THE ADVANTAGES OF IRRIGATION. 13 



older States year by year. Fertilizers are already needed 

 for the most profitable culture on many farms in Town, 

 Minnesota, Eastern Kansas and Nebraska, in Missouri 

 and in all States east of those named. 



In proof of this assertion the writer can best be 

 qualified in his statement by mentioning the fact that 

 there is an oat field in Sagnache county, Colorado, that 

 up to 1894 had produced twenty-three consecutive crops, 

 each of which averaged forty bushels to the acre through 

 all the years. The yield of the twenty-third crop averaged 

 sixty bushels, which would indicate that the fertility of 

 that field was keeping up remarkably well without rest 

 or rotation. This unusual result was made possible by 

 means of irrigation alone, and there is no doubt much 

 truth in the theory that the irrigating waters from the 

 mountains contain great quantities of mineral fertilizing 

 element in solution. Even by shallow plowing and the 

 most shiftless methods of land preparation, a Mexican 

 farmer named E. Valdez, of Chromo, Colorado, produced 

 twenty-five consecutive crops of wheat 011 the same soil, 

 and without manure or change of seed in the interim. 

 This peculiar result was made possible only by the use 

 of irrigating waters, applied as they were regardless of 

 scientific principles or any defined method whatever. 

 The yield the last season was forty-five bushels to the 

 acre, as heavy as any throughout the quarter of a century 

 of constant croppage. 



Irrigation farming has peculiar characteristics. It 

 is a higher and more scientific industry than rain farm- 

 ing; it succeeds best by what is known as intensive 

 culture, or what is better described as scientific culture. 

 The soil to be at its best should be carefully prepared, 

 and cultivation ought to be minute and thorough. To 

 make such agriculture pay such crops must be raised as 

 will yield the greatest value to the acre. The irrigated 

 lands are better adapted to the growth of orchards, vine- 



