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Show V TRUE ECONOMY IN IRRIGATION Much Depends on Use of Water In Way That It Shall Produce Profit and Not Wasted. 1 A flow of water of one cubic foot per second would cover 820 acres tWentr-seven Inches deep In a year If ad It'a a big If none of It escaped downward or upward. Even allowing for auch escapee, twenty -seven Inches would probably prove enough If one could Irrigate throughout the year or store water without loss. In California they do make a cubic foot per second serve 120 to 200 acres, that Is, after a fashion, and after a great deal of expense In distribution. In Utah seventy sev-enty acres Is covered, and In Colorado, Colo-rado, on abort-run streams, 1.44 cubic feet Is used on eighty acrea and reservoir reser-voir water used In addition. Theorists Theo-rists would have one believe that water that escapes by percolation Is wasted, whereas It returna to the water cban-nela cban-nela and can be used ao long aa It flows In countries under Irrigation. Theoretically, water should only be run far enough to give Just the right amount of water at every point of Ita flow through the field, and the nearer we can approximate this, the better. Hut we cannot cut our fields to pieces with ernes laterals which Interfere with cultivation, grow weeds and waste ground. Bo we run water far ther than the exact optimum for econ-etsiy econ-etsiy of water, and we do advisedly because be-cause economical application of water la only one point In farming; the other operationa must alao be economically performed. There la not any exact rule that will give ua the exact aoakage of water we require for planta Independent of the fact that soils vary, for It Is evident that In order to reach the end of a row or land, whatever Its length, and soak It sufficiently, water must pasa on the upper and Intermediate parts of the surface longer than la absolutely absolute-ly necessary. Tbla excessive yet economical application appli-cation of water passes Into the subsoil sub-soil and thence to the steam or river flow, and when your theoretical Irrl-gatlonlsta Irrl-gatlonlsta discovers It and some seeped lands he Immediately cries out In horror that farmers are wasting water. Where there are gravelly eub-soils eub-soils such return flow will occur In somewhat greater quantity than with a strong, retentive subsoil. It Is a mistake. to regard the theoretical theo-retical lrrlgatlonalst as a harmless. If mistaken, Individual, for he Is perniciously pernici-ously active around legislatures and congress, and his babble haa led to countless enterprises being foisted on the public, with a duty Imposed on water far In excess of what It will perform. Already It la common to say that water should be taken away from old settlers and redistributed, and It la Impossible to aay how soon some leg-Mature leg-Mature may not further tangle up our water distribution systems. The true economy of water depends on Us use In a way that ahall produce a profit, and It baa never been allowed to go to waste for any length of time In live farming communities, but haa been applied to new lands so soon as It waa developed. Without live farmers farm-ers the water la useless; In fact, all the real value ever developed from water haa been by farmers, not by engineers, en-gineers, promoters or theorists who explored It, but by the man who raised the crop, whose vital Interest Is far greater In water than anyone else'a can be. Irrigation. To supply water for the farmers of the arid regions Is a great problem. Thousands of dollars are going to build dams, to dig tunnels, to take rivers riv-ers from their banks and run them Into fertile valleys, to build ditches-all ditches-all to help the western farmers.. In Kansas wells must be depended on for most of the water used for trrlgv tlon purposes. Some wells have been dug and are paying big dividends. Others Oth-ers will be built. It Is only by Irrigation that the best resulta can be obtained In the western part of the state. The soli Is rich, the climate good, but the rain either does not come at the right time or enough water doea not fall. With water furnished, fur-nished, good cropa can and will be grown. |