THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



141 



the time, but always using the same old channel without 

 breaking it up each time by cultivation. This was an 

 improvement in some ways and fair fruit was grown on 

 some soils, but on many others the tree made slow 

 growth, while the fruit was mostly small and tough, 

 though better, on the whole, than where the water was 

 running all the time. This is often from lack of drain- 

 ago, though there is something more the matter. Good 

 drainage alone will not always offset the bad effects of 

 the reliance on sufficient water which afflicts most nov- 

 ices in irrigation in the dry countries. I have had old 

 settlers on the desert tell me that the only way to raise 

 anything was to sit up nights and pour water on it. 

 They were very much astonished to see me raise im- 

 mense crops of the finest melons with watering only 

 an hour or two once in two weeks, right under a blazing 

 and incessant sun, with air dry enough to dry clothes 

 in two hours at any time of night. Every one thinks 

 the only thing is to get on, water enough and keep it 

 there a long time. The worst fruit I ever saw was on a 

 gravelly bar so well drained that two second feet run- 

 ning for days at a time on five acres left no standing 

 water. This was about equal to ten rain inches a day. 

 The owner turned it out on the orchard when done irri- 

 gating alfalfa and left it running until ready to use it 

 again elsewhere. He had been doing so for many years, 

 yet seemed to think it was all right because water did 

 not stand in ponds in the orchard and the weather was 

 so hot it must need it all. The five acres were planted 

 with all kinds of trees and the fruit was in every re- 

 spect the sourest, flattest stuff I ever saw, in spite of 

 the drainage being so perfect. 



When cultivation came in vogue the owner of this 

 large furrow, finding that leaving it dry for days at a 

 time did not fully remedy the trouble, began to break 

 up and cultivate the dry ground beyond. This helped 

 some by retaining moisture and making it more even 

 about the trees, because it was not so readily sapped 

 from the dry ground as when the surface was unculti- 

 vated. One who has never tried it by digging down to 

 examine has no conception of the rapidity with which 

 a piece of dry ground will sap the moisture from a piece 

 of wet ground beside it. It is still worse when the dry 

 ground is uncultivated and even more so when it is filled 

 with those weeds of a dry country that will live almost 

 dormant when the ground becomes perfectly dry, yet 

 revive and absorb water at a furious rate when the 

 ground becomes a little moist. Perhaps you can do 

 nothing more valuable at the beginning of your experi- 

 ence than to try this very thing so as to get a practical 

 idea of the importance of wetting the whole ground 

 and retaining the moisture by cultivation until the roots 

 of your crop take it out. In no other way can it' be 

 kept even in the soil and if not uniform, but subject to 

 change of quantity or location, there will be more or 

 less fluctuation in the growth of the plants. And all 

 such fluctuation means some loss, for everything should 

 be kept growing at its best. 



But in spite of this cultivation, the results were 

 not yet what they should be, as the irrigator soon learned 

 by visiting some of the districts where the small furrow 

 system was worked to its highest capacity. He learned 

 that if he did not break up the ditch each time by 

 cultivation, that it gradually became cemented or pud- 

 dled more and more at each irrigation. For the large 

 streams running fast carried mud and silt instead of 

 running clear as in case of the small furrows. Thus they 



began at once to puddle the sides and bottom of the 

 furrow and reduce the soaking capacity of the soil. 

 When dry they were a channel of fine, dry mud filled 

 with many cracks. The muddy water run in the next 

 time filled these cracks and made the whole still tighter. 

 The consequence often was a tree standing close to 

 plenty of water, showing no suffering, perhaps, to a 

 common eye, yet doing far from its best work, be- 

 cause there was not enough of the ground wet with the 

 proper uniformity to give it the utmost feeding ground 

 that a tree of its age should use. This method has now 

 been generally abandoned by all irrigators who take the 

 slightest pains to learn what other people have dis- 

 covered. But the man who goes through the world 

 with his nose in his own plow furrow is apt to fall into 

 the old error. There are places where, owing to the lay 

 of the ground and the impossibility of getting a suf- 

 ficient irrigating head, one can do nothing better. But 

 if so, he should not attempt to raise fruit for market 

 except in some special locality like a mining region 

 where any kind of stuff commands a good price. 



This large furrow system must not be confounded 

 with the small furrow system, as often exhibited in 

 pictures of irrigation. In most all of these it is simply 

 small furows with too much water cutting and tearing 

 and overflowing in places, making one think the whole 

 ranch would be' carried to the sea in a few years. Some- 

 times this is done because the soil is so porous that 

 small streams would not get through. But it is better 

 to cut the tract in two and feed over again from an- 

 other ditch or lay out the whole tract in more places, 

 each with its own distribution. The distinction is that 

 in the small furrow system the whole ground is wet, 

 whether properly or economically makes no difference. 

 In the large furrow system only a part of it, often less 

 than one-fifth of it, is wet. Where it wets from soaking 

 upward from raising of a water sheet below is quite 

 another system. Each one is bad and should never be 

 used where conditions do not compel it. 



MAKES FARMING EASY. 



We are showing in this issue one of the engines 

 manufactured by the Hart-Parr Company of CharLes 

 City, Iowa, which is used by Mr. W. L. Faulkner, of 

 Bozeman, Mont. This outfit does discing and seeding 

 at the rate of 40 acres per day. 



There is an interesting story told us by one of the 

 firm in connection with this outfit. Early in the 

 spring of 1907, Mr. Faulkner had the misfortune to 

 have his horses badly infected with glanders, and the 

 state veterinarian killed ten of them, leaving him only 

 two, they being the poorest in the lot. He was afraid 

 to buy any more horses for fear they might become 

 infected also. He was farming two sections of land 

 and had 700 acres of summer fallowing to do. He had 

 been considering the purchase of an engine of this char- 

 acter and his misfortune with the horses necessitated 

 buying an outfit at once as he had to do something 

 quickly in order to get his summer fallowing completed 

 so that he would have crops the following year. Soon 

 after the purchase of this engine, early in May, 1907, 

 he went over his 700 acres with it and in September he 

 put four of the largest sized disc harrows behind it and 

 disced his ground. In October he attached two double 

 discs and three drills to the engine, double discing and 

 seeding- a strip 20 feet wide at one operation, covering 



