220 ORAKGE CULTURE IN CALIFORNIA. 



small vine occupies the same space (six feet square) as a larger 

 one, and the soil can only give up what it has received, and has 

 been kept there by keeping the soil in a favorable condition to 

 retain its water, namely, cultivation. Agricultural chemistry is 

 becoming a more important science every day, and many scien- 

 tists are now devoting their lives to its study, and much benefit 

 is now derived from them by the "book farmer." 



By reading the results of the experiments as to how plants 

 grow and feed, by such men as S. W. Johnson, Professor of 

 Agricultural Chemistry of Yale College, but mostly by the Ger- 

 mans, who have many experimental stations for the employment 

 of many chemists engaged in theoretical investigations of ma- 

 nures, the analysis of soils, and how to grow various plants and 

 crops, it is found that plants receive from ninety-five to ninety- 

 nine per cent, of all their food from the atmosphere, and, con- 

 sequently, only from one to five per cent, from the soil ; that the 

 conditions of the atmosphere are substantially the same all over 

 the world, and cannot be changed. For this reason man has no 

 control over that part, but only what is received from the soil. 

 The soil furnishes, although so small a part, yet such indis- 

 pensable ingredients as water, potash, lime, magnesia, phos- 

 phoric acid, sulphuric acid and some other acids, but these may 

 be considered the essentials. 



Plants have no power (certainly not in any beneficial quantity) 

 to inhale water, or to take up water, in any other way than by 

 their roots. Roots have the power to absorb water, not only by 

 their ends (spongeoles), but their entire surface, and the inor- 

 ganic ash ingredients of the plants are taken up by the water 

 in solution ; and, in combination with gases of the atmosphere, 

 mostly carbonic acid, making organic structures of the plants. 

 If water is supplied in insufficient quantity, the plant will lan- 

 guish, make small growth, produce a short crop, although the 

 product of seed (grape in the vine) will be large in proportion 

 to the growth. If water is too abundant, there will be much 

 growth of wood and a comparatively small crop of seed. This 

 brings us to the subject, 



IS IRRIGATION BENEFICIAL? 



Which must be answered in the affirmative; for we have now 

 and then such dry seasons that the vine produces only small 

 crops, although it will live. By irrigation we can add every 

 necessary to an abundant crop, for water, too, adds fertility, and 

 we have the evidence here in our county of the grape vine one 

 hundred years old, yet as vigorous and prolific a bearer as can 

 be found at any younger age. It is contended by many that 

 water adds to the fertility of the soil (for irrigable soils demand 

 no adding of manure) by reason of the sediment which it carries. 



