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Show ! NEW METHOD OF IRRIGATION; Water, Instead of Being Liberated on the Surface, Is Injected Into the Soil Underneath. A novel method of irrigation la : being tried in some parts of the west. It is called the subirrigation system, because the water, instead of being j liberated on the surface, is injected into the soil under the surface. This method has a number of advantages. The use of open irrigation ditches, in the first place, wastes one-tenth of the land on the average and often this land Is very valuable, whereas with the subsystem all the soil can be utilized. Then the new system requires only about one-seventh as much water, for by the old way most of the water is lost by evaporation and leakage. A typical plot in Texas of twenty acreB gets all the water it needs by the new system from a single well pumped by a two-horse engine, says The Pathfinder. Path-finder. The entire twenty acres is honeycombed with a system of concrete con-crete pipes, made on the spot, for conducting con-ducting the irrigation water. The main conduit runs the length of the farm and is four Inches in inside diameter. From this run laterals, two inches in diameter, thirty-three feet apart. These laterals are pierced at three-foot three-foot intervals with a small hole only the size of a pin this being covered with a cap to keep the dirt from filling fill-ing it up. The water oozes from the hole constantly, but in minute quantities, quan-tities, thus keeping the ground supplied sup-plied with sufficient moisture, but not flooding it. |
