During the last few years considerable work has been done to determine the feasibility of raising water for irrigation by pumping.  Fortier reports that successful results have been obtained in Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana.  He declares that a good type of windmill located in a district where the average wind movement is ten miles per hour can lift enough water twenty feet to irrigate five acres of land.  Wherever the water is near the surface this should be easy of accomplishment.  Vernon, Lovett, and Scott, who worked under New Mexico conditions, have reported that crops can be produced profitably by the use of water raised to the surface for irrigation.  Fleming and Stoneking, who conducted very careful experiments on the subject in New Mexico, found that the cost of raising through one foot a quantity of water corresponding to a depth of one foot over one acre of land varied from a cent and an eighth to nearly twenty-nine cents, with an average of a little more than ten cents.  This means that the cost of raising enough water to cover one acre to a depth of one foot through a distance of forty feet would average $4.36.  This includes not only the cost of the fuel and supervision of the pump but the actual deterioration of the plant.  Smith investigated the same problem under Arizona conditions and found that it cost approximately seventeen cents to raise one acre foot of water to a height of one foot.  A very elaborate investigation of this nature was conducted in California by Le Conte and Tait.  They studied a large number of pumping plants in actual operation under California conditions, and determined that the total cost of raising one acre foot of water one foot was, for gasoline power, four cents and upward; for electric power, seven to sixteen cents, and for steam, four cents and upward.  Mead has reported observations on seventy-two windmills near Garden City, Kansas, which irrigated from one fourth to seven acres each at a cost of seventy-five cents to $6 per acre.  All in all, these results justify the belief that water may be raised profitably by pumping for the purpose of irrigating crops.  When the very great value of a little water on a dry-farm is considered, the figures here given do not seem at all excessive.  It must be remarked again that a reservoir of some sort is practically indispensable in connection with a pumping plant if the irrigation water is to be used in the best way.

The use of small quantities of water in irrigation

Now, it is undoubtedly true that the acre cost of water on dry-farms, where pumping plants or similar devices must be used with expensive reservoirs, is much higher than when water is obtained from gravity canals.  It is, therefore, important that the costly water so obtained be used in the most economical manner.  This is doubly important in view of the fact that the water supply obtained on dry-farms is always small and insufficient for all that the farmer would like