22 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 



assuring me raucously that them peach trees wa'n't 

 a-goin' to do no good in that there soil and that I'd 

 best listen to advice. It happened that both the 

 variety of peach and the corner of land had been 

 selected for me by a money making orchardist, and 

 that the two year old trees were being planted ac- 

 cording to his directions, in large holes twenty-one 

 or more feet apart to allow for the diameter of the 

 twelve or eighteen feet often attained by three year 

 old trees in the Valley. Two men held each tree 

 while a third spread the roots, the hole being after- 

 ward filled with fine soil. My neighbor looked on 

 derisively, and when the orchard was set and in 

 process of being irrigated, he shouted as he struck 

 his horse with the quirt and loped upon his way — 



"All right ! Go ahead ! River's goin' dry this sum- 

 mer, and you'll see what you will see in that there 

 land!" 



What I saw was a thrifty orchard passing gal- 

 lantly through a perilous season of drought and 

 coming into bearing the following year. Other 

 young orchards were wholly or in part lost, but mine 

 flourished because the advice of an expert had been 

 asked and taken. Constant cultivation was the 

 preachment — dry farming, in short. 



After the retreat of one calamity howler another 

 arrived to inform me that I should never, no never, 

 find a market for a small orchard. Thanks to the 

 ranchwoman before mentioned I did find a market, 

 and a good one. 



So much for advice. Next in order comes the 

 education of a weather eve. Nature makes mock 



