58 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



IRRIGATION FOR THE ORCHARD AND GARDEN. 



BY PBOr. L. R. TAFT, MICHIGAN AGBICULTUEAL COLLEGE. 



Protracted drouths, the soil baked and cracked, blasting winds, crops 

 dried up, and farmers discouraged are among the reports that come from 

 all parts of the country. While the meadows, oat^, and wheat escaped 

 severe injury, the potato and corn crops will be much reduced in yield. 

 All this is due to the fact that the rainfall has been deficient in nearly all 

 parts of the country, and the drouth has been so protracted, some sections 

 not having been favored with even a passing shower for eight or ten 

 weeks, that many farmers have cut up their corn in order to save the fod- 

 der, even before the tassels appeared. With these reports of widespread 

 injury to farm crops, the results must have been even more disastrous in 

 the vegetable gardens and orchards. From the fact that the products of 

 the horticulturist are very largely composed of water, and that they are 

 grown on a more intensive scale than those of the farmer, it can be readily 

 seen that this must have been the case. Another point that should not be 

 lost sight of is the money value of the two classes of crops, as, while the 

 average selling price of the more common farm crops per acre will vary 

 from perhaps ten to as much as fifty dollars, taking one season and one 

 locality with another, the horticulturist may get from one hundred to 

 five hundred or even one thousand dollars for the product of a single acre 

 of land. In seasons of severe drouth, like that through which we have 

 just passed, it will seldom happen that the ordinary crops of the farm will 

 be reduced more than one half, from its effects, and, large though the loss 

 may be in the aggregate, upon a single acre it will be comparatively small, 

 so that unless some simple and inexpensive method can be employed for 

 furnishing an artificial supply of water to supplement the rainfall, the 

 increased returns will not warrant the outlay On the other hand, the hor- 

 ticulturist, with his more valuable crops, can not afford to leave a single 

 stone unturned that will in any way aid him in saving his crop. In sea- 

 sons like the past, unless in exceptionally favorable locations, many of the 

 less hardy plants are so weakened that the crop is practically ruined. 



The fruitgrower suffers a double loss from seasons of drouth, as his crop 

 of the current year not only is lessened, but the trees are often unable to 

 make a normal growth, much less to form fruit buds, from which the crop 

 of the following year will develop. Thus one year's drouth may cause the 

 loss of two year's crops. 



The experience of the past few years has convinced many gardeners and 

 fruitgrowers that they can not afford to be without the means of carrying 

 their crops through dry seasons by means of irrigation. 



HISTORY OF IRRIGATIOX. 



Although it has been used but comparatively little in the United States 

 except in the arid regions of the west, it was employed thousands of years 

 ago in Egypt and Arabia, and, although the methods used were very 

 crude, enabled those countries not only to maintain a dense population but 



