Underground Irrigation

Categories: Soils, Fertilizers and Irrigation

How extensively used and with what results is the underground tile

system for irrigation used, and what especial character of soil is it

best suited for?



Not extensively at all; in fact, if there is an acre of it which has

been for three years in continuous and successful operation, it has

escaped us. After forty years of trial of different systems, none has

demonstrated value enough to warrant its use. T eoretically, they are

excellent; in practice they are defective. Surface application in

different ways, according to the nature of the soil, accompanied with

thorough cultivation, is the only thing that at the present time

promises satisfactory results, except that where the land suits it,

irrigation by underflow from ditches on higher elevations is being

successfully used on small areas in the foothills. For gardens the most

promising arrangement seems to be a laying of drain tiles rather near

the surface, which shall be taken up each year, cleaned of silt and

plant roots, and relaid along the rows before planting; but this calls

for too much labor, except perhaps for amateur gardeners. The kind of

soil best suited to such a system is a medium loam which will distribute

water sufficiently to avoid saturation and air-exclusion. Both a heavy

soil which does this, and a coarse sandy loam which takes water down out

of reach of shallow-rooting plants too rapidly and lacks capillarity to

draw it up again, are ill adapted to underground distribution.