170 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1898. 



there fishing and had discovered that it would be an easy matter 

 and but little expense for the water to be brought down and 

 spread over the land. The total cost would not be over two 

 hundred and fifty dollars. I opened the subject to him and took 

 him up and showed him how easily it could be done and figured 

 up the expense. And you never saw such a bewildered look 

 as that man put on as he contemplated the scheme. He still 

 keeps his cattle and is still raising milk on that farm. That is 

 a type of many men. 



The horticulturists of this State should awaken to the fact 

 that they have all about them the facilities, the means, and the 

 supplies of water to combine together and divide up among 

 them. 



I knew of a farmer who thought he would like to sell some 

 to his neighbors to help pay the expenses, but when he got the 

 water he had three times as much as he had ever used before 

 and he wanted to use it all himself. And the result is that 

 today there is scarcely a celery plant that is raised as it was 

 twenty years ago about Boston. And I think that there are 

 millions of celery plants growing up by irrigation where twenty 

 years ago not one celery plant could be raised without irrigation. 

 It seems to me that they have the cheapest supply that you can 

 find anywhere. For seventy-five dollars you can get a little 

 machine that will carry the water to any point. 



There is one thing that we want to observe. Some men 

 think they must have a little pipe with an attachment for sprink- 

 ling the water on the soil. But that is a great mistake. The 

 application of water to the soil must come without cooling 

 the atmosphere. We want the hottest sun and the brightest 

 skies and there is no one thing that grows that is benefited by 

 the sprinkling of water. Some say it is like the natural fall of 

 water by rain. That may be all very true, but if you had all 

 rainy days in the year you would have very few crops but grass, 

 and that would mildew. What we want is a large volume of 

 water at our command, one hundred or one hundred and fifty 

 thousand gallons, a quantity which will enable men to drench 

 the land and make good the deficiency of nature. I have, Mr. 



