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distinct advantages over surface supplies. Fi rst, its availability was not immediately <br />affected by a sudden absence of precipitati on, and second, it was available precisely <br />when and where a farmer needed it. This second advantage was especially important in <br />places such as Prospect Valley, where surf ace irrigation was inefficient. Along this <br />tributary of the South Platte, ditch water wa s unreliable and was allotted on a rotational <br />basis. A farmer might not need water when his turn came to use it; other times, it might <br />be unavailable when his crops needed it most. Groundwater irri gation solved this <br />problem by providing water on demand, and Prospect Valley farmers embraced the <br />42 <br />technique fully. Some even sold surface rights to finance down-payments on wells. Use <br />of underground water both provided protectio n against drought and offered farmers <br />greater control over the timi ng and application of irriga tion water, increasing its <br />popularity among South Platte farmers. <br />But these characteristics alone were in sufficient to fuel the boom – technology <br />also played an important ro le. Centrifugal pumps, built in England as early as 1754, <br />underwent a series of revisions in the early 1900s to increa se their efficiency. Improved <br />rotary drills soon followed, allowing the wi der bore necessary to install improved <br />43 <br />pumps. Oil and gasoline gradually replaced steam power, and by the 1930s, rebuilt <br />44 <br />automobile engines were driving high-speed pumping equipment. As late as 1957, <br />45 <br />tractors still powered ne arly a fifth of pumps in the South Platte basin. But there were <br />cheaper alternatives. High-speed diesel en gines were introduced in the late 1930s, <br />providing efficiency at about a quarter the fuel consumption of gasoline. Stil l, the initial <br />42 <br /> W.E. Code, “Pumping in Prospect Valley,” Western Farm Life , 1 May 1938. <br />43 <br /> For a thorough description of centrifuga l pump and rotary drill technology, see Green, Land of the <br />Underground Rain, 38-61. <br />44 <br /> Green, 126-127. <br />45 <br /> Bjorklund and Brown, 2. <br />17 <br />