OUTLOOK FOR COMMERCIAL ORCHARDING IN WESTERN 



NEBRASKA. 



E. P. Stevens, Crete, Neb. 



The recent exhibit of fruit at Spokane, Washington, December 9th to 

 16th, where an exhibit amounting to probably 10 or 12 carloads was gath- 

 ered together, was an interesting place to study the products of irrigated 

 orchards. The next week, doubtless some of you were able to visit the 

 exhibited at Council Bluffs, where samples of fruit grown under irrigation 

 could be noted and compared with fruits grown by cultivation. During 

 the past 2 years, I have been enabled to visit other exhibits of irrigated 

 fruits, notably that of the state of Washington at North Yakima. 



There can be no question but what the Orchardist who has the ad- 

 vantage of being able to apply water just when he needs it and to any 

 extent that he may desire, has an advantage over those of us, who are 

 growing fruit on lands which can not be irrigated, and we can only 

 depend on moisture stored from the normal rainfall. 



Noi'mally under irrigation, water has an original cost of from $15.00 

 to $60.00 per acre and then an annual maintenance cost of from 75c. to 

 $5.00 per acre, the higher cost under pumping plants. These rates seem 

 expensive, perhaps we might say excessive, and yet I have oft times 

 thought here in Nebraska that if in the months of August and September, 

 I could have had an abundance of water to use in our laden orchards, 

 that the fruit would swell up enough and be enough larger to justify 

 almost any expense. $20.00 an acre annually would be a very small 

 charge in comparison with the benefits secured. 



Millions of trees will be planted during the next 5 years under 

 irrigation on the Pacific slope. While they have the advantage of the 

 favorable climate, fertile soils and usually water for irrigation, in many 

 cases the orchards are watered through the medium of very expensive 

 pumping plants. The far famed district at Palisade, Colo, is supplied by 

 a pumping plant. A part of that water used in irrigation is raised 81 feet. 



All these regions are hampered by being a very long distance from 

 their best markets; the fruit has to be transported across mountain 

 ranges, involving very expensive transportation. 



In discussng commercial orchards in Nebraska, our minds immediate- 

 ly revert to the orchards in Richardson, Otoe, Cass, Washington, Doug- 

 las, Saline, Fillmore and other eastern counties. Orchards were first 

 planted in this portion of the state. Here are to be found the older and 

 larger orchards. The average man is perhaps not aware that in western 

 Nebraska we have 3,000,000 acres of irrigable land, that some 1,600 miles 

 of irrigation canals or ditches are supplied by the Platte river. In fer- 



