State Agricultural Society. 445 



Thus is given a double value and a double productiveness to these 

 lands. The water becomes a constant fertilizer to the land and stimu- 

 lant to the growth of the plants. Now if it was in the power of man to 

 place all the lands in this State in a position so that they could be thus 

 perfectly and constantly irrigated by bringing the water up to the sur- 

 face to be controlled at will, what a value would be thus added to these 

 lands. The productions of the State under such a system of irrigation 

 would be beyond estimate. If each farmer throughout the country 

 could thus irrigate even one acre, he would increase the value of that 

 one acre from eight to ten fold. However dry and parched the general 

 lands of his farm might be, he could of this one acre make a constant 

 garden, and thus surround his house with a perpetual Eden, from which 

 at all times of the } T ear he could supply his table with all the luxuries of 

 the temperate and semi-tropical zones. 



IT CAN BE DONE. 



That is, every farmer in the State can, if he will, and with very little 

 expense, thus irrigate one acre, more or less, and we care not where he 

 may be located; only provided that he has land of medium fertility, he 

 can have an excellent and constantly producing vegetable garden, and 

 a good thrifty growing and good bearing orchard of all kinds of fruits. 

 The driest and most shallow-soiled red prairie land can be made to pro- 

 duce as abundantly as the best and deepest river bottoms. 



ARTIFICIAL EXAMPLE. 



For the proof of what we say, wo will give the following facts: N. 

 Clark, of Sacramento, about half a mile east of Sutter's Fort site, has a 

 piece of land familiarly known in that neighborhood as hard pan land. 

 The soil is a stiff adobe, some of it a pretty sticky clay of a reddish cast, 

 and not over ten inches deep. He has been trying to grow an orchard 

 and garden on this land for a number of years, by surface irrigation, 

 with very poor success. Indeed his efforts for a garden may be said to 

 have been a failure. Last season he noticed a small strip of peas, which 

 he had planted, were growing very thriftily, and matured a good croj), 

 while all the rest of the peas planted at the same time, and cultivated 

 and irrigated, so far as he could see, in the same manner, produced 

 nothing. 



He determined to know the cause of this strange fact, and commenced 

 an exploration with a shovel. He soon developed a gopher hole about a 

 foot underground, running parallel with and very nearby under the row of 

 peas that had proved so much more thrifty and prolific than the balance. 

 Into this hole the water had penetrated and from thence had worked its 

 way up to the roots of the peas, which had also penetrated deep into the 

 soil to meet it. This suggested to Mr. Clark a new idea, underground 

 irrigation, and he immediately determined to put this idea to a practical 

 test. This season has afforded him an excellent opportunity to do so. 

 Being a manufacturer of crockery and various kinds of earthen and 

 tile pipe, he made up a lot of the latter with a two-inch bore, in pieces 

 one foot each in length. His trees were in rows sixteen feet apart. 

 He dug a trench about a foot deep in the center between these rows. In 

 these trenches he buried this pipe, laying the pieces end to end, leaving 



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