424 THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



lime is found, and perhaps many of you live near beet factories and 

 you can get lime from any of these at small expense, which you can 

 put on your soils and get the same results, doctor, as you can get from 

 more expensive application. And about the phosphate slags that the 

 doctor speaks about; I have used that I think with some success, but I 

 don't think it is on the market anywhere. Some firms handled it for 

 years, but last year they said they didn't have it, wouldn't any more, 

 •so I don't think you can get that. 



The question of spraying for red spider was up yesterday and the 

 doctor seems to think that you should spray anyhow. I do not think 

 that is a good idea, doctor, just simplj^ to take some medicine for fear 

 you are going to be sick. I have just buried a dear old friend of mine. 

 He died simply on that account more than anything else. Took medi- 

 cine all the time for fear he was going to have some trouble and 

 naturally just killed himself. Now a year ago I had some red spider 

 in my orchards, one of them, and we got our horticultural commissioner 

 to come, and we got after them and we got them. We eradicated them 

 from a little patch of about ten acres. Now I haven 't them, not enough 

 to amount to anything. Furthermore, you would find some red spider 

 in any orchard, but I would not be justified in going out every year 

 and spray four hundred acres for fear the red spider might come in 

 some of these orchards, and so you have got to be practical as well as 

 scientific and theoretical, so I do not think I will go away, doctor, and 

 go home and spray. But as to the question of irrigation ; many of us 

 think we are irrigating when we are not. This hardpan keeps the 

 moisture to the surface. When I go into another orchard and see a 

 fellow irrigating and the whole surface is moist, is wet, I know what 

 the matter is there. All the water is staying on the surface and not 

 going down; I would like to see the surface dry, because this hardpan 

 which you can easily develop in our California soils, at least in southern 

 California — I do not presume anything like that is to be found here 

 where you have fine land and land projects are going on, j^ou people do 

 not have anything of that kind, but we do in southern California. 

 T understood yesterday from the glowing accounts of all northern 

 California that you didn't have anything but what was just right — 

 no scale or hardpan or anything else, but that it is a glorious place 

 for the entire country to come to, but we do have these problems, and 

 I know you have to contend with them, too ; but this is a point. Mr. 

 Chairman, that all of these questions and these conventions are a great 

 factor in creating a sentiment that will make us investigate and make 

 us intelligent. 



Just a word here now in closing, and I have always said this. I 

 think you must have quoted from me because I have always thought it. 

 There is no occupation in the world that calls for more ability, judg- 

 ment, brains, training, industry and adaptability than farming. This 

 is an immense job. To plow and sow and reap without understanding- 

 is no more real farming than cutting a man's leg off with an ax is 



