152 . BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



often as once in five to seven days. This 2 inches of soil mulch has 

 its particles so separated that capillary action is prevented and the 

 moisture is kept stored down where the root system can make use of 

 it. Cultivation and hoeing, to be most beneficial, must be done often 

 so that the soil mulch will be kept dry, and are just as essential in 

 a wet season to prevent disease as they are in a dry one to promote 

 growth. In a wet season poor cultivation allows the root system to 

 develop near the surface, and then when a dry spell comes and cul- 

 tivation is begun, so many roots are destroyed that development is 

 arrested and disease invited. 



The roots of plants go down 4 feet or more and extend laterally 

 in all directions. Coming in contact with soil water they take it up 

 with all it contains and carry it to the leaves where digestion and 

 growth take place. When we apply water to a crop we want to 

 get that water down. We are aware that very often little summer 

 showers add no water to the available moisture in the soil, for they 

 do not get down below the soil mulch where the root system is at 

 work. We know that the shower does cool the surface of the plants 

 and improves the climatic condition. When we apply a small amount 

 of water with a hose we are more likely to injure than to improve 

 the crop, because the soil mulch is spoiled. Firming or rolling the 

 surface of land, after seeding, is done to promote better capillary 

 action and bring up water enough to germinate the seed. As soon 

 as the crop is up cultivation begins and we aim to produce the soil 

 mulch and preserve the soil moisture. 



The foregoing remarks in regard to the uses and movement of 

 water in the soil are made so that all may know and understand the 

 reasons for our ordinary farm practice, and so that those who do 

 not irrigate may be encouraged to cultivate even more diligently 

 than they do at present. 



On many farms there is a good supply of water, A brook may 

 be turned aside from its course, and by means of large and small 

 ditches made to irrigate quite large areas, A canal may draw water 

 from some river or pond and be made to serve the same purpose. 

 The cost for dams, canals and ditches is small compared with the 

 value of the results obtained. The writer has in mind several farms 

 where acres of grass land are thus watered, and where the water cer- 

 tainly increased the crop of hay 2 tons per acre, and made the rowen 

 crop profitable. 



Flooding the land is practiced on hundreds of acres of sugar beets 

 and pasture lands about Salt Lake City, Utah, The water comes 

 down from the mountains in great flumes and is used to flood the 

 lands for days at a time. The dairy farmer of Massachusetts who 

 can irrigate his mowing by any such easy methods should certainly 

 do so. The cost of dams, ditches and maintenance on one of the 

 farms above mentioned, where over 7 acres were irrigated, was less 



