THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



29 



with a thin top soil it is best to crown 

 the rows of trees a little, scrape away 

 the top soil and spread out the roots of 

 the trees and never make a hole in it, 

 heap the top soil around it and do not 

 let the water come near the tree. In sum- 

 mer, irrigate the intermediate space. 

 In winter you may W 7 et it anyw r here .if 

 the trees are dormant but in summer be 

 careful. With good winter irrigation 

 and cultivation the roots spread out to 

 the moisture and burrow in to the clay 

 in such a way that the tree will not be 

 hurt. 



Many have an idea that on very 

 gravelly ground you must water very 

 often and some keep large streams run- 

 ning nearly all the time. Some say you 

 have to run large streams to soak it at 

 all. while others will say that it can't be 

 flooded at all and still others will aver 

 that you cannot irrigate it in any way. 

 Pure nonsense all of it. I must repeat 

 there is no soil that cannot be irrigated. 

 Anything with enough fine material to 

 be worth planting can be irrigated with- 

 out running water one-quarter the num- 

 ber of times supposed necessary by 

 verdancy. Any soil that will hold water 

 in the ditches necessary to get the water 

 up to it will hold it 1 ong enough to 

 flood. If it will not, it is not worth 



working for any purpose. As a rule all 

 you have to do is to make the checks 

 small enough and the irrigating head 

 large enough. If the head is too small 

 in proportion to the size of the check 

 you will of course come to grief and 

 find most of the water gone before the 

 whole bottom of the check is covered. 

 But if the head is' large enough and the 

 check small enough this cannot happen 

 unless your soil is a nest of cobble 

 stones with no fine material between. 

 A head of one hundred inches or iwo 

 cubic feet a second will cover about 

 twenty-two feet square three inches 

 deep in one minute. You will find no 

 soil worth anything that will take one- 

 half an inch in depth in that time. If 

 you should find it still too porous, yet can 

 use it for anything, make the checks 

 still smaller or the head still larger. 

 But nothing that you can do will be as 

 bad as keeping a stream running all the 

 time. You might better cut the checks 

 to ten or even five feet square if you 

 cannot get a large enough head for 

 twenty-foot checks. And sometimes 

 you may do the same thing with furrows 

 by making the streams larger, but in 

 some way or another you can irrigate 

 every kind of land no matter what its- 

 shape or quality. 



To be concluded in our next issue. 



YOUNG ORANGE TREES IN A NURSERY. 



