METHODS OF APPLYING WATER. 1 77 



will not be uselessly expended. Irrigation should not 

 be done in the open when the sun is shining hot, as 

 there is great danger of scalding the plants. If we 

 have a good head of water in the ditch we prefer to 

 begin irrigating at four o'clock in the afternoon, and 

 often keep up the work as late as midnight, especially 

 on moonlight nights. At the Utah station the tem- 

 perature of plats irrigated nights was slightly higher 

 than those irrigated days. The yield of grain was 

 slightly greater on the plat irrigated in the daytime, 

 due probably to the checking of the growth of the 

 foliage. The total yield, or the yield of straw and 

 grain, was some fifteen per cent, greater on the plats 

 irrigated at night, and the ratio of straw to wheat was 

 therefore much greater on the plat irrigated at night. 

 Straw to bushel of grain when irrigated nights, 120 

 pounds ; when irrigated days, eighty-nine pounds. 



The Flooding System. — As already mentioned, 

 the land must be prepared and made as near even as 

 possible, by scraping down the knolls and filling up 

 the low places so that the water will spread evenly. If 

 it does not spread in this way the irrigator must follow 

 it out with his shovel and conduct it to the negledted 

 spots. The application of water to crops by the 

 method of flooding is the quickest and cheapest, and 

 hence is almost universally used for grass, meadows, 

 and grain crops. On those soils which bake and crack 

 badly flooding is injurious, unless the plants stand 

 close enough together to shade the ground well. Water 

 coming direc5tly against the crown is unfavorable to 

 the growth of many plants. It has often been noticed 

 that millet, rye, oats, and other crops will be larger 



