446 Transactions of the 



the ends the eighth of an inch apart. Over these little broken joints or 

 openings he threw pieces of broken crockery, so as to permit water to 

 run out and prevent the earth from working in. Across one end of the 

 piece so laid with pipes he set pipes of the same kind and length upright, 

 so that each upright pipe connected with the end of one line of horizon- 

 tal. He then dug an open trench so as to conduct the water into these 

 uprights, and his irrigating plan was complete. 



Into this open trench he turned the water from a pump worked by a 

 windmill and drawing water from a bored well. It worked well, and in 

 a few days his place was completely irrigated so as to show a dampened 

 appearance on the surface. He planted peas, beans, tomatoes, and 

 many other kinds of vegetables between his trees — all of which grew 

 most luxuriantly and produced abundantly. His trees made a magnifi- 

 cent growth and produced a good crop of excellent fruit. In tact, the 

 whole experiment was a most perfect and satisfactory success. 



In addition to the advantages of underground over surface irrigation, 

 we would enumerate the following: 



First — The same tubes used to conduct the water under the ground may 

 be used to convey any kind of manure to the same locality in a liquid 

 state. To accomplish this you have only to make the reservoirs at the 

 head of the piece of land to be irrigated and manured of sufficient 

 capacity, and till it Avith manure; the water, passing through this 

 manure, will extract from it its fertilizing properties, and conduct them, 

 in a liquid state, to the roots of the trees and plants. Thus all the 

 strength and value of the manure will be saved and applied in the best 

 form at the point where most good will result. None will be wasted by 

 evaporation, and all danger of the introduction of weed seed into the 

 soil will thus be avoided. Any variety of manure 1 to be used, 



from the coarsest stable manure ' - commercial varieties, may 



thus be utilized to the best advantage. 



Secon — Another advantage of this mode of irrigation is, that while 

 introducing the water you also introduce the air under the ground, thus 

 enlivening the soil, and at the same time extracting from that air its 

 very important and valuable fertilizing qualities, and applying them 

 directly to the roots of the growing vegetation. 



Again, in the Spring or early Summer, the air is much warmer than 

 the soil, and the warm air thus penetrating the soil and working around 

 the roots acts, to a certain extent, like a hot bed, and brings forward the 

 early vegetable as no surface irrigation will. 



/-/—The same sort of tubing or pipes used for irrigating the land 

 in times of drought will answer the purpose of an underground drainage 

 system in a very wet season. 



To accomplish the latter object you have but to open a ditch at the 

 opposite end of your garden from that into which you introduce the 

 water in the pipes, so that the surplus water in the soil will run otf. It 

 will then work into the pipes at the openings and run through them into 

 the drainage ditch, and thus your garden will be relieved of too great a 

 supply of water, through the that irrigates it. For garden 



purposes this drainage operation is almost as important as the irrigation, 

 and considering that both operations can be accomplished at the same 

 expense and by the same system, we think it worth while that all our 

 farmers throughout the grain districts should give it a trial. A small 

 piece of ground, thus prepared and cultivated as a kitchen garden and 

 fruit orchard will be worth more to the average grain farmer, taking 

 one season with another, than ten times the same amount cultivated in 



