MAEKET GAKDENING. 99 



Mr. Philbrick. Gentlemen, the subject of discussion this 

 morning has been so ably treated and so thoroughly gone 

 over that I have but very little in addition to say. I would 

 add a few words to what has been said about irrigation. The 

 two past years have been very dry ones, and have called this 

 subject to our attention very emphatically. Mr. Rawson, 

 who has just addressed you, has given excellent advice about 

 this matter. There is hardly anything more imperatively 

 needed now in gardening than provision against drought. It 

 is the worst enemy we have to encounter. The methods of 

 irrigation that are followed among the gardeners deserve a 

 little fuller notice. Mr. Rawson has alluded to the steam 

 pump and pipe as the method he uses. That method is gen- 

 erally used, and must be, on high land. The water must 

 be distributed on uneven or high land in that manner. On 

 land that is nearly level, or has but a slight declivity, water 

 is distributed sometimes by ditches — furrows running along- 

 side of the rows, and across. Celery is often watered in 

 this way. A little furrow is run by the plough alongside of 

 the row, and water is brought by whatever means can be ob- 

 tained to the high end of the ditch and the ditch is run full 

 of water. Then, in order to avoid the puddling of the soil, 

 or hardening, baking, as it dries up, the earth is thrown 

 directly back again before it has time to dry, and the roots 

 in that way are moistened without baking the soil. 



Another method of irrigation is practised on some of the 

 low lands of Arlington. I am told, although I have not 

 looked into it very closely — perhaps some of the Arlington 

 men here can describe the method more fully than I can — 

 I am told that the low lands of Arlington, in the neighbor- 

 hood of Ale wive Brook, have been drained. It was origi- 

 nally a peat meadow, and drains are put in there very near 

 the surface, and very thickly together. Originally, the land 

 lay only about two feet above the level of the water, and 

 the water has very little flow from the pond down to tide- 

 water. Those meadows, as I say, lay only about two feet 

 above the permanent water level, so that it was impossible 

 to drain them deeply, as is customary in laying tiles in other 

 places. The tiles are usually put in three or four feet deej), 

 but here the outlet would not admit of it, and the drains are 



