“My eye! but there is a lot to this irrigation business,” exclaimed Ted. “My head actually aches with trying to remember all you have told us.”
“It won’t seem so complicated when you are doing it,” smiled the agent.
“I hope not,” Phil said. “But I don’t see what holds the water on the fields after you get it there.”
“Your borders. You must build banks about each field. That is the simplest method on land that is as easy to irrigate as yours. The banks are not high, just a furrow, so as not to interfere with passing from one field to another to mow and reap.”
“Of course, this year, you will plant only two or three fields. In later years you can complete the system. The chief thing is to build your farm ditch long enough at first. Now let’s go home and eat.”
“Which makes me think, Joy insisted that we should go over there for supper. Hurry, or we shall be late,” urged Phil.
The next morning found them at the site of the dam with horses and plow. For two days they worked on the reservoir, and then the boys and Andy plowed three furrows on the grade line, then ran a “crowder,” constructed of two planks in the shape of a V, with the wide end braced stoutly, up and down, forcing out as much dirt as possible, and for the next three days they all worked like beavers clearing the main and lateral ditches and shaping the borders on four fields.
To supply the water from the laterals to the fields, they constructed boxes, open at each end, 6 inches square and 8 feet long, which were laid beneath the banks of the laterals.
“We really ought to have plank heads at the laterals, but they are too expensive just now, so we can use canvas dams,” said Andy. “It isn’t worth while to spend the money on ‘tappoons,’ or metal dams, because in a few years you will be able to put in the regular plank gate, or even cement and steel gates, and every cent you save now is precious.”
To regulate the water in the reservoir, they put in two gates, one to be kept open all the time to let water into the creek and the other to feed the main ditch.