OCR Text |
Show Farmers of Millard County are becoming be-coming increasingly conscious of the advantages gained through the conservation of soil and water. As an illustration of this, consider the case of James Owens, a farmer in the Sutherland district, northwest north-west of Delta. In the spring of 1947, Jim resolved resol-ved to level a nine acre plot of land on his farm which had not been very productive and in his own words, " A headache to irrigate". irri-gate". This land was high in the center causing ponding on the upper up-per end and resulting in the water logging of this and surrounding areas. The lower end was inclined to such an extent that it caused rapid run-off of water resulting in poor seed germination and low production. Topographical survey showed it was necessary to move 1,925 cubic yards of earth to level the plot. After leveling had been completed Jim made the folowing observations: "Before leveling this land it took me 24 hours or more to irrigate it with a four second foot stream of water. Now I water it in 10 hours. Furthermore I turn the water on at night and be confident con-fident that the land will be well irrigated when I turn the water off the next morning. Leveling the land has not as yet increased production because of mineral raising in the cut areas. Also experiments with green manure man-ure crops during the 1948 crop year have shown that the land was deficient de-ficient in nitrogen. Jim plans to subsoil the plot this spring and spread five ton or more of barnyard fertilizer per acre. He expects to harvest a very good crop this fall. The above is another typical example ex-ample of many similar improvements improve-ments in Millard Csunty due to the assistance and incentive provided pro-vided through the Agricultural Con servation Association Program. |