60 CALIFORNIA VEGETABLES. 



in a tunnel there is no loss. A small spring will supply 

 a tunnel with sufficient water for many purposes. He has 

 illustrated this in a practical manner. On his own land at 

 Mesilla valley, he ran a tunnel thirty-five feet long into 

 a hill, in so doing tapping a spring ; this tunnel he dammed 

 up, leaving a space thirty-five feet long and the size of 

 the tunnel, which is about five feet by six feet, to be filled 

 with water. The water he carried to his house in pipes, 

 and we observed that it supplied his dwelling, another 

 near by, his barn and drying-house for raisins, as well as 

 irrigated quite a space devoted to flowers for a garden. 

 He says that the tunnel is the cheapest and best form, and 

 that for each dollar expended one can obtain a space equal 

 to twenty-five cubic feet." 



Another form of subterranean reservoir consists of 

 trenches filled up to the plow-depth with broken rock. It 

 is practiced to a limited extent only. It is prodigiously 

 expensive and seems only worthy of consideration in the 

 improvement of a hillside home place, where satisfaction 

 is not conditioned upon cost. A California instance of 

 the system is the following: 



"The grounds have too great a slope for spraying, 

 and instead of supplying surface ditches, the owner con- 

 structed permanent trenches, which have no outlet except 

 by seepage. These trenches extend one hundred feet in 

 length along the face of the slope, each being eighteen 

 inches deep and thirty inches wide. The earth was scat- 

 tered on the upper side of each cut, and by a little care 

 in plowing the garden was terraced into slopes of less 

 grade, each one hundred feet long and twenty-eight feet 

 wide. As a driveway passes along each end of the ter- 

 races, nearly all the cultivation is done by a horse turning 

 on" the driveways. The trenches are designed as minia- 

 ture reservoirs, and are kept nearly full, when irrigation 

 is required, by a small stream flowing from one-half-inch 

 stand pipes at one end of each trench. This is also a form 



