120 THE NEW AGEICULTUKE. 



put in operation through means of perforated tile, begetting what 

 has been denominated sub-irrigation. 



Tile has been laid to considerable 'extent in California, Nevada, 

 Colorado and New Mexico, and the resulting irrigation has been 

 found phenomenally successful, leaving that of the surface meth- 

 ods completely in the shade. There has been a patent allowed on 

 the tile, but not upon the system, yet the ordinary drain tile an- 

 swers every purpose, leaking sufficiently at joints to diffuse the 

 waters. To lay a network of this tiling at sufficient depth to 

 escape the effects of frost in winter, more especially in regions 

 where the freezing reaches a depth of several feet would be a most 

 expensive and unpromising undertaking at best, and when to the 

 great expense of this mode of preparing lands to receive the 

 water, is added that of making provision for water supply depend- 

 ent upon springs, streams, artesian wells, windmills, current wheels, 

 and the thousand and one other devices necessary to such a system, 

 not one man in a thousand can be found to give the thing a 

 moment's attention especially if he farms in rainfall sections. 

 We desire here to give the wonderful history of the old apple tree 

 that stood and now stands renewed in life upon our hillside. This 

 tree, the only fruit bearing one on our original plot, was up- 

 wards of thirty years old, and before trenching began was 

 so unthrifty, covered with moss and in all ways so unpromis- 

 ing as to incline us to cut it down as a cumberer of the ground. 

 Nor was the tree alone undesirable. The fruit, a golden russet, 

 grew no larger than what is known as the lady apple, nor nearly 

 as large as we have for the last two years grown strawberries in 

 certain instances. The fruit was so tough as to be left in the cel- 

 lar until all other apples were gone, and not unfrequently thrown 

 away in the end. Not to exceed a bushel and a half had been 

 gathered from the tree in any one season previous to 1883. In the 



