68 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



stalls next to the side walls, so that the 

 refuse can be taken out by push carts pro- 

 vided for that purpose, or if desired, there 

 is sufficient width for a horse and cart to 

 pass in and out. 



The cost of the stable complete was 

 about $12,000, but as a portion of the 

 material was furnished by the Asylum 

 authorities, and a large amount of labor 

 was furnished by the patients, the exact 

 cost of the building cannot be ascertained. 

 For Public Institutions, where much of 

 the labor is furnished by the inmates, and 

 consequently costs little or nothing, the 

 construction particularly commends it- 

 self. 



The architect in charge of the construc- 

 tion of the barn was J. D. Sibley, of Mid- 

 dletown, Conn., who also designed nearly 

 all of the buildings at the Institution. 

 The steel work throughout was furnished 

 by The Berlin Iron Bridge Co., of East 

 Berlin, Conn. 



RECLAIM THE LAND. 



A. Barnett, of Kamona, San Diego Co,, 

 Cal. , writes as follows concerning his land : 



' 'I have about ten acres of land that I 

 flow above a dam on San Vicente Creek, 

 and as I draw the water off, I plant. This 

 year the first piece drained was planted to 

 Kaffer ; I cut one crop and another was 

 ready the first of October. The next piece 

 drained was planted to sweet corn which 

 as fed to cows and horses through the 



summer. It was a heavy crop. On July 

 12 I planted the next piece about three 

 acres to sweet corn, thick in drills three 

 feet apart ; ran the cultivator through it 

 twice and cut it Sept. 15. It was just 

 tasseled and had very little silk. I meas- 

 ured off one-sixteenth of an acre and the 

 crop from that, when well dried, weighed 

 650 pounds. This was a fair way to av- 

 erage the crop as it was very even. The 

 next piece was planted to potatoes and 

 turnips which did very well when the 

 weather became cooler. 



The past season has been the worst 

 ever known here; beets and some other 

 crops would not grow even with plenty of 

 water, the air was so dry and hot. The 

 land is not of the best ; it is on a sandy 

 bottom with a good deal of coarse sand 

 and gravel, but it is growing better every 

 year from the sediment deposited by the 

 water and will continue to bear good crops 

 every time for one hundred years without 

 manure. There is no alkali and no 

 gopher*. 



I write the above in the hope of calling 

 people's attention to this land, with the 

 view of having it reclaimed. I know of 

 hundreds of acres of such land, much of 

 which produces nothing but salt grass, 

 which might be reclaimed with much less 

 expense than mine was. One acre I have 

 for fish. 



