OCR Text |
Show IrrigatioiTWater Accounting. The dry years like 1915. 1919 and 1924 emphasize to irrigators the advantages ad-vantages of water accounting, according ac-cording to Professor O. W. Israelsea of the Utah Agricultural Experiment Station. Similarly, the years of financial depression and of low prices for farm products increase the need of careful cost accounting. Nearly every farmer now-a-days knows just where each dollar goes and precisely what returns it brings to him. But does every irrigator know what becomes be-comes of each acre-foot of the water which he has at his disposal and j that it will bring to him the ma-'-i mum crop returns? Unfortunately, j he does net. The irrigator who j applies w-ater to open porus ' soils i frequently loses excessive amounts by deep percolation which he cannot f soe. Knowing, however, that his . gravelly soil cannot retain in the form of soil moisture available toj plants more than 2 acre-inches of water per acre, the irrigator will not apply more than this amount in , a single irrigation, provided, of course, he measures his water and ' hence knows haw much he does . (vpply. j On the other hand, the irrigator who applies water to the more compact com-pact soils loses excessively by surface ; runoff, but unless he measures this ' loss he seldom appreciates how serious seri-ous it really is. j The many losses brought about by ' the occasional dry year, which, very ; properly we would all like so much to avoid, may be of some value, prr-vided prr-vided they drive us to the practice of more careful water account. ng which clearly we can reach only hv more carefully measuring the wa;-r which we use. |