WHAT TO GROW ON THE IRRIGATED 

 FARM. 



BY F. 0. BARKER, OF NEW MEXICO. 



WHAT is the best thing to grow? is 

 a question often asked, but very 

 seldom satisfactorily answered. The usual 

 advice is to grow what there is most money 

 in. Sometimes there is a rage for peaches, 

 at other times for alfalfa, with the usual 

 result, that whatever crop is popularly 

 believed to be the most profitable, is 

 usually overdone and the markets glutted 

 with an over-supply. 



If a man is a working farmer, and 

 understands his business, I believe there 

 is always most money in raising what is 

 consumed in the family, and herein lies 

 the first advantage of having a farm under 

 irrigation. It will always insure food for 

 the farmer's family however small the 

 farm be. 



The first consideration, therefore, should 

 be to see that the family is supplied with 

 flour, fruit and vegetables. Wheat may 

 not be profitable as a market crop, if 

 grown on a small scale, but better raise it 

 yourself than pay some one else to do it 

 for you. Besides you probably save 

 freight or hauling and the profits of two 

 or three merchants. The same may be 

 said of corn, which has the advantage of 

 being raised the same year after wheat in 

 many irrigated countries of the South. 

 The fodder will also make very useful 

 feed for stock if a corresponding propor- 

 tion of alfalfa is fed with it. 



Alfalfa is a crop that should never be 

 omitted on an irrigated farm. It will 

 supply more food for hogs, cows, horses 

 and poultry to the acre than anything I 

 know of, and is a sure cropper with plenty 

 of water. 



With the crops already mentioned a 

 farmer should insure a regular supply of 

 eggs, milk, butter, poultry and bacon, and 

 have something left over to sell. 



But I am aware that this advice, al- 

 though perfectly sound, will not satisfy 

 the average farmer, who is always hanker- 

 ing after something that there is money in. 



Well, on this point I think it good policy to 

 grow that which cannot be successfully 

 grown without irrigation. In my experience 

 those are the crops which usually pay the 

 best in the long run. This is what makes 

 alfalfa such a paying crop. On no other 

 food can bacon and milk be so cheaply 

 raised, and if it were not for the fact that 

 it cannot be grown without irrigation, no 

 farm in the world would be without its 

 alfalfa field. 



Celery and strawberries are two other 

 cheap crops which, except in a few favored 

 localities, do much better with irrigation 

 than without. Several strawberry growers 

 in the East have made up their minds 

 that, even where the rainfall is excessive, 

 artificial irrigation is necessary to insure 

 regular crops and they are putting up 

 windmills and other devices for pumping 

 water. I believe the day is not distant, 

 when very few strawberry growers will risk 

 the loss of their crops by droughts, and they 

 must necessarily go to a great expense if 

 they have to pump the water. This ex- 

 pense is saved on the farm furnished with 

 water from a canal. A good principle to 

 follow in business is always to stick to 

 some line in which you have special ad- 

 vantages. Don't do what every fool can 

 do. Do not be led away with the idea 

 that there is a fortune in lemons, or in 

 almonds, or in olives. The natural law 

 of supply and demand tends to reduce the 

 profits on all crops to a level, and what 

 to-day looks the most profitable, will to- 

 morrow be the most unprofitable. But 

 grow what you are best situated and fitted 

 for and you will hardly ever make a mis- 

 take. 



ONE HUNDRED AND FOUR BUSHELS 

 OF CORN PER ACRE. 



[F. D. Coburn, Secretary of Kansas Department of 

 Agriculture, furnishes the following timely article.] 



MR. J. A. BAXTER, of Waveland, 

 Shawnee County, Kansas,who raised 

 as high as 104 bushels of shelled corn per 

 acre in 1895, furnishes the State Board 

 of Agriculture the following account of it, 



242 



