PROCEEDINGS OF THE SUMMER MEETING. 45 



quality was not as good as where they were irrigated. The second time 

 he claimed that the climate of the north was more healthy than it was in 

 sections where they had to irrigate, being more like our climate in Mich- 

 igan. 



Prof. Taft: I think you can account for those two statements. In 

 Southern California they have found that irrigation is necessary for most 

 crops. There are sections in California where they have malaria. That 

 soil is completely filled with moisture, and you find there swamps in 

 which cat-tails are growing, but it is due to an excessive use of water. 

 As he says, the irrigation has done this, but had the water been used in 

 proper amounts there would have been no trouble. 



Mr. Brown: It has been my pleasure to visit this place described. 

 The yield of corn to the acre was simply marvelous. We could walk 

 between rows three feet apart, and there were ears on every stalk. It 

 was just barely a swamp of cornstalks. They knocked against your head 

 and knocked your hat off. The cabbages were simply a sight. I 

 thought before I saw them there could not be such a sight in nature. 

 Perhaps you have seen such in Maule's catalogues. If someone had 

 told me there could be such a thing I should have thought they were 

 "stretching it." This pond where Mr. Bailey gets water is a beau- 

 tiful sight ; about the size of this room and about three feet deep, and he 

 has it so that he can turn it on such places as should be watered. 



Mr. Morrill: Since Mr. Rice speaks about irrigating by barrels of 

 water, there are a number who have visited Mr. Stearns, at South Haven, 

 and he has done precisely that thing — brought water in barrels and had 

 two men scoop out the dirt about the trees and empty two barrels of 

 water about each tree and immediately scrape the dry dirt over it; and 

 the difference between these trees and those which were not irrigated in 

 that way was very marked indeed. Mr. Stearns got very large crops of 

 pears as a result. I was at the meeting where he gave that testimony 

 and we conceived that the reason was that he scooped the dirt back and 

 the water soaked in nicely. 



Mr. Green: We did that same thing last year; got the water all from 

 the well by windmill, and saved the life of the pear trees, one hundred 

 trees in two days' time. 



Mr, Gunson: Please do not understand me that I oppose irrigation, 

 by any means. My reasons for stating my views was simply to bring up 

 some discussion on the other side. I hope it will be a success. I think 

 it will. 



Mr. Morrill : Complete, absolutely perfect cultivation is the next best 

 thing to irrigation. , The same people who are lacking means for irriga- 

 tion forget that they can cultivate. It would surprise a man to know 

 how far he can make his tools go. 



Mr. Kellogg: Irrigation is a good scheme where you can make it 

 work, but to say that irrigation can be made general or practical in Mich- 

 igan is out of the question. This is God's country and he has made ample 

 provision for it. As a rule, we only have a few weeks of dry weather. 

 My people sat on the fence and laughed at me last spring, and I am 

 doing the laughing now. The way I did it is simply this: I said to my 

 foreman, ''Now, you want to understand it isn't going to rain again in 

 three months. There is water; you want to use it." Then we plowed 



