384 Irrigation and Drainage 



the picking. Strawberries, however, are so shallow- 

 rooted that water enough cannot be placed within 

 reach of the plants to make irrigation during the 

 picking season unnecessary. It is, therefore, a com- 

 mon practice to lay out strawberry fields in such a 

 way that the water may be led only between alternate 

 matted rows in deep broad furrows, holding the water 

 well up the sides so that it may better spread laterally 

 under the plants. This practice, although not as 

 economical of water as irrigating between every row, 

 has the advantage of not seriously interfering with 

 picking, there being always sufficiently firm ground 

 upon which to walk. 



GARDEN IRRIGATION 



Garden vegetables are oftenest raised in beds and 

 patches of such small dimensions, and on soils so 

 light and open, that the irrigation of them is accom- 

 plished most readily by methods closely allied to those 

 of flooding. A relatively large volume of water is 

 quickly brought to the point needed and applied all 

 at once, and without waiting for either percolation or 

 capillary spreading to take place. 



A method represented in Fig. 112 consists in lay- 

 ing the ground off into beds, and getting the seed 

 planted, when the surface is overspread with a thin 

 dressing of rather coarse litter or horse manure. 



Water is turned into the head ditch, which is 

 choked with a little soil or an irrigator's broad 

 hoe set so as to turn the stream between the 



