THE ART OF IRRIGATION. 



129 



the century for any one to tell us this. At 

 Santa F6 last summer I was shown a fine 

 young orchard of various trees about ten 

 feet apart, flooded but uncultivated, and 

 the trees in such shape that it could not 

 well be cultivated. 



' Very good for a young orchard," I 

 replied, when pressed for an opinion. 



" And what will be the matter with it 

 for an old orchard?" asked the owner, 

 with a touch of indignation. 



"You will wish the trees were so that 

 you can cultivate them," I replied. 



"Ha! ha! ha!" he sneered; " we have 

 to plant them close so as to shade the 

 ground in this hot sun." 



" We got over that in California fifteen 

 years ago," I answered. 



If the ground is well stirred and kept 

 stirred there is not sun enough or heat 

 enough in North America to rob the moist- 

 ure from the soil in seven months. Cali- 

 fornia proves this in thousands of places 

 every year. 



If ground is flooded and then left to 

 bake, as this was, there is not shade enough 

 in Erebus to keep the soil from drying out 

 in half the time it should dry out. 



But will you not get more fruit from 

 many trees close than from fewer ones 

 farther apart? 



g^When young yes; when old no, not 

 by several fold. And the percentage of 

 first grade will be very light. 



I was shown the old Chisum orchard at 

 Roswell, New Mexico, on the same trip. 

 It, too, was all uncultivated. It had a 

 very fine crop of apples, but it simply 

 proved that that part of New Mexico, like 

 many other new sections, will raise very 

 fine apples. In the course of a few years 

 those who continue to raise apples in that 



way will make considerably less money 

 than those who cultivate. It has been so 

 everywhere it has been tried, and with 

 every kind of fruit. There is no reason 

 why any section should be an exception. 

 It is as plain as can be that the soil needs 

 aerating as well as moistening. It is cer- 

 tain that good stirring will retain most all 

 the moisture until the roots take it out; it 

 is equally certain that it flies out rapidly 

 under a hot sun where it is not stirred, 

 and especially where it bakes to a hard 

 crust after flooding. Cultivation, there- 

 fore, saves that much water and keeps the 

 soil in a more uniform stage of moisture, 

 which is exactly what everything needs. 

 There is, therefore, no excuse but laziness 

 for neglecting it, and the man who tells 

 you it is not needed is not a benefactor, 

 but one of those smart fools who never 

 think about running to the patent office to 

 see if any one has been ahead of them 

 with their new discovery. 



Cultivation after irrigation needs a ma- 

 chine that stirs and pulverizes instead of 

 turning up the moisture, as a weed-killing 

 cultivator generally does. It wants teeth 

 instead of shovels, and plenty of them. 

 Disks pulverize well but do not stir enough. 

 Such a machine should be light and easily 

 handled, and made to turn easily without 

 injuring trees, and also easily raised or 

 lowered to run deep or shallow, as needed. 

 The Killefer cultivator, made at Los An- 

 geles, has been devised expressly to meet 

 this demand, and seems to do the work 

 better than any other. But almost any- 

 thing is better and quicker than a common 

 shovel cultivator, such as is made for kill- 

 ing weeds. The other will keep the weeds 

 out if used enough, while the shovel brings 

 up too much moisture and runs hard. 



