128 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



(These need more water than any other 

 trees) . 



Apricots, peaches and prunes, once or 

 twice before picking and once or twice 

 afterward. The once or twice depends 

 much upon the nature of the soil and the 

 ideas of the irrigator. It is the same with 

 pears and all other deciduous fruits. 



English walnuts, twice a year. 



Corn most of the corn in California is 

 grown without irrigation, but water three 

 times will double the crop and twice will 

 increase it immensely. If planted straight 

 both ways, as in the east, and well culti- 

 vated, two irrigations will more than dou- 

 ble the yield. It is the same with beans, 

 beets, potatoes, cabbage, peanuts, peas, 

 and a host of things. 



Alfalfa, once after each cutting. Some 

 irrigate just before cutting. This will vary 

 some with locality, but does not affect the 

 rule of once at each cutting. In some 

 places there are seven cuttings a year. 

 Four of these will mature in five weeks 

 from the last cutting; one more will take a 

 trifle longer, the rest considerably longer. 

 At two of these cuttings flooding is some- 

 times omitted, but seven times a year will 

 not be too much for alfalfa raised for 

 profit in the lands of warm winters. 



It will thus be seen that irrigation is 

 not a constant drenching of the soil, or 

 even an attempt to pour on water as often 

 as rain generally fhlls. It phould be at 

 each time what rain ought to be enough 

 to last until the roots have absorbed it. 

 The quantity should be so great that sur- 

 face evaporation and drainage beneath can 

 do their worst and still leave enough to 

 carry the plant for a period that, in the 

 lands dependent on rain, is generally con- 

 sidered a drouth. 



This assumes a thorough wetting of the 

 whole ground. Where less than the whole 

 is wet with basins or single furrows, there 

 is no possible way of getting reliable data. 

 But even then, two or three times a year 

 more should suffice if the work is well 

 done and the intermediate ground well 

 cultivated. 



LOW AVERAGE RAINFALL. 



Where the rainfall is but ten inches the 

 number of irrigations is generally increased 

 by two more for oranges and lemons and 

 one more for deciduous fruits. The latter 

 are sometimes watered twice more. Low- 

 ering the rainfall to five inches would not 



now make much difference, though if the 

 air is very dry it will probably pay to add 

 another dose of water. Reducing it to 

 nothing would make little difference, as a 

 five-inch rainfall for the year is practically 

 nothing. But still, another watering would 

 not hurt it. There is a difference between 

 what you can do and what there is no need 

 of doing that should be kept always in 

 mind, if you want to make money out of 

 the ground. Many give less than the 

 quantities above given, but where you 

 don't have to stint your vegetation don't 

 do it, for, everything else being equal, the 

 most money is steadily made by those who 

 use the most water. 



For berries, especially strawberries, and 

 vegetables that are worthless unless crisp 

 and succulent, no analogies like the above 

 are of much use. They need water very 

 often for the best results, but the soil and 

 the weather affect the question too much 

 to allow any rules. In hot weather, if the 

 water, top, is warm, it would be hard work 

 to injure strawberries with a light dose 

 every three days, while there seems no 

 limit to the amount radishes and cucum- 

 bers will take without injury. 



The practice of irrigators, however, is 

 not always a sure guide. It will undoubt- 

 edly pay to irrigate the olive well. I have 

 seen it treated like the orange with stu- 

 pendous results, but hardly anyone does 

 so because it is so tough and does so much 

 without water that it is generally left to 

 shift for itself. The number of times a 

 year that anything needs water will also 

 depend somewhat on the position of the 

 roots. If you keep a sprinkler running all 

 the time on a lawn you train the roots so 

 near the top that they need water almost 

 constantly in hot weather. But if wet by 

 the running of small streams a long time, 

 or by good flooding, so that the water soaks 

 in deep, the lawn will not need one-fourth 

 of what it needs from the sprinkler, and 

 the roots will follow the receding moisture 

 until the grass will soon go two or three 

 weeks in the driest weather with no sign of 

 suffering. Where water is short it is well 

 to train everything in this way; butwhere 

 water is plenty almost everything does 

 better with the roots in the top soil where 

 it is richer and warmer and more accessi- 

 ble to air. 



I considered cultivation quite fully in 

 Chapter V. Allow no one to inform you it 

 is not necessary. It is entirely too late in 



