GARDEN IRRIGATION 157 



be secured. The dry, porous subsoil easily absorbed 

 any surplus. The difficulty was in getting enough. 



I have experimented in a limited way in the details 

 of irrigation. You will observe in the photograph two 

 galvanized iron water tanks in which water has been 

 kept during the season. Cow dung has been soaked 

 in the water, which reached the plant in a liquid form. 

 At intervals when hoeing I have poured it around a 

 hill of pumpkins, a hill of watermelons, a hill of squash, 

 a hill of com, a hill of potatoes, a hill of cucumbers, a 

 hill of cabbage, ten onions, ten beets, a mangel wurzel, 

 a rutabaga, and instead of pouring the water on the hill, 

 a basin was made in the ground near the vegetables 

 that would hold one pail of water ; two holes were made 

 leading from the basin into the manure directly under 

 the plants. Surface watering causes the earth to crust 

 over and allows the roots to run near the surface. 

 Unless the top of the ground is kept wet the plants 

 suffer for want of moisture. My method sends the 

 water under the hill and the roots dive deep to reach it. 

 This method makes strong, vigorous, productive vines 

 and plants, and the yield one-third larger and one-third 

 more in quantity. The hill of pumj)kins gave one 

 pumpkin weighing eighty-one pounds, watermelon 

 weighing forty pounds, squash, corn, potatoes, cucum- 

 ber, cabbage, onions, beets, carrots, all were one-third 

 larger than those not irrigated. 



The ideal preparation of ground, according to my 

 view, would be to begin in the fall and thoroughly 

 pulverize the surface as deep as possible with the disk 

 harrow. Then plow six or seven inches deep and 

 repeat the pulverizing. Plow again crosswise, leaving 

 the ground just as turned over by the plow until spring, 

 then repeat the pulverizing process. This would give 

 a deep seedbed thoroughly fined from top to bottom. 



Irrigation should have been given during the early 



