THE IKRIGAT[QN AGE. 



103 



pendence was won. This was in 1825, and after twenty 

 years of struggle. Today each of the divisions of the 

 vast area that first constituted the Inca empire, and after- 

 ward the Spanish dependencies, is a republic, with a gov- 

 ernment much like that of the United States. In truth, 

 the example of the free states of North America was the 

 inspiration that nerved Bolivar and San Martin and their 

 followers through their long struggle for independence. 

 Thus the mighty idea of liberty spread and grew, and has 

 been spreading abroad in the world ever since. 



'As I rode through the streets of Lima, I thought of 

 this history and what liberty had brought, for it is now a 

 splendid city, and when I had been speeded to the cloud- 

 land of the backbone of the Andes by a modern locomo- 

 tive, and wandered through the strange old towns of the 

 Spaniards and the Incas, I found that which accompanies 

 liberty there prosperity and progress transforming the 

 country. 



(To be continued in February.) 



IRRIGATION WITH LAKE MUCK. 



By C. R. Sandvig, Belgrade, Minn. 



My horticultural experiments began in 1907 on a 

 few acres purchased for that purpose on the lake shore 

 near Belgrade. My motive was uncertain. Secretly I 

 believed that by getting a centrifugal pump to pump the 

 soft mud, so abundant in the lake bottom, to irrigate 

 with during dry seasons the poor soil could be cheaply 

 enriched and the effects of drought warded off. To the 

 neighbors I explained that I could better afford to ex- 

 periment than others, having no family to suffer in case 

 the experiments should prove a failure and being profit- 

 ably employed during the winter to supply my expenses, 

 with nothing in particuar to do during the summer. 



My first strawberry crop was very poor indeed, but 

 the plants had been set before my pump had been in- 

 stalled. They had been raised with thorough cultivation 

 but had received none of that rich mud; nor had the 

 patch been manured, as I was absent -except during the 

 planting and growing season. They had also suffered 

 from drouth, and the year was an off year, so that fail- 

 ure was accounted for but the next crop should be a 

 bumper. 



A generous patch was set in 1908, cultivated thor- 

 oughly and irrigated sufficiently with muck-laden water, 

 and I engaged a neighbor to cover them well with hay 

 after freezing, before leaving for my other employment. 

 The following spring the whole patch had winter-killed. 

 Seventy-two apple trees, eighty-four plum trees and 100 

 Compass cherries set the same spring had thrived splen- 

 didly with irrigation, while trees planted by neighbors 

 were dying of drouth. Not one of my 256 perished, 

 and they were all there the following spring, but as 

 warm weather came many of the apple trees root-killed, 

 though the Compass cherries and plum trees all lived 

 and were changing the looks of the landscape. The 

 losses, however, were beginning to wear that obnoxious 

 question into my mind: "Would it pay?" Our soil is 

 a poor black loam underlaid with gravel, and no fruit 

 grower had come that way to blaze the way to success. 



Dry weather again set in in the latter part of the 

 summer of 1909. The man whose gasoline engine I had 

 used the year before had moved away, and no engine 

 could be hired. Threshermen would not consider hiring 

 out their engines, and one flushed angrily when I tried 

 to corner him by intimating that I would pay as much 

 as he could make threshing though the threshing season 

 was not there. Could it be that they had a prejudice 

 against competing with nature? Three thousand five 

 hundred cuttings planted for windbreak perished; the 

 lower leaves of the golden willows were falling; the 

 leaves in the orchard were fading and so was my en- 

 thusiasm. The pump was there but no power to turn it, 

 and what a difference it made!. 



One Monday morning, the latter part of summer, I 

 boarded the early morning train without a word of ex- 

 planation to anybody. This was nothing new, but there 

 was a reason for my silence this time, for though my 

 destination was determined, my mission was rather novel 

 and uncertain; and my neighbors seemed very much sur- 

 prised and puzzled when, in the latter part of the week, 



I returned befere they knew I had been away, with a 

 new suitcase on one arm and a bride on the other. Of 

 course, that's another story but it made a difference. 

 On the same trip 1 had found a little steam engine, out 

 of date for threshing, but to be repaired, tested and turned 

 over in good order for a moderate sum. In due time it 

 was brought to my little farm, but too late for that 

 season as rain also began to fall. 



I soon learned that my young bride had brought 

 'with her much besides what the new suitcase contained. 

 I had planted and watered the year before two rows 

 of golden willows for a windbreak. These were now a 

 little higher than our heads, the rows just far enough 

 apart for two and as golden as the sunset glow. My 

 wife wrote in her letter home that we had a beautiful 

 "lover's lane." She had brought a new name for the 

 windbreak. The setting sun had smiled on those golden 

 willows, and its smile had lingered there. My wife 

 smiled on my little farm, and her smile changed it into 

 home, sweet, sweet home and the smile that changed 

 it into home gave me new enthusiasm and determina- 

 tion. 



We left as I again returned to my winter occupa- 

 tion, but March 18th a winter month indeed I was 

 back impatent to renew my contest with nature, and 

 spring was there just as soon. I had tried to describe 

 to my wife how beautiful the place would appear in the 

 springtime when the Compass cherries and plum trees 

 would be robed in their perfumed whiteness and nature 

 seemed impatient to show forth her beauty. The "lovers' 

 lane" burst into leaves and looked like a beautiful sun- 

 rise. A hundred thrifty Compass cherries and eighty- 

 four plum trees were just ready to unfold their glory. 

 when lo! winter returned upon us, and those trees did 

 not bloom but my wife's smile was there instead, and 

 I did not linger to ask, "would it pay?" but planted a 

 generous garden and potatoes at fifteen cents a bushel 

 to fill in the vacant places. Sixteen hundred strawberry 

 plants set during the unnatural spring perished. The 

 garden planter was pushed out over and between those 

 rows and beans planted in their stead. We cultivated 

 persistently and irrigated as often as we could find time. 

 Our table was soon well supplied, and we had good 

 things to sell. When I brought the green peas to town 

 the hotel keeper's wife asked anxiously if we had any 

 beans. I told her we would have some in due time. 

 She begged me to bring her our whole crop. Gardens 

 all about us were a failure, and even potatoes in many 

 patches a total failure, on account of the severe 

 drouth (1910). 



Our half a row of beans planted for early use soon 

 began to bear, and I brought some to Jhe landlady. She 

 took them at sixty cents a peck and begged me again 

 to bring her the whole crop. The main patch began to 

 bear, and I brought them by the bushels. She took them 

 and looked pleased. The patch planted where the straw- 

 berries had perished began to bear, and I brought them 

 by the load and reminded her that she had bargained 

 for our whole crop, when she threw up her hands and 

 exclaimed: "Oh, goodness gracious, I didn't think you 

 would have so many," and then went to the telephone 

 to call in her nieghbors to help her out and told me it 

 was enough. I brought in a load of potatoes and was 

 heading four the hotel, our best customer, when men 

 surrounded my wagon and bought me out before I could 

 move, and they were a dollar a bushel potatoes too. 

 And it just did me good to see those men, formerly so 

 prejudiced against irrigation, pick up the big fellows 

 smilingly and make comparisons with those on their own 

 back lot and then remark: "That's what water does." 

 "That's what irrigation does." 



It should be needless to say that we have had much 

 to learn and that for want of both time and experience 

 we did not do as well as we might have done, and that 

 there is a feeling of impatience to get back and try it 

 again and try to do better. We pump 260 gallons a 

 minute of muddy water with bullheads, clams, crabs, 

 bloodsuckers and some gravel through 600 feet of pipes 

 and several hundred feet of graded up ditch to the highest 

 elevation and from there irrigate by running the mud- 

 laden water in furrows ploughed between the rows. I 

 think we water a patch in this way about as fast as 

 it could be cultivated with one horse while the muck is 



