THE ART OF IRRIGATION. 



107 



way plant those things and leave the rais- 

 ing of more delicate stuff to those more 

 fortunate in water supply. 



LIMITED IKRIGATION METHODS. 



Irrigation of this limited form is very 

 simple. The commonest form is limited 

 flooding by means of basins. Some make 

 them square, some oblong, some round, 

 the shape often varying to the slope of 

 ground. The size varies according to the 

 age of the tree or vine and the water sup- 

 ply and the way of delivering it. In some 

 places the area thus wet is nearly one-half 

 the whole ground, in others not a tenth. 

 Where you have a head of several inches 

 of water you may make them large, but if 

 you try to till large basins with a small 

 head you will wish you had sublet the 

 job. It will be still worse if you are using 

 a water cart or barrel on a sled, a method 

 you had better always avoid, though there 

 are times and places where it will pay 

 very well to help out something. I have 

 many a time seen an orchard in the east 

 where the crop was a total failure but 

 could have been made quite profitable by 

 a few dayh' work with the sled and barrel 

 at the right time. But instead of relying 

 on such things you will do better to go 

 where you don't need them. 



It is best to feed these basins from a 

 furrow running along the upper side and 

 so arranged that when one is full the 

 water will pass to the next. Otherwise 

 you may injure your ribs leaning on your 

 hoe too much. Grading of the ground is 

 not so essential with this method as with 

 the others, and basins are often used be- 

 cause ground is too rough grade for the 

 other methods, yet not valuable enough to 

 terrace. But it is quite important to have 

 the water flow at uniform rate on every 

 line it is to flow on at all, and if not con- 

 venient to arrange the ground to have it 

 so, then plant the trees on such lines of 

 regular flowage as may be natural. Other- 

 wise you will be troubled with the water 

 cutting out and running down hill, and if 

 you don't have it so it will flow on to the 

 next when one basin is filled and it may 

 break the lower side of the basin and cause 

 you more trouble. 



As in other flooding, the water should 

 not stand too deep or too long in basins. 

 It is better to repeat oftener than to try 

 to force in so much at a time as to make 

 a mud-puddle of it. Use care, too, to keep 



the bottom of it as near level as possible 

 so that the water shall be of nearly uni- 

 form depth over the whole. And leave a 

 mound of earth about the tree so that the 

 water shall not touch the trunk. Even if 

 you are not irrigating enough to hurt it, 

 there is no excuse for it and it is bad in 

 principle. 



Your water supply may be so limited 

 either in quantity or mode of delivery that 

 you cannot even afford to flood in this 

 limited way. Suppose you have a stream 

 of only a single inch or half an inch, but 

 can have it all the time or most of the 

 time. I am in much this situation my- 

 self. Living just over the city line, I am 

 dependent on a neighbor's windmill with 

 several others. The pipes are so small that 

 if I run much over quarter of an inch at a 

 time I take the head off the pipes so that 

 my neighbors can get no water. I have 

 some trees that bear very tine fruit, and 

 like to play with them. I have therefore 

 to utilize every drop of the water, and can 

 spare none for mud to bake in the bottom 

 of a basin. I therefore make a ring about 

 six inches deep about a foot and a half 

 from the trunk of a tree. Two or three 

 feet from this, according to the size of the 

 tree, the amount of fruit on it and what I 

 want it to do, I make another ring sur- 

 rounding the first. The two are then con- 

 nected with two or three cross cuts. Into 

 this I run a connection from the next tree 

 by a small furrow; I then start with about 

 one-third of an inch of water, just enough 

 to run over the first furrows and rings and 

 get into those of the next tree without 

 puddling the ground in the first ones. 

 When it has passed on to the last tree I 

 then turn it down to a point that I think 

 my neighbors will stand, and let it run 

 several hours or as long as the tank will 

 stand that time. After the water is turned 

 off, if I happen to be too lazy to cultivate 

 I don't say that I am I can hoe back the 

 loose dry earth into the furrows and make 

 a fair mulch of it. . 



In this way I get the largest results 

 from the smallest amount of water, as it 

 runs clear and makes no mud and does 

 not break away. If I had a good windmill 

 and tank of my own I could manage an 

 orchard of five acres in anything but 

 oranges, which need better treatment for 

 good yields, and raise large crops of good 

 marketable fruit. But this is on ground 

 and under a rainfall that will in most all 



