38 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Lands are irrigated once, twice and thrice in a season, depending 

 on conditions and locations. 



Grain is seldom irrigated until up, as the soil bakes quickly and, 

 unless it be hoed crops, it is impossible for cereals to force their 

 delicate shoots through the hard surface of the soil. 



For strawberries it is of prime importance. I have eaten matured 

 fruit from runners the same j^ear of their production, and instead 

 of waiting until August for the summer rains to develop runners, 

 they start on irrigated land in May. 



Blackberries, raspberries, currants and gooseberries attain com- 

 plete fruition only under the beneficent action of water. 



Apple trees will never root-kill when the soil is svisceptible of the 

 most perfect inundation in the inonths of October or November. 



Ditches for the conduct of water to be used for irrigation purposes 

 enjoy under western state laws the right of eminent domain. 



The practice of crossing gulches or ravines b}^ means of wooden 

 flumes is discouraged, and never practiced unless alsolutely im- 

 perative: iirst, it is much more expensive to manufacture and 

 maintain the flume than the longer ditch required to cross any 

 ordinary flume; and second, the season is so short in which it is 

 necessary to have water in irrigating ditches for ordinary grain 

 crops, (usually in the months of June or July) that the flumes when 

 dry shrink and warp, so that it is difficult to make them carry w^ater 

 after being once dried up. 



New ditches do not carry through them the same amount of water 

 as will the same ditch after water has passed through it for some 

 time. This is easy to explain; the seepage from the unsettled condi- 

 tion of the sides and bottom of ditch is necessarily great, until the 

 surface over which the water passes becomes coated or puddled 

 by the silt borne in the water. On extremely sand}' soil it might be 

 desirable to puddle the ditch with a strong solution. 



The ordinary fanner will pooh, pooh at the desirability of such 

 work, and will prefer to do business on the old plan of looking to 

 Providence for the rain that falls on the just and unjust. 



You that are engaged in horticultural pursuits, can well afford to 

 look into this matter, remembering that in casting about your farms 

 and nurseries for lands that can be watered, that each acre upon 

 which you can conduct water means four acres, as its production 

 is increased from two to three fold from irrigation; and, if this be 

 true, the acre that by the same labor doubles or tribles its jneld, is 

 as valuable as four times the land, cotisidering the material reduc- 

 tion in labor involved in the cultivation of four acres as compared 

 to that of one. 



As nearly as can be estimated after the ditches are once con- 

 structed, the cost per acre for applying the water will not exceed 

 one dollar per annuin. 



I venture the assertion that root-grafts, set into irrigable lands, 

 will start into 92 per cent.; that with the proper application of water 

 not a single graft will ever winter-kill, and that yearlings cut to the 

 ground in April will bj^ three irrigations and perfect cultivation 

 make a four or six foot tree in the second season's growth. 



So far as its effects on fruiting is concerned, I have personallj^ seen 

 01denl)urg trees, seven years set, that averaged one thousand 

 pounds to the tree of the choicest fruit. I have seen currants 

 and gooseberries that, at the rate of thirtj' cents per cjunrt, yielded 

 ifl,H()0 per acre; this, of course, at ten cents, the usual eastern price, 

 would amount to $433.f)() ]>er acre. 



Strawberrj' growers turn the water into their beds each night,and, 

 as a result, their last pickings are as fine as the first. 



Experiment slowly; try an acre or two, and see how it justifies, 

 and, thus, if you are not satisfied with the result, not much time or 

 money will have been expended in vain. 



