OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. 461 



orange question, as he was no speaker; but he desired that those 

 present slioukl get right down to business in getting at the bottom 

 facts on the best methods of citrus fruit cultivation. \iQ advised to 

 plow the ground thoroughly; break it up to a depth of eighteen 

 inches so as to destroy the gopher runways. The next thing is to 

 select good trees. It is cheaper to pay hve dollars apiece for good 

 trees than to i)lant poor ones if obtained as a gift. 



Mr. Holt questioned him on his svstem of so-called "dry irriga- 

 tion." 



Mr. Richardson replied that he had tried that system thoroughly. 

 Some of his twelve-year old trees had not been irrigated since 1872. 

 He liad oranges on exhibition in the hall which had not been irri- 

 gated at all. He believed that oranges could be raised without irri- 

 gation, but a little water would produce a larger fruit. Water had 

 been used at San Gabriel injudiciously, and the result had been and 

 would continue to be disastrous. 



Question— What is your soil? 



Answer — ^A deep gravelly loam. It is not known what the depth 

 is to water. A well in this vicinity was sunk 160 feet before water 

 was found; at this point an artesian strata was struck and the water 

 rose thirty feet, leaving it 130 feet below the surface of the ground. 



Question^ — How does your fruit that has been irrigated compare 

 with that not irrigated? 



Answer — It is as good but not as large. I subsoil to a depth of 

 from thirteen to eighteen inches. Last summer I used a subsoil 

 cultivator entirely. I have learned the fact that I can irrigate land 

 several times during a season without cultivation, and in the fall it 

 will be drier than land that is thoroughly cultivated, but not irri- 

 gated. 



General Stoneman stated that Mr. Richardson was one of his neigh- 

 bors, and he could vouch for the success attained by him in his "dry 

 irrigation." At first he thought liim foolish to attempt to raise oranges 

 without water, but he now admitted that he had made it a success. 

 Mr. Richardson had a black loamy soil, some of which was twelve 

 feet in depth. He could tell no difference between Richardson's trees 

 that had received no irrigation and his own which had had an abund- 

 ance of water. Mr. Richardson's deep plowing and thorough subsoil 

 cultivation was the secret of his success. 



E. W. Holmes said that when he first came to this State he partly 

 concluded at one time to locate at San Gabriel; he finally came to 

 Riverside. He did not know before that any one but Doctor Conger 

 believed in non-irrigation. He had compared his grapevines which 

 hacl been frequently irrigated — Riverside style — with those in vine- 

 yards which had not been irrigated at all, and he found that the 

 growth of his vines had been double that of those not watered. In 

 Riverside last summer we had but two days of fogs, and he thought 

 it possible that vineyards in sections subject to fogs would make a 

 good growth without water, when they would not do so well with 

 similar treatment in a dry climate like Riverside. Where there was 

 no fogs cultivation would not develop moisture as it would in a foggy 

 country. 



John Lawshe did not expect to participate in the discussion. 

 Although a '49-er he was yet young in this State, especially as regards 

 horticultural questions. He had tried fruit culture but a few years. 

 He had adopted a system of his own. He had failed to see a publi- 



