136 HORTICULTURE BY IRRIGATION. 



wet for the roots which have penetrated the earth downwards, in that 

 time three or four feet. 



Mr. Loutsenheizer is very enthusiastic over fruit culture in this 

 valley, especially on the adobe. 



The Koss Brothers, Young Brothers and Gus Frost have severally 

 demonstrated that all moderately hardy varieties of apples, plums, pears 

 and even peaches at an altitude of 5,500 feet can be successfully grown. 

 The quality of fruit in this valley is remarkable. Demonstration has 

 settled grape culture, and small fruits of all kinds and varieties; and we 

 are sure that anything that can be grown in the Middle States can be 

 grown here. 



Thus far all kinds of fruit have been very free from insects or any of 

 those afflictions so common in the East. 



The greatest extremes in Montrose County, on an average of five 

 years, is from fifteen degrees below zero to ninety degrees above. 



The character of the soil is variable. There is adobe, red gravelly soil 

 underlaid from three to five feet below the surface with a solid cement of 

 pebbles and clay, or some similar formation, perhaps by an admixture 

 with the soil of a sufficient amount of gypsum. 



Irrigation soon softens this underlying stratum and renders this kind 

 of land, which is confined mostly to the mesas, very receptive, and thus 

 seepage is very rapid and the necessity of irrigation more frequent than 

 on the river bottom, where the soil is constantly under-moistened by 

 seepage from the river. 



The adobe, which is generally the second bottom, and is in depth 

 from ten to thirty feet, when once well soaked with water to the depth of 

 from eighteen inches to two feet, is sufficiently irrigated, as a rule, by two 

 or three times in a season for small grains ; while the mesa soil as a rule 

 needs water every two weeks, in some localities oftener. If small grains 

 are planted near the surface in the adobe ground it will need water often, 

 as the hot sun bakes rapidly the top of the ground in the summer 

 months. If there is any favor to special varieties, there has not been suf- 

 ficient time to demonstrate it in Montrose County. 



KOUTT, KOUTT COUNTY, COLO., November 8th, 1887. 

 Looking towards fruit culture in this part of the State, the part that 

 I shall describe is but a small part of the great County in which I live. 

 One man I believe planted out a few trees last spring on the river bottom, 



