THE IREIGATION AGE. 



989 



Postal Savings bank and the safety deposit vaults are open 

 to all such people who wish to have their money safely 

 cared for, and who should be able to command its uses 

 whenever and for whatever purposes they may see fit. 



We will keep out of politics excepting so far as to 

 favor any party making our purposes a part of its platform, 

 and definitely and irrevocably pledging itself to carry those 

 purposes into actual effect. 



To get the immediate impetus to this movement we 

 ask you the individual reading this article to write us 

 telling us whether or no you will come into it now in its 

 preliminary stage, and help in your own neighborhood, 

 and among your friends, to get it into form and numbers. 

 The time has come when if the West is to save itself from 

 this tyranny it must take action, and the way to get action 

 is to come together. Upon your accession to this enterprise 

 we will notify you of the time and place of the first meeting 

 and will hope to see you there. At that meeting a plan 

 will be clearly formulated and officers appointed who will 

 take care of the work lined out to follow. 



Every good citizen should feel it a part of his duty 

 to devote such of his time and thought and energy as he 

 can spare from his occupation to advance the general wel- 

 fare. There never was a time when this slight sacrifice 

 would mean so much for the salvation of the West from 

 the predatory power of the East, which is not in sympathy 

 with the part of the country which produces the great bulk 

 of the country's wealth from year to year. 



J. C. O'NEIL. 



ENCOURAGING TO THE EDITOR. 



Mr. D. H. Anderson, Editor. 



Please change my address from 1318 Fifth avenue to 514 

 Seneca street, Seattle, Wash., and oblige. I like your paper 

 very much and I would not be without it for five times its 

 cost. 



W. C. MARBURCER. 



HOW NATURE GROWS TREES. 



J. D. REAM, CUSTER COUNTY, NEB. 



In the section of Iowa where I lived when a boy, it was 

 the universal custom when preparing the ground for garden 

 vegetables, to throw the soil up in beds or ridges, but when 

 I came to Nebraska in 1878 I was very much surprised to 

 find the farmers growing all kinds of garden vegetables 

 under what is known as the level culture system, and the 

 reason they gave for doing so was that vegetables succeeded 

 much better in dry seasons under that system. 



This I found, after several years' experience, to be true. 

 And when I was ready to prepare my ground for my orchard 

 and windbreaks, I concluded that if level culture was best 

 for garden vegetables in central and western Nebraska, it 

 must necessarily be better for tree growing. So I prepared 

 my ground, set my trees and cultivated them with this level 

 culture idea always in view. After I had worked along these 

 lines for ten long years and had the ground in my orchards 

 and windbreaks as level as a floor, I began to study Nature's 

 method of growing trees and grass and weeds. 



I found that when she wanted to grow an extra thrifty 

 tree, some tall grass or some large weeds, she was not con- 

 tent to plant them on level ground and give them level cul- 

 ture. She always hunted for a depression in the surface 

 of the ground or a little hollow between two ridges or a 

 favored spot in a canyon. In fact, she always chose a place 

 that received the benefit of more water than fell on it in rain 

 or snow, or at least one so situated that it absorbed all the 

 water that did fall on it. 



I then began to observe more closely as to the methods 

 my neighbors were employing in their attempt to grow trees, 

 and I found that nineteen out of every twenty of them had 

 so cultivated their ground after their trees were planted 

 that they had their trees standing on a ridge. 



After comparing Nature's method of growing trees with 

 that of my neighbors, I congratulated myself on having gotten 

 half way to the right method. But just then I happened to 

 remember that many a fellow in the past had gotten half way 

 to success and then failed, and the great problem that con- 

 fronted me was how to retain the advantages of my par- 

 tial success in the way of level culture, and yet gain the bene- 

 fits of the lesson I had learned from Nature. 



My first move was to plow my orchard both ways with 

 a stirring plow, having the back furrows come in the middle 

 of the spaces between the rows and the dead furrows come 

 at the tree rows. I used a single horse and a boy to finish 

 up the furrows, and as I had set my trees quite deep I 

 succeeded in getting quite a ridge between the rows and 

 the surface of the ground around most of the trees quite 

 a little below level ; all trees planted in the orchard since 

 then have been put in low ground. 



By careful cultivation with a reversible extension orchard 

 disk throwing the dirt from the trees tword the center 

 of the space between the rows, I have kept the depression 

 around most of the trees so low that it will hold from one 

 to five barrels of water before any of it would run away, 

 thus making something of a reservoir for the surplus water 

 during heavy rains. 



I also deserted the level culture system in growing 

 my trees for my windbreaks. I plowed my ground for these 

 trees in lands about sixteen feet wide, having the dead 

 furrow come where I wanted my tree row to stand. Then 

 I dug this dead furrow up as thoroughly as I could with 

 subsoiler and disk. Planted my cedar trees about seven or 

 eight feet apart in the row, using the same methods of 

 cultivation that I used in the orchard to keep the ground 

 ridged up between the rows and the trees in the low ground. 



If you do not have a reversible disk, you will find 

 that a good boy, a steady horse and an old-fashioned stir- 

 ring plow will be a great help in keeping the ridge up and 

 the weeds down. By having the ground sloping gradually 

 from the center of the space between the tree rows in 

 toward these trees the same as I tried to have it in the 

 orchard, all surplus moisture will run toward the trees and 

 all trash and leaves will drift toward the trees rather than 

 from them. The tree that stands upon a ridge exposed to 

 wind and sun can keep neither moisture nor mulch about its 

 roots. 



If the rows were sixteen feet apart and the trees close 

 together in the row, there would be a good driveway be- 

 tween the rows, if the grower cared to haul out the limbs 

 that were trimmed off or the extra trees that were thinned 

 out. Besides a mower could be run through to cut down 

 weeds Or a crop of alfalfa. 



A GOOD CROP OF WATER. 



There is general rejoicing among farmers under the 

 government irrigation projects on account of the heavy snow 

 fall at the headwaters of the streams. Many of the storage 

 reservoirs are already nearly filled, thus assuring an ample 

 water supply and abundant crops to the settlers. 



The engineer in charge of the Truckee-Carson project, 

 Nevada, reports a series of heavy snow storms in the Si- 

 erras which have accumulated the greatest depth of snow 

 on record for this period of the winter season. Cold Springs 

 reservoir on the Umatilla project, Oregon, is already nearly 

 full, and others in the various sections are rapidly nearing 

 maximum capacity. From Phoenix comes the word that the 

 depth of water behind Roosevelt dam is already 157 feet 

 and the water is still rising. The reservoir has not yet had 

 a full season for storage, still it now contains 500,000 acre 

 feet and is more than one-third full. This great lake is now 

 Teing drawn upon to furnish water for the growing crops of 

 the Salt River Valley. 



The Asherton Artesian Land & Irrigation Company of 

 San Antonio, Texas, was recently organized with a capi- 

 talization of $600,000. The incorporators are Asherton Rich- 

 ardson, Asher Smith, Littleton Richardson and H. M. Burt. 



* * * 



Governor Carey, of Wyoming, is doing some good 

 boosting for the National Irrigation Congress, which 

 will hold its nineteenth session in Chicago, December 

 5th to 9th, of this year. 



Governor Carey states that the irrigation congresses 

 have been one of the greatest factors in advancing irri- 

 gation investigations, and the promotion of irrigation 

 enterprises. He has been a staunch friend of the irri- 

 gation Congress, and with the assistance of Fred J. 

 Kiesel, of Ogden, and one or two others, managed to- 

 save the life of that organization when unscrupulous 

 delegates tried to kill it by merging it with the Trans- 

 Mississippi Congress. 



