PROCEEDINGS OF THE SUMMER MEETING. 187 



Bo you advocate spr'mg or fall setting of fruit trees, and ivould it be more 

 desirable to heel in trees for fall setting f 



Prof. Slayton: Early spring; setting is best. Fall purchasing for apple, 

 pear, and plum, and heeling them in on your own premises. 



Let me ask a question. Has anyone here tried irrigation f 



A. I think only in a limited wav. There may be some here who have 

 used water, but I doubt if it has been applied in any quantity. Mr. 

 Hawley tried it and it was quite satisfactory. 



Mr. VanDeman: By what means, grayitation or pumping? 



Mr. Morrill: He had a small engine, and pumped the water up, and had 

 mains running through his peach orchards, and furrows to the trees. He 

 turned on the water and irrigated six or eight rods at once. Then he had 

 another row of mains, and so on. I know he has a yery fine peach 

 orchard. 



Mr. A'anDeman: J presume you all know that irrigation is one of the 

 recent industries in the east, one of 'the big questions. It is coming. 

 Now, it all goes back to this one point, that plants liye on soup, and yon 

 can not make soup without water, and if you can not get water from 

 the clouds at the right time you would better get it somewhere else. 

 That is the reason we can not raise more, because we hayen't water at 

 the right time to furnish the soup I speak of; that is a fact, and the 

 sooner we realize it and act upon it the better. Thorough cultivation 

 has a close connection with irrigation, because it furnishes escape for the 

 water into the ground and prevents its escaping and going off into the 

 air. We put a dust blanket over the top of the ground, and the moisture 

 can not escape into the air except, of course, through the leaves of the 

 trees. We wish to stop this evaporation and keep the moisture in the 

 ground where the plants can feed upon it. Irrigation is only a help, an 

 aid to nature, but it is going to be a very important feature of the horti- 

 culture and agriculture of this country before a great many years. Mr. 

 Hale of Connecticut has fifty acres under irrigation now. He spent over 

 $2,000 last fall in putting in an irrigation plant. He tapped a little creek 

 up in the mountains, nearly a mile from his place, and now he can laugh 

 at the drouth in New England. Mr. Eddy of Connecticut figured up that 

 he got $14 per barrel for the water he put on his place, which was 

 absorbed by the fi'uit. 



Mr. Pixley: One of my neighbors put some })ipes into his peach 

 orchard last year. He had the city water pipe attached, and a motor put 

 in, and he put in the necessary pipes to distribute it around a few of 

 the trees; and he tells mo he found it very successful indeed; that he 

 increased the weight of tlu^ peaches very much over those peaches Ayhich 

 did not get any water, and at a very small expense. The city furnishes 

 the water at twenty cents per thousand gallons, about one cent for three 

 barrels, and by using common iron gas pijics he distributed it with small 

 expense. 



