88 How to Make the Garden Pay. 



did so, and I learned two things by it. One was that a thorough 

 watering would make the plants grow; the other was that it 

 took a great deal of water to make it thorough. 



" Hence if you water at all, do it well. No system of arti- 

 ficial watering that I have ever tried is equal to rain from the 

 clouds. I do not state these things to discourage any one, but 

 because I believe them to be facts that should be known to those 

 who contemplate some improvements of this kind. My water- 

 works cost me nearly $1,000, and I have no doubt but that they 

 have more than once paid for themselves in a single season." 



Where a pond or other body of water is available, so that a 

 stream can be run directly to the highest line of the field, irriga- 

 tion is a very simple matter. Make light furrows down the slope, 

 8 or 10 feet apart, between the rows of plants, and let the water 

 run down in one after another, long enough in each, to soak up 

 the ground pretty thoroughly to the lower end, before turning 



Slope Sub-irrigated after Cole's method. 



off the flow into the next furrow. The application should not 

 (or need not) be repeated until the ground becomes quite dry 

 again, but it is absolutely necessary for best results, and lasting 

 effects of the operation, to cultivate the ground thoroughly just 

 as soon as the surface is again dry enough for such work. Always 

 make the water channels in the higher places, and the lower ones 

 are apt to take care of themselves. In irrigating a J acre lot of 

 celery one season, between 6,000 and 8,000 gallons of water 

 were needed to give the ground one thorough soaking, but this 

 had a most excellent effect on the plants. 



SUB-IRRIGATION. Another system often mentioned but 

 rarely employed, is that of placing tiles in close, parallel, shallow 

 ditches all through the field, so the tiles are just out of reach of 

 the plow, and then introduce the water from some source into 

 these tiles, one line, after another, soaking up the land from below 



