WINTER MEETING. 223 



of the crop of these pickings I would have gathered about 75 crates with- 

 out the use of water, but with the use of water I placed on the market 

 ■225 24-quart crates of fine berries. In fact, it is safe to say that 150 

 crates of berries may be credited to my irrigation experiment; 150 

 crates of berries at $2.40 per crate, the average price of my berry crop, 

 gives me 8360. Subtracting the cost of experiment, 1 have left to the 

 credit of the Kaw river water $290.20. 



Three or four days after I got my water fi,sture8 ready for use we 

 had a severe frost, and had it not come, and had I irrigated 10 days 

 sooner, my berry patch would have yielded between 400 and 500 crates 

 of berries. As an experiment, I allowed the water to run down the 

 «pace betsveen the rows; but I found that the water was not so evenly 

 <listributed as it was where applied by the hose. 



I would furthermore add that in my opinion this is an important 

 point in all kinds of irrigated crops. Otherwise the soil becomes 

 «odded in places, and receives no benefit. 



Old experienced hands in irrigation may object to the small amount 

 of water used ; but to this I would reply, that owing to the liberal 

 mulching between the rows less water was required, and longer inter- 

 vals between irrigation elapsed. 



In twenty-four hours after I began to apply the water I observed 

 the increase in size of the berries, and on to the end of the berry 

 reason they continued to grow large until the very last picking. 



This small test of what moisture applied by means of irrigation to 

 a suffering berry patch will do, is only a small beginning of what I 

 have in mind to do on my forty-acre berry farm one mile distant from 

 Lawrence. 



Should the water company tax me too heavily for laying their pipes 

 to this large field, I will bore some three or four wells and pump the 

 water out of the bowels of the earth for use in dry seasons, to insure 

 the crop against drouth. 



Irrigation. 



ByG. W. Waters, Canton, Mo. 



The prolonged drouths of the past two summers suggest the im- 

 portance of deviling ways and means for securing a sufficiency of 

 water for our crops at the time they most need it. Judging the future 

 by the past, we may look for a recurrence of damaging drouths during 

 some period of almost every season : in fact, it rarely ever occurs that 

 we have just enough water at just the right time for the production of 

 a maximum crop in Missouri. In the western states and territories, 



