IRRIGATION. 401 



irrigation is much greater, as artificial watering seems to 

 harden the surface soil and the process is local, with dry 

 air around it, favoring rapid evaporation from impacted 

 soils. 



With sub-irrigation the need of culture or stirring the 

 surface soil is quite as essential, as it favors the ascent of 

 moisture from below and the admission of air from above, 

 both in outdoor and indoor work. 



406. Remarkable Results of Irrigation. The story of 

 the transformation of desert land into producing fields 

 giving several crops of alfalfa in a season, and other crops 

 in proportion, is often told by visitors to the arid States. 

 But as yet little has been said or written about the 

 increased yield of fruits and crops, as the result of water- 

 ing in the humid States, mainly for the reason that little 

 has yet been done. But at St. Joseph, Missouri (400), at 

 the insane asylum, Joliet, Illinois, and here and thero 

 in several States, the increased crops as a result of watering 

 have more than equalled the results in the arid States and 

 at much less labor and cost, as the period when water is 

 needed is short. In Wisconsin, Professor King, after trial 

 and much observation, has stated: " The value of a crop, 

 such as the strawberry, in a season when crops generally 

 are injured by drought, may pay all the expenses of the 

 original cost of the irrigation plant." 



Even in New Jersey, with moister air and more rainfall 

 than in the States west of the lakes, the experiment station 

 reports for 1898 and 1899 an average gain of 1637 quarts 

 per acre on the irrigated plots of blackberries over those 

 that are not watered, and the size and selling value was 

 much increased. The Bulletin record reads : 



"Plot No. 1, 1898. Early Harvest, 1001; J. Wilson, 

 Jr., 2256; Erie, 39; Agawam, 1280; Taylor, ^970; 

 Eldorado, 3395 



