398 THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



possibly it is the thing about which the majority of men throughout 

 southern California, engaged in the citrus culture, have the most 

 trouble. I recognize fully that there are a great many different types 

 of soils and each of these types require different methods of handling, 

 but I have made one observation which we in Ventura County think 

 important upon which I would like Mr. Chapman's opinion. Mr. 

 Chapman has said that he has come to believe, along with others, that 

 v^hat we want now is not frequent irrigations but thorough irrigation. 

 We want all of the soil wet to quite a depth, not necessarily the surface 

 soil, but soil down until the roots are thoroughly wet. We are coming 

 to feel from having carefully observed the soil immediately after irriga- 

 tion and on other intervals until our next irrigation that in irrigating 

 all of the soil at once, filling it full as it were of water, we stunt prac- 

 tically all of the feeding roots. The feeding fibres take on a darkish, 

 almost a brownish appearance, within a day or two after such thorough, 

 irrigation. This gives more or less a distinct shock to the tree and it 

 is not for a period of a week and sometimes longer than that that the 

 fibrous roots begin to resume their normal appearance, and at the end 

 of that time, a week or ten days, possibly even two weeks, the fibrous, 

 roots begin putting out new shoots. Some of the old roots do absolutely 

 no further work. I do not know of any one who has tried the experi- 

 ment on a large enough scale to make it applicable to general conditions, 

 but the suggestion has occurred to some of us that possibly it would be 

 better to irrigate the land at one time, leaving the roots say on one 

 side of the tree free from this shock, and letting the roots on the other 

 side of the tree receive the irrigation and then later on, at the end of 

 a month or within a period that is deemed necessary, irrigate on the 

 other side of the row of trees. I do not know whether others have- 

 observed this condition or not. Of course it would not be so apt to 

 occur on gravelly soil as on our fine clay, silt, loamy soil, but this is 

 something which I feel is worthy of consideration and I would like to 

 have the opinion of Mr. Chapman and others on this subject. 



Mr. Chapman. I do not have any of that quality of soil, and have 

 had no experience with it, but I can always understand that if you let 

 trees go until they absolutely need water and then give it to them in 

 great abundance, why you are apt to shock your trees. You are apt 

 to create a condition which you would not have if you regularly irri- 

 gated your lands. 



Mr. Vaile. My idea in the matter is that the shock comes from the- 

 fact that the excess water filling the soil causes it to become too cold and 

 damp for the feeding roots to thrive. 



Mr. Chapman. You don't irrigate with ice water, do you? 



Mr. Vaile. It is cold water, comes from the river. I think people 

 don't irrigate enough. Don't let your orchard need irrigation. Some 

 people say our trees don't need so much irrigating, and so they don't 

 do it. Then they put water on and you naturally have a shock whicb 

 is detrimental. 



