THE DIVERSIFIED FARM. 



131 



two years in his peach orchard. The water 

 was pumped from a river by means of a 

 steam pnmp, 400 gallons per minute being 

 distributed. Mr. Williams obtained a 

 marked gain in the growth of his peach 

 trees from the use of water, while the 

 strawberries, corn and potatoes grown be- 

 tween the rows were greatly benefited. 

 He is well pleased with the result. 



S. D. Willard, of Geneva, New York, 

 spoke upon the past, present and future of 

 fruit growing, claiming that horticulture 

 had decided advantages over agriculture 

 proper, and that this is likely to remain so 

 for many years to come. He advised care- 

 ful study of the merits of different varie- 

 ties, thorough cultivation, spraying and 

 manuring. 



MINNESOTA CONVERTED. 



DURING the recent meeting of the 

 Minnesota State Horticultural So- 

 ciety, the great advantages of irrigation 

 were acknowledged and advocated. In the 

 Minnesota Horticulturist published by the 

 Horticultural Society, appears the follow- 

 ing, taken from the Minnesota Weather 

 and Crop Review: 



"Tile draining, subsoil plowing and irri- 

 gation are three conditions of good farm- 

 ing that the tillers of the soil in this State 

 must learn to appreciate. The benefits of 

 their adoption have been so universal that 

 the intelligent cultivator must acquaint 

 himself with them. When he has done so, 

 he will not be slow to adopt them. The 

 subject of irrigation is an old one, dating 

 back 2,000 B. C. It is also a large one; 

 whole volumes having been written on it. 

 The simple fact is that seventy to ninety- 

 five per cent of a growing plant is water. 

 and that the solid portion of it can enter 

 into it only in a soluble state. Hence, the 

 first great need of all vegetation is water, 

 the second is water and the third is more 

 water. If this is not supplied naturally, it 

 must be artificially. Nature has done her 

 part well in Minnesota in that about sev- 

 enty per cent of the total rainfall comes 

 when most needed, during the growing 

 season from April to September. The 

 average precipitation during that time is 

 twenty inches, fully seventy-five per cent, 

 or fifteen inches, of which runs off and is 

 evaporated, leaving only five inches avail- 

 able for plant life. You will see that this 



amount is entirely too little, as twelve 

 inches are required to carry a full crop from 

 germination to maturity. As some practi- 

 cal results of irrigation, the writer has seen 

 five crops of alfalfa "under the ditch " cut 

 in one season, averaging two tons to a cut- 

 ting; thirty-five bushels of wheat per acre 

 from soil that had but one thorough wet- 

 ting and no fertilizer; while in England 

 sixty-five bushels per acre is a common 

 yield from irrigated soil. 



" Admitting the need of an artificial 

 supply, the question arises, How large a 

 stream will answer a given purpose? A 

 stream one inch square flowing at the rate 

 of four miles an hour will cover an acre 

 one inch deep in twenty-four hours. Ex- 

 pressed in gallons, it is 27,245." 



YIELDS OF CORN AND KAFFIR 

 CORN COMPARED. 



F. D. Coburn, Secretary Kansas De- 

 partment of Agriculture, says: As the 

 sorghums, and more especially the non- 

 saccharine sorts, are attracting wide atten- 

 tion now the fact that Kansas is having a 

 larger experience with them than any other 

 State (232,498 acres in 1895, and likely 

 to be doubled in 1896), brings innumerable 

 requests from all points of the compass for 

 information as to their characteristics, 

 growth, uses and values compared with 

 those of other crops raised for similar pur- 

 poses. 



The foremost of these sorghums in pop- 

 ular esteem appear to be the red and white 

 Kaffir corn. For seven years, beginning with 

 1889, the Kansas Experiment Station, at 

 Manhattan, has grown Indian corn and 

 red Kaffir corn side by side for the pur- 

 pose of testing their comparative yields of 

 both fodder and grain. The following 

 table, compiled by Mr. F. C. Burtisofthe 

 station, who has had an oversight of the 

 work, shows an annual yield of each: 



_ s,* 55.01 4.71 

 * Average of six years. 



x39.12 2.41 



