the Salt Lake
valley by a little band of Mormon
pioneers. To them We owe the birth
of the modern art of irrigation, and
the working out of the cooperative
system as We lave it in practice to-
day.
The irrigation contagion soon
spread and became not only the gov
erning factor in the establishing OF
Mormon towns but in the cOlonizing
of the entire arid west.
Irrigation as an art falls into two
divisions:
First. Irrigation as a primary art,
and
Second. Irrigation as a secondary
art
BY the first We mean the using of
irrigation to take the place of cult
vatiOn, fertilization, and so on; and
by the second we mean the using of
irrigation water merely to supple
rent the natural precipitation. The
latter is the correct use of irriga-
If a farmer uses dry farm
methods along with his practice OF
irrigation he cannot go far wrong.
One of the grave mistakes made by
our early irrigators was the indis-
criminative use of water, with the re-
suit that thousands of acres of once
productive land have been rendered
INTO veritable swamps, and alkali s
beds. The lamentable feature of this
question is the fact that with our ,
sixty odd years of experience some
Of our farmers are still following
.hese erroneous methods, and are
not only their own farms :
tut those of their unfortunate neigh I
)ors, by a too liberal and careless !
DUPLICATION of water. This is espec- J
ally true in some of the newer sec
AOho hOIO q niOiO VI lGSS heavy
application is needed for the first few Y
ears. The trouble is that they do c
lot set the brakes" until it is too v
ate. Once a new sol has been t
noistened below the range of the +
liant roots it needs a great deal less u
7ater than it required to begin with, t.
he actual amoun for the maturing
f any certain crop will vary only c
nth the seasons, cultivation, and so h
n being the same. This being the V
ase it is possible to make an D
Economical Distribution of Water n
t ones disposal and use it in a way II
hitch will not be detrimental to the p
oil and in a way to result in the Il
reatest returns to those concerned. N
his question is one of prime impor- U
to the farmers in this arid re-
ion n too much stress cannot be a.
i'd upon it. ?
Situated as we are in a section a
here the rain and snowfall is very q
we are dependent almost abso- y
ltely upon irrigation water to in e 8
our agricultural possibilities. u
he farming lands are almost unlim-
ed within the borders of states e
ut there is a decided limit to the 81
ater supply. The question then, is
ot how much land have we? but r
wv much water have we at our dis
,sal.
The state of Utah represents an II
ga of over $4,000 square miles, of dr
hich only 1900 square miles are PC
.ltivated and less than 1000 square o:
lies or slightly under 1.25 per cent w
the total are actually irrigated. ST
dalfo is in a similar condition.) CO
hat we need then most of all is a
Of the water in such a di