1 6 IRRIGATION FARMING. 



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 

 farming; 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 irri- 

 gated lands are better adapted to the growth of 

 orchards, vineyards, gardens, potato fields, hop-yards, 

 tobacco and cotton plantations, and whatever extra 

 work may be required to cover the land with water will 

 be repaid tenfold from the first crop that is taken off. 

 In traveling in the far west, over long stretches of 

 parched and dusty plains or through mountain gorges, 

 the writer has often seen fields, orchards, vineyards, 

 and gardens all dressed in living green. The life, 

 vigor, and fruitfulness were in surpassing contrast to 

 the general aspe(5l. And why this contrast ? Because 

 of the tapping of mountain streams, fed by crystal 

 springs or banks of perpetual snow, and turnmg a 

 portion of their waters upon the lands. From great 

 eminences the course of these life-giving waterways 

 made by the hands of man could be traced by the eye, 

 until they were lost in the dimness of distance. There 

 was no need being told where were the irrigating 



