VIXEYARD AND SMALL FRUITS. 221 



This hose being one hundred feet in length enabled me 

 to reach the entire berry patch. Beginning at the first 

 faucet I wate rod all within reach of it, then moved the 

 hose to the second faucet, and so on, till the whole patch 

 was watered. At the commencement of the experiment 

 I used a nozzle in the manner that we water our lawns, 

 but soon discovered that the better way was to dispense 

 with the nozzle, and let the water run out on the rows 

 of berries from the end of the open hose. Water was 

 applied at the rate of about a gallon to every twenty 

 inches in length of row. This amount of water thor- 

 oughly soaked the rows, but not the entire space be- 

 tween the rows, which is not necessary to the well ripen- 

 ing of berries, as the water supply is wanted among the 

 roots. Then, to have watered the two-feet space between 

 the rows would have taken double the amount of water, 

 with no addition of fruit. 



The irrigation was all done at night. The time 

 taken to go over the patch was twenty-eight hours, and 

 the cost to apply the water was ten cents an hour. I used 

 16,000 gallons of water the first application and 10,000 

 gallons the second application. There was an interval of 

 a week between the waterings. The water company 

 charged fifteen cents for 1000 gallons. The piping and 

 hose cost $60; water, $5.25; application to the plants, 

 $5.60; total, $70.85. I got the water plant ready to 

 work May 19. Up to this time I had picked the patch 

 over three times, and in my estimate of the crop by those 

 pickings I would have got about seventy-five crates off 

 the patch, but with the use of water I gathered two hun- 

 dred and twenty-five 24-quart crates of berries. In fact, 

 one hundred and fifty crates might be placed to the 

 credit of my irrigation experiment. One hundred and 

 fifty crates at $2.10 a crate, the average of the crop, fig- 

 ured up $315. Subtracting the water expense, $70.85, 

 we have to the credit of the experiment, $244.15. 



