IRRIGATION. 65 
GARDEN IRRIGATION BY RAM AND TANK. 
G. H. POND, BLOOMINGTON. 
Before commencing upon my subject, I will say that my experi- 
ence in this line has been on quite a small scale; and, also, that of 
the many questions that arise, I must answer to the majority of 
them, “I don’t know.” 
I think Iam not making too strong a statement when I say that 
every gardener and fruit grower in this state will agree that nearly 
every year there is a time of drouth, when judicious irrigation would 
be a great benefit. But the question often asked me, and which I 
suppose will be of the most interest here today is, “ Will it pay me 
to go to the expense of irrigating my garden?” 
Now, in considering the subject with a view of answering this 
question, I will give some of my experience; especially some of the 
reasons I[ have found why it may not pay to irrigate. 
My garden is on the brow of the bluff overlooking the Minnesota 
river and is quite sandy. Things always grow finely in the spring 
there, but nearly always dry up bodily in mid-summer. Six years 
ago last August, I got so tired of having my garden dry up, that I 
put a hydraulic ram in a spring a quarter of a mile away, and 
brought the water up to a forty-barrel tank, elevated ten feet above 
the highest ground in the garden, the cost of the entire outfit being 
about $100. The ram has to raise the water one hundred and ten 
feet, and it takes one and a half days to fill the tank. 
Since then I have watered the garden with varying success, never 
feeling sure I was paid in dollars and cents, until the past summer, 
when I am certain I got back all I had invested in it. 
One-fourth of an acre of strawberries and about one-thirtieth of an 
acre of tomatoes was all I watered. My receipts from the strawber- 
ries were $120 and from the tomatoes $14, making a total of $134, all 
of which I will have to credit to the water; as it is certain I would 
have had nothing without it. 
Now, where the trouble lies is in applying the water. I have tried 
holding the hose in the hand, with a spraying nozzle, fastening the 
nozzle and moving it frequently as we see done on the yards in the 
city; and, lastly, attaching the hose to a half inch pipe fifty feet 
long, having leaks punched at intervals of six inches. The pipe is 
laid on the row to be watered, the leaks being just sufficient to keep 
the ground soaking wet along the row, and moved about every 
fifteen minutes. 
Any way I have tried requires a good deal of time, the last taking 
much less than the others, besides using the water more economic- 
ally. Now the time spent applying the water would never be lost, 
if we could only know when it is going to rain. Often I have 
thought it was about to rain and have neglected to water, only to 
find the clouds vanish away and the strawberries wilting; and on 
the other hand, I have many times spent considerable part of a day 
watering, and then at night we have had a good rain, making un- 
watered gardens fully equal to mine. I will say though, that last 
summer [ was not troubled that way. 
