PROCEEDINGS OF THE WINTER MEETING. 87 



that method of applying water pays him, but he has no expensive 

 machinery to go to pieces. There are simply these barrels. 



Mr. Rice: I don't know but I am a little prejudiced against snow. 

 I was brought up in Wayne county. New York, and there we have snow 

 from early November to May 1, and all my early life was spent digging 

 through snowbanks in the winter, or wading through them, trying to 

 get to school; and still, in that same country, we used to be troubled with 

 drouth. Our corn used to dry right up and we were troubled greatly, 

 and I don't believe the snow will carry you through the drouth of sum- 

 mer. I think it is necessary to cultivate thoroughly. At every one of 

 our meetings we hear people tell about how the rainfall is less than in 

 years ago. I think that idea should be exploded, and I chance to have 

 here in my notebook memoranda made some time ago, that the lakes, in 

 1819, were within seven inches as low as in 1895. There is the dredging 

 out of channels, etc., to lower them. The amount from 1880 to 1895 is 

 only three inches ; and you may remember that at our meeting at Adrian 

 an old settler told how the marshes and rivers there were so dry, in the 

 early days, and that it was not so dry here, even this year, as it was 

 sixty years ago; and I know in our part of the state, we suffered more 

 from the drouth in 1858 and along there, than in late years, since the 

 country has been cleared. Then it was all woods. 



Mr. Morrill: In company with a few other gentlemen, this winter, 

 I visited an asylum for insane at Kankakee, for the purpose of seeing 

 how it was run and to see the irrigating plant they had put in. They 

 have 3,500 insane patients to feed, and there are 1,200 acres occupied by 

 the buildings, farm, and garden. The garden occupies ninety acres, and 

 this is irrigated and a careful account kept. It is as systematic an 

 institution as there is, perhaps, in the United States. In 1894 the garden 

 showed a loss when the produce was credited for its value. The super- 

 intendent decided to put in an irrigating plant. The soil is excellent 

 Illinois prairie land. They had a pumping station, of course, for the 

 institution, and they simply added the pipe to that and had the Kankakee 

 river to pump from. The results, as shown by their books this year, were 

 wonderful. It not only paid for itself, the whole plant (and this was 

 surface irrigation), but for all the help employed, and left a nice margin, 

 and the produce was cheaper this year than the year before. There was 

 an instance where they had plenty of water and plenty of money to put 

 it into operation. They sent to Colorado and got a skilled irrigator to 

 take charge of the work, and they flooded at the rate of six inches of 

 water at a time. The first thing they did was to lay tile under the land. 

 That tile had not run for two years, and this year they kept it running 

 quite a large portion of the time, by the water on the surface. We 

 might infer from this, that it would be profitable for us. It might be, 

 if we had the money, location, and water, but when we as fruitgrowers 

 attempt to talk about irrigation, we must recollect that we are located on 

 hills and rolling ground, and practical irrigation is absolutely impossible 

 with us, except for limited areas. The idea of pumping water on these 

 hills would hardly be a practicable one, I imagine, and I think the only 

 practical irrigation, for the majority of us, is better tools and cultivation, 

 and the conservation of every drop of moisture that falls. 



