70 CALIFORNIA VEGETABLES. 



given trial, and abandoned. All experiments proceeded 

 upon the plan of thus making permanent water conduits 

 below the point reached in spading or plowing, and they 

 all became inoperative. The failure was usually charged 

 to the filling of the pipes with plant roots, and in some 

 cases this was seen to be the reason. In other cases the 

 failure of the system was due to the fact that in light 

 soils lacking capillarity, the water rapidly sank away 

 from the pipes out of the reach of the roots, and shallow- 

 rooting platns failed, though there was moisture flowing 

 to waste through a pervious subsoil. About thirty years 

 ago Mr. E. M. Hamilton of East Los Angeles invented 

 a system of continuous cement pipes laid by a machine 

 operating in the trench which prevent access of roots 

 because it had openings only at intervals where the water 

 was discharged into air spaces, each of which could be 

 seen through a vertical pipe rising to the surface and 

 furnished with a cover. This worked well for many years 

 on Mr. Hamilton's place for the irrigation of trees or 

 other deep-rooting plants at considerable distances apart, 

 for which use it seems best suited. To fill the earth with 

 such pipes with openings near enough together to serve 

 for shallow-rooting vegetables, is appallingly expensive, 

 and the stand pipes encumber the surface so that nothing 

 but hand spading or cultivating could be done without 

 destruction of them. 



At the East within a few years the use of the drain 

 tile laid along the rows of vegetables near the surface 

 has given the best results in an experimental way. By 

 this plan the tile are to be taken up and relaid for each 

 crop, which can be quickly done. Water thus adminis- 

 tered may serve well in soil not disposed to puddle down 

 or possibly may be more successful where the summer 

 air is less dry and soil baking less active than in Cali- 

 fornia, but in many of our garden soils the soil would 

 solidify, and even if moisture were adequate to prevent 



