Document text
C;t1.-4.51
Accession‘no.. WPA L. C. PROJECT
Form -8
W 956
Date received
10 /10/40
Consignment no.
1
Shipped from
rash. Office
Label
Amount 7p,
incl. forms
A -D)
teTS I uNrr
ralkicars Collection (or Type)
Titiearrigation_in.._Oregon
Place of origin POT t land, Oregon Date 3./61.39
Project worker Manly 31. Banister
Project editor
Remarks
Form A Federal Writers' Project
Circumstances of Interview Works '2rosross AOminlstration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker Manly M. Banister
Address 2071 3. W. Park Avenue
Subject Irrigation in Oregon.
Date March 6, 1939
=2:- .1,77 1,14% r =moms.
r.1. -1. -It William MackezzlaA_Ire._
Name an(' aer'rs or -11,-;
1632 S.W. 12th Avenue
Date and 'cime cf
March 3, in the afternoon.
Place of interview 1632 S. W. 12th Ave., Portland, Oregon
Name and address of persm, if any, VAC put you in to,,ch vrl..th informant
Joe McLaughlin 400 Elks Bldg.
Name and address of person., if any, acoomprmying None
Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
In description of house see interview with the informant's father,
William Mackenzie, Senior.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the proper heading
and the number to which the material refers).
W 9656
Form B Federal Writers' Project
Personal History of Informant Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker
Address
Manly M. Banister Date March 6, 1939
2071 S. W. Park Ave.
Subject
Irrigation in Oregon.
Name and address of informant William Mackenzie, Jr.
1632 S. W. 12th Ave.
Information obtained should supply the folloNinP: faots:
1. Ancestry 6. Oc,cupcons and accomplishments with dates
2. Place and date of birth 7. Spee7:t7.1 arq intererts
3. Fomily E3 Oommunty and rolicious activities
4. Places lived in, with dates 9. Doscription of inforia%7.t.
5. Education, with dates 10. Other points gained in interview
was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. I WAS born in this house
now numbered 1632 S. W. 12th Avenue on May 20, 1898. I am a Republican both by
birth and by choice. I volunteered for service in the NIRA in oharge of the
district of Portland, and distributed pledge cards until the work was turned over
to the Democratic Precinct Committee. I was discharged for being a Republican.
I was educated at the Portland Academy, which stood where St. Helens Hall is now
located. Then I went to the University of California.
My mother came to Oregon in 1870 and my father came here in 1881. She
was born in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, but she came here from Ohio. My father
came from Stornoway, Scotland.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the proper heading
and the number to which the material refers).
Form C Federal Writers' Project
Text of Interview (Unedited) Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker Manly M. Banister Date March 6, 1939
Address 2071 S. W. Park Ave.
Subject Irrigation in Oregon.
Name and address of informant William Mackenzie, Jr.
1632 S. W. lath Ave.
Text:
I did my first irrigating in the Sacramento Valley where me used what is
called flood irrigation. In this way of irrigating, the land first is leveled
than cut through with ridges about eight inches high and 15 or 16 inches apart, and
the water is turned into the check to a given depth, depending upon the soil and
the type of crop being grown. The time of irrigating in the Sacramento Valley is
from about March until late October. The annual precipitation of that region is
about seventeen inches, so a good deal of irrigation is necessary.
Another type of irrigation is called sub -irrigation and is done by flooding
water into the soil under the ground. The lands along the Columbia river bottom
lands are sub -irrigated. Then there is the overhead sprinkler system used in many
types of gardens, and the buried pipes of the lawn sprinkler systems. In eastern
Oregon, irrigation is done by both pumping mid gravity systems. In the irrigation
of alfalfa where old stands are involved, flooding is used. First of all, the
ground must be leveled so the water will not pool, and to do this the sagebrush is
removed and then the land is plowed deeply and harrowed. A floater is put on to
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the heading given
above).
William Mackenzie, Jr. Form C 2.
carry off the high points. The floater is a beam drawn by horses or a caterpillar
tractor, aid it performs a scraping action on the ground. Alter the land is leveled
it is seeded and a light irrigation is given after it begins to grow. Later heavier
irrigation is given after the plant can sustain itself. Usually about three irri-
gations are necessary in eastern Oregon for most beneficial results. Flooding old
plants is done by cutting the ditch bank and letting the water run out over the land.
When the soil is wet enough to enable the irrigator to stick a shovel into
the ground to the throat, then the ground is sufficiently wet and the water is taken
off.
In the corrugation system of irrigation, a corrugator is used which has a
steel top and steel shoes to make the corrugations about 26 inches apart. These are
like little channels and they guide the water. Small heads of water are run into these
grooves and left to stand there until the water subs from one groove to the other, that
is, it soaks completely through the corrugations.
Various types of gate structures are used and various types of measuring
devices. The most prevalent type of measuring device used in Oregon is the Cippoletti
weir which is a metal gate about 18 by 32 inches across the ditch. Now we have all
kinds and styles of check -boxes. These are structures designed to lift water up
that it may flaw out over the land. Close to a checkbox sometimes a spile for pass-
ing water through a bank without cutting is located. Sometimes also canvas dams
are used in place of wood checkboxes, and these are simply a piece of canvas with
a board across the top which is laid across the ditch. Then the canvas is simply
tucked into the ground at the sides and bottom of the ditch, thus effectively hold-
ing back the water. More modern equipment for check boxes are of concrete, but that
also is more expensive.
Once when I WAS working in Malheur County on the Shoestring Ditch, other-
William Mackenzie, Jr. Form C 3.
wise known as the Ontario -Nyasa Canal, a support for a flume was burnt out. This
incident took place about the summer of 1919. Somebody set fire to a pier to an
irrigation flume. The fire consumed the pier and the sheet iron flume dropped.
The ditch -rider found it within a few minutes --he couldn't help but know something
had gone wrong when the water ceased coming. He called the pump house at once to
turn the water some place else so that the flume could be fixed. It wouldn't have
done to stop the pump, so that meant they had to work in a hurry. At the pump
house there MAS a 32 inch centrifugal pump drawing water from the Snake River, as
well as a 16 inch centrifugal pump in the same house. The water was pumped up 100
feet to the ditch through a wooden pipe sixty inches in diameter. After the ditch
rider's call, a wooden panel was thrown across the ditoh near the northeast corner
of the farm and sandbags put down behind it. The water was than raised as high as
it could be raised, which enabled the 16 inch pump to continue pumping, so the use
of power was continued. The amount of water we normally used was 256 inches of
water in a continuous stream, but now it was coming through a lot faster and I had
both taps open wide, drawing the full capacity of both pipes. The total head, I
imagine, that was being used was about 800 inches. We irrigated all that night and
all the next day before the flume could be repaired and in order to keep the pump from
shutting down. In this manner I VAS able to cover about eight times as much ground
as normal, and maybe you think that wasn't a job. I had to use a shovel about every
minute I MRS irrigating. Luckily, this farm was laid out so that more than one head
of water could be used at a time, and also so that waste water could be picked up and
used as often as practical.
A good illustration of haw not to build a ditch is shown in the construotion
of the Och000 Project near Prineville. The ditch construction was let to private con-
tractors —and I could say things about the baseball team that came from it, only there
William Mackenzie, Jr. Form C 4.
is no use going into that --on the famous theory of cost plus ten per cent. The
reservoir on the creek never held water for many years because although the dam
was an earth -filled dam, the water collecting behind found holes through the rook
structure and passed out beneath it. If scientific methods such as those that
were used at Bonneville had been employed, the dam would never have been placed in
the spot selected. Very little water, if any, ever went over the spillway until
the holes were finally found and grouted (plugged).
You might say also that irrigation is more of a science than most people
believe, for if too much water is put onto the land, water -logging will result.
When water -logging takes place in eastern Oregon, the alkali contained in the soil
then comes to the surface and precludes the possibility of agricultural develop-
ment or use and limits the productive quality of crops to almost a negligible quantity.
Later, expensive drainage projects must be undertaken to draw off into natural drain-
age channels the superfluous water. A good example of this is the vast acreage that
lies on both sides of the Union Pacific line between Nyasa and Ontario which was
drained many years ago by the Nyssa Arcadia Drainage District, I believe it was called.
A great many hundred acres of fine, high -producing alfalfa lands went to wrack and
ruin through water -logging. Good engineering practices in taking care of drainage
waters would have saved the farmers of this area their homes and lands had this Dis-
trict considered the possibility of water -logging. There are many spots throughout
eastern Oregon where abandoned irrigation projects are to be found. Tremendous wastes
of capital have taken place through promotions where not enough water from seasonal
run-off was available. An example of this might be shown by the Orchards Water Co.
in the vicinity of Brogan, Oregon. Part of these lands have since been brought in
under a pumping project of the Vale, Oregon, branch of the Owyhee Project.
Form D Federal Writers' Project
Extra Comment Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker Manly M. Banister ,Date March 6, 1939
Address 2071 S. W. Park
Subject Irrigation in Oregon
Name and address of informant 1632 S. W. 12th Ave.
William Mackenzie Jr.
Comment:
Mr. Mackenzie is an irrigation engineer and thoroughly knows his
business. Be is milling to discuss and explain irrigation as a science, but
he is loth to reveal facts concerning himself, passing off reference to his omn
experiences with the remark either that the interviewer mould not believe him,
or that it is not of sufficient importance to be included.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the heading given
above).