DIVERSIFIED FARM. 



245 



C APACITIES OF WINDMILLS AND PUMPS. 



Sizes of irrigation mills and pumps best adapted for each 

 other to work successfully under ordinary conditions. 



An Object Lesson. Two days after 

 irrigating my acre patch of strawberries 

 the other day I started my Mexican boy 

 in with a wheel hoe to cultivate the soil. 

 After doing about half an acre, which 

 took him some six hours, he remarked to 

 me in his native tongue, " Patron, it seems 

 to me that this stirring of the soil will 

 make it dry out much faster than if left 

 alone." "I don't think so, JoseV' I re- 

 plied; "you hoe your chili after each 

 irrigation. Why do you do it?" "Be- 

 cause it won't grow thriftily unless we 

 keep the soil around continually hoed," 

 he explained. "Yes, "I replied, "it is 

 because the loosening of the top soil pre- 

 serves the moisture and lets in the air to 1 

 the roots." To-day, nine days after the 

 last irrigation, I took my Mexican to a 

 patch of ground that had been left un- 

 hoed, and he was obliged to admit that at 

 a depth of three inches it was much drier 

 than the land he had hoed. To-morrow 

 we irrigate the strawberries again, and 

 when the Mexican hoes them, he will have 

 the satisfaction of feeling that at any rate 

 it is not labor lost. F. C. Barker. 



Estimates made on data taken from the U. S. Signal 

 Station at North Platte, Neb. Least working power 

 of wind estimated at 15 miles per hour. 



Antidotes for Alkali. There are anti- 

 dotes for all the different forms of alkali. 

 The neutral alkali salts, common salt, 

 Glauber's salt, sulphate of potassium, 

 etc., are only injurious when present in 

 large quantities, and must be washed or 

 drained from the soil. There are but few 

 localities where there are such quantities 

 as here. The soluble earthy and metallic 

 sulphates and chlorides, such as Epsom 

 salts, bittern, chloride of calcium, alum, 

 copperas, etc., find their antidote in lime, 

 says a writer from New Mexico. Alkaline 

 carbonates and borates, which are the most 

 injurious, rendering the soil-water caustic 

 and corrosive, find their antidotes in gyp- 

 sum or land plaster. 



The experience on my own land, where 

 I am cultivating purposely the greatest 

 variety of plants, shows that there will be 

 practically little trouble in overcoming all 

 difficulty from alkali. In fact there is 

 scarcely a thing we have planted where it 

 has been properly irrigated, which has not 

 made satisfactory growth. If we find an 

 exception it is almost invariably because 

 water has been permitted to stand around 

 the plant for lack of proper drainage, or 

 in places where too much water has settled 

 during irrigation, and this has been quickly 

 remedied by providing the drainage. 



