130 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



IRRIGATION FOR SMALL FRUITS. 



(Read at the winter meeting, 1895, of the Southern Minnesota Horticultural Society.) 



It has become so cominon for a drj^ spell to occur soinetime iii the 

 life of our small fruits in this state, that the question of irrigation is 

 being- seriously considered. This question came up before me six 

 or seven j^ears ago, and I propose to tell you how I answered it. 

 After losing part of my strawberry crop every year by drying up, I 

 concluded to trj^ watering them. At first I hauled water on a wagon 

 from a lake half a mile distant and put it on with pails; but it was 

 slow and hard work, though it inade the berries grow larger and 

 better; finally I dug a well in the middle of my garden to have the 

 water near at hand, built a platform about eight feet high near the 

 well, put a kerosene barrel on the platform, and, with some old three- 

 quarter inch gas pipe and some troughs made of six inch fencing^ 

 the water, after being pumped into the barrel, was conducted to the 

 middle of the patch. We still carried the water in pails and poured 

 it on the row. It did very well and had the desired effect. This was 

 my first irrigation plant. 



But we never seem to be satisfied in this world, so the next year I 

 built a tower sixteen feet high over my well and put a tank that held 

 fifteen barrels on it. This was about eight feet higher than the 

 highest land on the place. Then I run a line of gas pipe from the 

 tank through the middle of the strawberry patch, each pipe being 

 about fifteen feet long, with a T coupling on every second pipe to 

 attach to at right angles to the main line, and with a three-fourths 

 inch rubber hose twenty feet long and a one-fourth inch nozzle I 

 was ready for business. It took some time to establish a system of 

 applj'ing the water, but we finally settled on the plan of putting two 

 lengths of pipe at right angles with the main line, then attaching 

 the hose, with which, being twenty feet long, we could water a square 

 of forty feet; then two more lengths of pipe and so on through the 

 patch, when we would have a piece watered forty feet wide across 

 half the patch. Then we move down the main line to the next T, 

 taking up the side line just used, and water another piece forty feet 

 wide across the patch, and so on vintil all on that side of the main 

 line was watered. Then we take the side line pipes and go over to 

 the other side of the main line and do as we did at first. One man 

 pumped and put on for me fifty barrels a day, or one acre in three 

 days. 



As to putting on the water after the hose is attached to the pipe, 

 coil it up so as to carry it on the left shoulder, and with the nozzle 

 in the right hand direct the stream onto the middle of the row, mov- 

 ing fast or slow according to the amount of water desired. As you 

 move away from the pipe, drop a coil of hose, and you will soon get 

 used to it. 



The berries should be well mulched with straw to keep the fruit 

 from getting dirty, and the water sinks down under the mulch and 

 does not dry out so soon. The results were very satisfactory; the 

 berries grew of large size and kept their size longer than usual. 

 When the first berries were picked, we found berries, blossoms and 



