THE MONTHLY BULLETIN". 425 



real surger3^ I contend that it requires the greatest ingenuity to be 

 a farmer. In fact, it requires a larger range of intelligence, general 

 knowledge, than to follow any other occupation or profession that I 

 know of. There was a farmer once, a neighbor of mine, a German 

 neighbor. He came over to my place one morning and wanted some 

 of us to go over to his place and fix up a gas engine that wouldn't 

 work. He says to me, "I tell you vat, Mr. Chapman, a farmer has 

 got to be a better mechanic than a mechanic is himself." So it is with 

 the farmer. 



Chairman Powell. I w^as at a meeting the other night where there 

 were a lot of politicians, and one of them got up and described the 

 method of how the woman's suffrage bill was introduced into the legis- 

 lature, and some one else started in, and before he got through every 

 man in the audience claimed priority in introducing woman's suffrage. 

 We have a few minutes more left for discussion — any one else? 



Mr. Chase. I would like a little information. Mr. Chapman has 

 made a little mistake in regard to the alfalfa, which is a problem of 

 very great import with us. It has been proposed to grow alfalfa 

 between the rows of trees. A large wealthy corporation up here has 

 some of his trees planted and wanted to grow alfalfa between the trees 

 as a fertilizer. Now that place of his is a wonderful success — I know. 

 He planted the alfalfa between the trees and then plowed it in. Here 

 is hardpan soil, not this plow-sole in which water soaks in quickly, but 

 this wet hardpan which is formed by the rains and comes from feldspar 

 or granite formation. We have that from two to three inches to a foot 

 thick, three or four feet under the soils. We plant our orange trees 

 by dynamiting at least four feet deep and in a circle about ten feet in 

 diameter. Seven of these trees were planted twenty-four feet apart; 

 here is your orange tree two feet below the hardpan. Now you plant 

 alfalfa between those trees and irrigate the alfalfa, which requires four 

 or five times as much water as the orange tree itself. Will not that 

 irrigation keep the roots of the orange trees so saturated that you need 

 not have to worry about irrigation? Now there is the case of Mr. H., 

 one of the best growers in the state, who is growing alfalfa, and has 

 been for five years, between almond trees, and I was notified to go 

 and see what was the matter with his trees, whether fungi was killing 

 them or what. So I went and made an examination and found that a 

 parasitic fiuigus was attacking them, but it acts to me like over- 

 irrigation on the alfalfa on these trees, but still the point is not fully 

 settled. Now it is hard for us to know whether we can grow alfalfa, 

 whether it is best for fertilizer, for cover crops, and if we can grow it 

 between our trees where soil has to be dynamited every four or five feet. 



Mr. Chapman. I think it will grow ; don't doubt but that it will. 



Mr. Chase. Without injuring the trees ? 



Mr. Chapman. Well, I wouldn 't put it in. 



Mr. Chase. Now there was a proposition of a hundred and sixty 

 acres of oranges, and I was asked about alfalfa for fertilizer, and I 



