ECONOMY IN THE USE OF WATER. 



A bulletin issued by the Agricultural Experiment Station of the 

 University of California, gives the results of a series of experiments 

 to determine the limits of endurance of drought on the part of the 

 several crop plants. "Alongside of economy in the use of irrigation 

 water, the conservation of the moisture imparted to the soil either by 

 rains or irrigation Is most important/' says the writer; "critically so 

 when irrigation is available." 



Utilization of winter rains, and winter irrigation. However strong 

 is the popular demand for storage of the winter rainfall and flood 

 waters, too many do not appreciate the importance of the storage they 

 can command without the use of reservoirs, within their own soil mass 

 While there is a well-grounded objection to subjecting plowed land to 

 the leaching action of the abundant rains in the humid region, no such 

 objection holds in the case of lands lying within the limits of 20 to 25 

 inches of annual rainfall. Here the absorption of the winter rains 

 should be favored to the utmost, for the run-off is mostly a dead loss. 

 Fall plowing wherever the land is not naturally adequately absorbent, 

 and is not thereby rendered liable to washing away, is a very effectual 

 mode of utilizing the winter's moisture to the utmost, so as to bring 

 about the junction of the season's moisture with that of the previous 

 season, which is generally considered as being a condition precedent 

 for crop production in dry years. The same of course holds true of 

 winter irrigation: the frequent omission of which in presence of a 

 plentiful water supply at that season is a prolific cause of avoidable 

 crop failures. Moistening the ground to a considerable depth by 

 winter irrigation is a very effective mode of promoting deep rooting, 

 and will thus stand in lieu of later irrigation, which, being more 

 scant, tends to keep the roots near the surface. 



Knowledge of the subsoil. It cannot be too strongly insisted upon 

 that in our arid climate farmers should make themselves most thor- 

 oughly acquainted with their subsoil down the depth of at least four, 

 but preferably six or eight feet. This knowledge, important enough 

 in the East, is doubly so here, since all root functions are and must oe 

 carried on at much greater depths. It is hardly excusable that a 

 business man calling himself a farmer should omit the most elementary 

 precaution of examining his subsoil before planting orchard or vine- 

 yard, and should at the end of five years find his trees a dead oss in 

 consequence of an unsuitable subsoil , Similarly, no h rigator should 

 be ignorant of the time or amount of water it takes to wet his soil to 

 a certain depth. We have lately seen a whole community suffering 

 from the visible decline of the thrift of its fruit trees, which occurred 



