IRRIGATION BY STEAM AND HORSEPOWER AT HEIDELBERG.

In the report of our Templestowe correspondent on the results of the recent harvest, mention is made of "two irrigating maohines in the district, one worked by steam and the other by horse-power;" a visit to the farms on which these are located has occasioned the pre sent notice. Unless the drought, now happily at an end, had occurred, the doings of the owners of these forms of apparatus might have pursued the even tenor of their way unheeded by the outside world. They might have proceeded as usual to sow and plant cabbages and other market crops with the aid of water raised from the adjacent Yarra, and we ourselves might have continued to report suoh facts without inducing much inquiry whether any and what benefit was experienced by the enterprising irrigators.

This is not the first time by many that the farm of Mr Sidney Ricardo at Heidelberg has been the subject of notice in our columns, but it is the first occasion on which we have had a heavy drought to lend force to our remarks, and though the emergency appears to have passed, its effects have been too serious to be lightly or easily forgotten.

Mr Ricardo has been an irrigator for many years; if we remember aright, he commenced over ten years ago to erect the engine and mechanical arrangements still employed in the work. Owing, as he states, to bad engineering, the machinery never performed what was expected of it; in fact, it never worked well. Mr Ricardo first adopted Mr Mechi's plan of distributing the water, namely, through cast-iron pipes laid underground, with stand-pipss and hose, just as those things are employed in watering the streets of Melbourne. A few years later, another portion of his land was levelled and laid out under the superintendence of Mr Martelli, C.E., according to the plan used in Italy in irrigating meadows. It was promised for this plan that it would require less water than the other (3000 gallons per acre was the quantity named), but as it actually required a great deal more instead of less, and as the machinery for raising the water had not been rendered more effective in the meantime, it had to be given up. The land is still levelled, and can be used again whenever enough water is available; the plan of distribution (gravitation) is far better than the Mechian pipes and hose. By the latter plan the water is sprinkled over the crops; by the former it is led down between the rows in little rills from the highest point to the lowest. Either way the ground can be perfectly moistened, but the cost of the two plans is widely different.

The pipe and hose system necessitates a strong force of water, and in order to obtain this a reservoir was constructed 120 feet above the ground level. Thus, in raising the water to this unnecessary height a vast amount of power is lost — "power that would serve to raise ten times the quantity of water to the level on which tho crops are growing," and it need be raised no higher for irrigation on the gravitation system. The machinery and arrangements consist of a steam engine of twelve horsepower; one eight-inch and one five-inch force-pump. "After many abortive trials," says Mr Ricardo, "I called in the services of Mr Dow, and well would it have been had I done so earlier." The eight-inch pump has been rendered effeotive by the addition of an air vessel, and now works very satisfactorily; the five-inch one remains unused, and must continue so until treated in the same manner. It is only two months since the eight-inch pump commenced to work efficiently, and thus a great proportion of the time during which irrigation was most needed passed away unimproved; the two previous months were lost in abortive attompts. Of the pipes, the main leading up to the reservoir is five inch diameter; the submains with which the ground is reticulated are two and a half inch. Mr Ricardo finds that thirty thousand gallons per acre is the quantity needed for each watering, and his machinery will now raise enough to water three acres per day. Cabbage is almost the only crop to which the water has been given this season; at present fifteen acres are in cabbage and two or three more in cauliflowers. Mr Ricardo is sending cabbages regularly to market, usually two full loads per week, and those who have had to buy vegetables of that description daring the last qinrter of a year know that the price has been uncomfortably high.

Had the works previously been as effeotive as they now are, they would have been a fair financial success in spite of the unnecessary outlay, in pipes, and in constructing the reservoir. Mr Ricardo has experienced the usual fate of pioneers; he has paid dearly for experience, and has to satisfy himself as best he can with the knowledge that he has spent thousands where hundreds would have sufficed. When the grant for the promoters of novel industries was voted, Mr Ricardo applied unsuccessfully to the commission to be recognised, but he had commenced too early and was therefore shut out.

In reply to our inquiry whether steam-lifted water could be profitably employed in growing crops, and if so on what description of crops, Mr Ricardo stated his opinion that it would pay for a few growers near a good market thus to produce cabbages and some other vegetables in droughty seasons, but that if many resorted to steam irrigation the price of the produce would sink below the remunerative point. Into this we need not inquire further at present; we have another farm and another system of irrigation to notice in our next.

Leaving then the question of steam irrigation, we will just glance over the rest of Mr Ricardo's farm. Situated on the Yarra, at Heidelberg, a large proportion of the land is of the very best quality — black alluvial soil of unascertained depth; it is therefore specially adapted for the staple garden crops that are grown there. In some seasons, crop after crop of potatoes, green peas, maize and oats for green fodder have baen produced by occasional aid in the way of irrigation; but this year the price of cabbages offered too great a temptation to permit of attention being given to other crops. Maize has been grown, but it has received no aid ; the area under maize is considerable, for Mr Rioardo has a dairy of thirty cows that are in as good condition as though the season had been the most genial. If water could have been spared, it could have been very profitably employed in growing maize for cows, butter having maintained so high a figure through the drought. The condition of the cows will be realised when we say that several dry ones have been sold fat; and this reminds us of a remark by Mr Ricardo in puting fattening rather than milking properties to green maize. This result, if general, would render maize ineligible for dairy stock, but it is probably due to the want of moisture which has rendered the maize more sugary and lens succulent than usual.

For the cabbage crop stable manure is partly employed, but one lot of cabbages was the third crop since manure of that kind had been given, the two last having had nothing but bone-dust. From another part of the flat a crop of prairie grass has been cut and marketed this season as green stuff; it grew shoulder high. This is the first time we have had to record such a fact. Town buyers took it readily, for their cattle preferred it to oats, but they could not be induced to buy rye-grass, although equally good. Neither of these crops received water, from whioh fact, distant readers who know not the locality referred to will be better enabled to estimate its capabilities.

The whole extent of the farm is 185 acres, but this includes a considerable area of upland of ordinary quality. There is a small lucerne paddock whioh we need hardly say produces well, and a mangel crop of a very satisfactory character; whilst, for winter use by the dairy stock, a fair breadth of Cape barley was being sown. As no farm on these flats would be complete without an orchard, there is one of twelve acres on Mr Ricardo's.

Ajoining this is a farm held by Mr Edward Toy, who has resorted to horse-power to raise water for the purpose of irrigation; this will receive notice in our next.

Source: Leader, 10 Apr 1869, Page 6.