8 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



amount of ammonia. We will take the rain when we get it. All plants 

 will do better with rain, because dust accumulates on the leaves more 

 or less, and if it is washed off they will grow much better. All house- 

 wives know that they must wash off the leaves of their plants as they 

 do in greenhouses and other places, but we simply use irrigation as an 

 adjunct to nature and apply water when the ground becomes very dry. 



Mr. Cook: The reason I ask the question is that in using water from 

 our water-works system during drouth we find it difficult to keep up the 

 healthy appearance of the lawns. We wash the dust off the same as the 

 rain does, but immediately after a rain the lawns come up, spring up 

 without any effort. 



Mr. Kellogg: There is an important point. Mr. Morse of Belding 

 at one time came down to my place and got a few plants and took them 

 home, and at a great deal of expense had prepared irrigation. He had 

 sandy land. About three or four weeks after he got the plants he came 

 back with them. He was greatly disappointed with the results. He 

 had a pump and windmill, and he pumped water into a tank. He brought 

 the roots back, they were about half as big as when he took them away, 

 and he wanted to know what was the matter. I looked at them and 

 inquired all about the fertilizing. He said the ground had been kept 

 watered well, and I said, ''How about the water?" He replied that he 

 pumped it up during the day from a well, and then he put it on at night, 

 just a little bit with a spray pump, just as you speak of, and he saturated 

 them with cold water from the well every night and it just simply 

 ruined his plants. I said to him, "Put a ditch in there and keep your 

 water in the tank until it becomes warmer, and then put it into the 

 ditch and let it saturate the ground fully." He did this, but his plants 

 were blighted and he did not get as good results as he would otherwise. 

 We are very careful not to let the ground overflow. This year we have 

 not irrigated at all, but we put on about 1,500 or 2,000 barrels at a time 

 on an acre. I do not think in future we shall use less than 2,500 or 3,000 

 barrels to an acre, but we flood it in ditches. I have the whole farm, 

 130 acres, so that I can run water all over everywhere through the hose. 

 We have the ground cultivated and then make a little narrow ditch, 

 and we let the water settle there and percolate out, and get it under 

 the dust, and just as quick as the ditch dries down we go over it and 

 keep that water right down. This watering of plants is a bad thing. 

 The water will dry right out and kill a plant quicker than anything else 

 of which I know. 



Mr. Seymour: How far apart should the strawberries be placed in 

 the row? 



Mr. Kellogg: That depends on your plants. Get them as close to- 

 gether as you can cultivate them. Much also depends upon the size 

 of the plants. Now, that Marshall plant, there, has a wonderful foliage, 

 and you will have to leave about five or six or eight inches more for 

 a variety of that sort than you would on the other — on the Wilson for 

 instance. 



