THE ART OF IRRIGATION. 



119 



fused to soak far enough to the sides to be 

 of any use for anything unless planted al- 

 most on the ditch. A tree could have 

 stood within two feet of it and got no 

 water until it sent roots to it and then 

 would get only drink, the ground remain- 

 ing too dry to enable it to feed. Quick 

 flooding is about the only way to handle 

 such ground. 



A NEW JERSEY INSTANCE. 



My first experiment with irrigation was 

 in New Jersey, in 1856, at the age of four- 

 teen. There was a very dry spell and we 

 had in the garden a new variety of sweet 

 corn, to which I was very much attached 

 and I tried to save it. The gardener and 

 my father both told me it was no use to 

 try to water it, but I went at it with a 

 pail and packed water from the well for 

 nearly half a day and poured it down the 

 rows. Then the hired man started in to 

 help me and we gave it what seemed a 

 good wetting. The result was a practical 

 failure, though there was more corn than 

 there would have been had we not watered 

 it. Looking at the same ground years 

 after it was easy to see what was the mat- 

 ter. It was a loose red shale soil lying 

 upon fissured rock. This rock was thor- 

 oughly dry, for we did not begin to water 

 until all hope of rain, enough to save the 

 corn, was past. The water dropped 

 through the loose texture of the soil and 

 the fissures of the bed rock drank it up as 

 fast as we could pour it in. The quantity 



DISTRIBUTING FLUME FOR FUKKOWS. 



that seemed so great to us because pumped 

 from a deep well and packed some fifty 

 yards by hand was really but a trifle com- 

 pared with the needs of the soil. Assum- 

 ing that we carried five gallons a trip with 

 two pails from the pump to the patch, and 

 made thirty trips an hour for five 

 hours, which is more than we did, we 

 put on 750 gallons. This is a trifle 

 more than one-eighteenth of an inch 

 for twenty-four hours, or one-ninth for 

 twelve hours, or one- fourth for about 

 five hours. It was not possible for 

 the water to soak sideways and upward 

 until the crevices in the rock had been 

 either filled or the bottom of the furrows 

 puddled so as to stop the downward flow. 

 The short dashing doses that we inflicted 

 upon the suffering patch had no such ef- 

 fect. The ground either needed flooding 

 or a long run of streams of a third to 

 half an inch and perhaps more. While 

 we made lots of fuss, mud, and slush, the 

 roots of the corn, which were not trained 

 near the center of the furrows, but went 

 straight down, got little of the moisture. 

 Add the fact that the corn was twisted all 

 night after it was in tassel, while the water 

 from the deep well was very cold, and it is 

 easy to see the cause of failure. Many 

 would conclude from this that irrigation 

 in New Jersey was a failure. On the 

 contrary, few States need it more or would 

 show much better results where warm 

 muddy water from the streams could be 

 economically brought upon the soil- I 

 saw this tried in 1893 in a garden at 

 Mont Clair, and showed a friend's gardener 

 how to run small streams. The season 

 ruined all the neighboring gardens, but 

 this one was loaded with produce, of a 

 better quality and earlier than they had 

 ever before seen. The bearing season for 

 beans, melons, and some other things, was 

 extended fully two weeks by it. 



(To be Continued.) 



NOTE TO CHAPTER X. 



[There is no objection to any paper copying any part 

 of this that will be of use to its locality, provided due 

 credit is given THE IRRIGATION AGE and not more than 

 two chapters published consecutively so as to interfere 

 with the sale of the work in book form. 



If anyone doubts the efficacy of printed precepts in a 

 practical matter like this, let him write to any of the old 

 settlers of Cliula Vista, in San Diego County, California, 

 and ask what was the effect of a lecture given the settlers 

 by the author, at the schoolhouse there in June, 1889. 

 Ask if they did not at once reverse their entire methods 

 of irrigation and it they do not attribute to that change 

 the great success they have achieved.] 



