114 



THE IRRIGATION AGE: 



vestment has paid for itself the first year. 



I ought to mention that I have a driven 

 well, with a four-aud-a-half inch Cook's 

 strainer for a point, and as it gets into 

 quicksand or coarse gravel the water flows 

 in very freely. Indeed, I believe it is 

 nearly if not quite equal to an open well, 

 for the pump lifts about the same amount 

 of water that the manufacturers claim it 

 should lift in an open well, which would 

 be too costly here, owing to the quicksands. 



So far as I am able to form an opinion, 

 I am inclined to think that where more 

 than small gardens of one or two acres are 

 to be irrigated, a gasoline engine would, 

 on the whole, prove more satisfactory than 

 a windmill. It is true that the running 

 expenses would be greater, but the initial 

 cost would be less. Moreover, after the 

 first forty-eight hours run, one is able to 

 form a pretty accurate estimate of the 

 amount of land that it will be safe to put 

 under crops, whereas, with a windmill, one 

 has a very uncertain element to contend 

 \vith, necessitating a much larger reservoir 

 so as to provide against calm weather. 



CALIFORNIA'S ORCHARDS. 



BY W. C. FITZSIMMONS. 



FROM the different county assessors 

 returns the following figures of or- 

 chard trees in California are taken and may 

 be regarded as wholly reliable. In two 

 counties, Yolo and Sierra, the number of 

 non-bearing trees does not appear in the 

 assessors' report, but leaving those out 

 the number of bearing fruit trees in the 

 state is found to be 15,170,563. and those 

 not yet of bearing age, 14,487,869; making 

 a grand total of 29,658,432 fruit tiees in 

 the orchards of California on the first day 

 of March of the present year. By adding 

 to the list of non-bearing trees the prob- 

 able number in Sierra and Yolo, the total 

 list of trees would be swelled to a round 

 thirty million at least, and that figure may 

 be taken as the official enumeration of the 

 fruit trees now growing in the orchards of 

 this state. The banner county is Santa 

 Clara, whose principal town is San Jose, 

 sixty miles from San Francisco. This 

 county has 2,631,745 bearing fruit trees 

 and 1,933,804 not yet bearing. Of these 

 1,651,167 are bearing prune trees and 

 1,456,967 non-bearing prune trees. This 

 regal county also has 539,6 12 apricot trees 



and 522,776 peach trees. The cherry 

 trees number 159,263, the pear trees 142, 

 779 and the lemon trees 1,354. 



Los Angeles county stands second on 

 the list with 734,675 bearing, and 1,911,- 

 030 non-bearing fruit trees. The princi- 

 pal factors in this vast aggregate are as 

 follows: orange trees. 751f,575; lemon, 

 287,715; prune, 346,595; olive, 252,940; 

 apricot 227,410; almond, 172,850; walnut, 

 140,675; peach, 315,400; apple, 77,380. 



Riverside county ranks third in the num- 

 ber of its fruit trees, the total being 1,855,- 

 902, of which 841,132 are orange, and 

 133,772 lemon trees. The apple, apricot, 

 peach, cherry, fig, olive, prune, plum, al- 

 mond and walnut are also well represented 

 in Riverside county, the planting of these 

 varieties having increased greatly during 

 the past three years. 



San Bernardino county follows close to 

 Riverside with 1,753,720 fruit trees, of 

 which 1,001,410 are orange and 41,000 

 lemon trees. 



San Diego county has most lemon trees, 

 that being a favorite product of the south- 

 ernmost county in the state. The total 

 number of fruit trees in that county is 

 1,235,076 of which 375.372 are lemon trees. 



One of the remarkable features of the 

 assessors reports referred to above, is the 

 fact that Butte county has 160,430 orange 

 and 1,930 lemon trees, all growing and 

 most of them bearing fruit within a few 

 miles of the eternal snows of the Sierra 

 Nevada mountains, and five hundred miles 

 north of the smiling citrus orchards of 

 sunny San Diego. In fact the unpoetical 

 figures of the county assessors but serve 

 to strengthen the conviction that the state 

 of California, with its infinite variety of 

 soil, climate and conditions, is soon des- 

 tined to be recognized as the world's great 

 fruit orchard. 



MarJceting. Common sense and good 

 judgment must be brought into full play 

 in marketing your products, of whatever 

 kind. The profits are all found, if there 

 are any, in the last dollars you receive as 

 the price ranges from low to high. 



Leave the irrigating ditch in good order 

 when you shut off the water and it will 

 save you needless worry and trouble when 

 you turn the water in next time. 



