April, 1914 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST 



The Skinner System of Irrigation at Used at Several Places in Essex County, Ont. 



_a*l —Photo by W. E. J- Edwards. B.S.A. 



Winningstadt, Early Express and Glory 

 of Enkhuizen are good varieties. 



Corn should not be planted until the 

 soil is warm as the seed is apt to perish 



if the season is backward and wet. I 

 have tried several varieties and have 

 found the Malakoff and Squaw to be the 

 most suitable for the west. 



Irrigation and Its Practical Results 



I 



ONE of the most practical and in- 

 structive addresses delivered at the 

 convention of the Ontario Vege- 

 table Growers' Association in Toronto 

 last November was that of J. J. Davis, 

 of London, Ont. 



"In the course of a year," said Mr. 

 Davis, "we have a great variety of wea- 

 ther. I have never seen a season in 

 which there have not been periods that 

 I could use water very profitably. Of 

 course, there is a great difference in sea- 

 sons. Sometimes we get very nearly as 

 much rain as we want, but at other times 

 not nearly a sufficient supply. 



"Our business is in one way a great 

 deal more favored than that of some 

 thers. For instance, the milkman must 

 ot introduce water into his business, 

 ■and there are men behind prison bars 

 Sto-day for selling watered stock. But 

 |we can introduce water into our business 

 nd get a premium for doing so. 

 "The first time I started watering was 

 on a fine patch of pickling cucumbers. 

 fit was a very dry season, and I was 

 needing money. I had a well sixty feet 

 deep, and I pumped the water by hand, 

 raised it into a barrel, and drew it to the 

 cucumber patch. I got fifty feet of hose 

 to run it over something el.sc growing in 

 I he same patch. Athough this was a 

 very crude system the results were so 

 good that it opened my eyes to the value 

 of water, and I began to turn my at- 

 tention to a better system. 



"I got a windmill and tanks and did 

 some watering that way. After that I 

 purchased a gasoline engine. I laid 

 pipes out through the fields, and when 

 water was wanted I would start the 



engine and attach hose to the piping. 

 That worked pretty well. One can sup- 

 ply a lot of water in a day with that kind 

 of an outfit. The trouble, however, was 

 that it took a great deal of time to apply 

 the water. 



"A neighbor of mine had seen the 

 Skinner system in operation, and we got 

 our heads together and came to the con- 

 clusion that the Skinner system was 

 about the thing we needed. The advan- 

 tage that this system has over any other 

 that I have ever tried is that it applies 

 the water itself. The system is direct 

 lines of pipe and the water is applied 

 with pressure from an engine. All you 

 have to do is to start the engine, and 

 by simply sending a boy to oil the pump 

 it will run half a day without being 

 loked at. , 



"With the old system of watering I 

 found that as long as there was a cloud 

 in the sky a person would put off water- 

 ing in the hope that rain would come. 

 In a dry period every day that the crop 

 is going without water a certain amount 

 is lost. It takes so little time to start 

 the Skinner .system one does not depend 

 on the rain." 



Mr. Davis strongly advised any mem- 

 ber who was starting to irrigate to start 

 on a large enough scale. If a small plant 

 is put in on the start one cannot add to 

 it, but has to start right at the begin- 

 ning again, for usless you have suffi- 

 cient power it will not operate more than 

 a certain amount of piping. 



"A man who has never had any ex- 

 perience," continued Mr. Davis, "has 

 no idea how much water it takes to water 

 a small piece of ground. Some soils wil' 



take a great deal more than others. With 

 the outfit that I have I can apply about 

 two thousand seven hundred gallons an 

 hour. There is practically no water wast- 

 ed, and on account of having plenty of 

 water I very rarely have a poor crop. 

 If it wasn't for the water I would go out 

 of the gardening business and find some- 

 thing more profitable." , 



Mr. Davis was asked if he had founS 

 it necessary to put in more drains since 

 using this system. Mr. Davis replied 

 that he had not. The idea is not to fill 

 the soil full of water, but just to keep 

 things in good growing condition. 



Mr. J. Lockie Wilson asked what was 

 the cost of Mr. Davis' outfit and how 

 much land he could irrigate. 



Mr. Davis replied that as near as he 

 could figure it out, the full equipment 

 had cost him about one thousand dol- 

 lars, and that he had about four acres 

 of garden. 



Another member asked what widlth 

 apart the pipes were paced and how often 

 they had to be turned when watering. 

 The pipes were fifty feet apart, Mr. 

 Davis said, and a handle was arranged on 

 the pipe so that one could turn it one 

 way and it would throw water for twenty- 

 five feet, then gradually keep turning it 

 until a space of fifty feet was watered 

 with one pipe. 



The question was asked, "What time 

 of day is best to water?" to which Mr. 

 Davis replied that he considered four 

 o'clock in the afternoon the most satis- 

 factory. A member remarked that a 

 neighbor of his tried watering in the 

 morning and evening and found that 

 the crop that was watered in the evening 

 was nearly sixty per cent, better. This, 

 Mr. Davis said, was easily explained, 

 as the water applied in the evening would 

 have all night to evaporate. 



"What pressure do you use?" was an- 

 other question. Mr. Davis replied that 

 he had a five horse-power engine which 

 he runs for all it is worth. One can run 

 it with ten pound pressure or a seventy 

 or eighty pound pressure. 



Before leaving the platform, Mr. Davis 

 was asked if he was in the habit of keep- 

 ing an account of his receipts and ex- 

 penses for each year, to which Mr. Davis 

 replied: "The only book I have around 

 my hou.se is a bank book. It tells mc 

 at the end of the year how much money 

 I have." 



We should rotate cabbage and potatoes 

 because these are the most exhaustive 

 crops we grow. A ton of potatoes con- 

 tains about twelve pounds of potash, 

 four pounds of sulphuric acid, four 

 pounds of phosphoric acid, and one 

 pound of magnesia. We may replace 

 these substances by abundant manuring, 

 but if we follow a well-planned rotation 

 the amount of manure required will be 

 greatly reduced. 



