THE ART OF IRRIGATION. 



249 



planted nearly all his corn, melons, beans, peas, 

 potatoes, egg plants, and all valuable stuff in long 

 rows, while spinach, beets, lettuce, radishes, beets, to 

 be used as greens, and simular stuff, he planted in 

 checks helter skelter. But however planted in the 

 checks he generally weeded them out for sale as they 

 grew, leaving the rest so that they could be culti- 

 vated. And where it was just as convenient to keep 

 the water off the stem entirely the Chinaman did so 

 with everything. 



This was probably the first the American heard of 

 this principle, for the native irrigators of California 

 seem never to have applied it and probably never 

 knew it. Afterward, in its application to trees, like 

 the orange and lemon especially, the American found 

 it of far more importance than even the Chinaman 

 had suspected. There are cases where it must of 

 course be ignored, as in irrigating grain after it is up. 

 But the principle holds good even here. If not 

 irrigated too often the grain may do well in spite of 

 it; but it would do still better if the water could be 

 kept away from the stalk entirely. 



When the Chinaman irrigated with furrows the 

 white man learned still another lesson. He found 

 that it did not need a raging torrent to soak land, but 

 that a small rivulet running clear or nearly so and 

 running a longer time was much better. Though 

 the Chinaman did not know the full extent of this 

 principle, and has hardly learned it yet, he was a 

 long way ahead of the age when he came here. For 

 the first time the American saw the furrows made 

 straight, tolerably smooth and even inside, and with 

 some approach to an even grade. The water flowed 

 through them at about the same speed in all parts. 

 It formed no swamp here and left no dry ridges 

 there. It was either clear or so nearly so that it did 

 not puddle its channel much with sediment as it went 

 along, and thus stop the soaking sidewise and down- 

 ward. 



The furrows were made, too, with some reference 

 to the size and age of the stuff to be irrigated. The 

 Chinaman did not fire as big a volley of water down 

 between two rows of springing beans as he did among 

 some tough old blackberry bushes; he sent, rather, a 

 small creeping stream, a little distinction that the 

 American had thus far not thought of. The furrows, 

 too, were laid out on such a grade that the velocity of 

 the water was low, and there was no cutting or tearing 

 of the furrows; and they were made with such care 

 that there was little or no breaking from one into the 

 other when he had turned the water from the main 

 ditch or feeder at the upper side of the field into the 

 numerous small furrows that carried the water among 

 the plants. He did not lean over the fence and talk 

 finance with some neighboring granger, but with bare 

 legs and hoe in hand he watched the small streams 



and regulated their flow out of the main ditch so that 

 one was not too small and the next one too big. This 

 is now done much better than he did it, for he never 

 thought of any connection between the two but earth, 

 which is very hard to keep in place under running 

 water. But up to the coming of the heathen anything 

 like a regular feed from the mains into the laterals 

 was unthought of. 



I dislike exceedingly to insinuate that my country- 

 man did not know anything about irrigation, but 

 there is strong ground to fear that he had no idea of 

 the utility or necessity of cultivation combined with 

 the use of water until the Chinaman and the Italian 

 taught him. This was certainly so in California. The 

 Mexicans have no idea of it, and it is likely that 

 what is known of it in the interior of our country was 

 largely acquired by way of this coast. 



It is not many years since it was a well established 

 principle with many that cultivation made the ground 

 dry out more quickly. It certainly dried more 

 quickly at the surface, especially when the wind was 

 blowing. I well remember hearing farmers back East 

 when I was a boy contending that plowing the ground 

 made it dry out quicker because it let the air in. It 

 is now well known that cultivating the surface to a 

 certain depth checks the capillary attraction by which 

 the water from the soil is brought to the surface and 

 evaporated. It acts the same as a mulch of saw- 

 dust or tan bark and retains moisture for weeks and 

 even months after uncultivated ground beside it is 

 perfectly dry. 



But in the early irrigation of the United States this 

 principle was little known and still less cared for. 

 The old-time remedy, more water, was at hand and 

 was much easier. Still less was known of the impor- 

 tance of aerating the ground. The consequence was 

 that almost everywhere it was left as hard as a brick 

 exept where it was scratched up to admit the seed. 



But the Chinaman and Italian knew better than 

 this, though they did not know the full importance of 

 the principle, and never carried it as far as it has 

 since been carried by their pupils. As soon as the 

 ground was dry enongh to allow it to be stirred with- 

 out making clods they broke it up. On a small scale 

 they did this with a hoe, or a narrow rake, or some 

 sort of a digging implement, and on a larger scale 

 they used a small plow or the cultivator that the white 

 man kept for sale but never used. Sometimes he did 

 not cultivate at all but planted the seed in rows 

 ridged up so high that the water could not possibly 

 reach the stalk of the plant. The water ran in a nar- 

 row furrow between two broad high ridges and soaked 

 upward as well as sidewise. This kind of work may 

 still be seen and works fairly well for some things. If 

 the furrows be filled with straw or some kind of a 

 mulch it is better, but it was never as good for any- 



