182 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



as to whether the United States Government or any 

 branch thereof may or may not enter into the peri- 

 odical publishing business. The gentleman is no 

 doubt sufficiently familiar with the history of the 

 Record to know that it was originally published as 

 a bulletin to post engineers and others interested as 

 to the details of the work under the Reclamation 

 Law, and that there was no intent on the part of 

 those who started it to make a news journal or pro- 

 duce anything that would come into competition 

 with other publications in the Irrigation or Engi- 

 neering field. 



As the writer views the situation, the Record 

 was enlarged with the full idea of placating dis- 

 satisfied water users. 



If the United States Government is entering the 

 publishing business and is to issue regular editions 

 of news journals, where will it stop? Perhaps it 

 may suit the Secretary of State to issue a daily paper 

 in which all inspired news may appear first to be 

 copied later by the daily press of the country, or 

 may it not occur to the Department of Labor that a 

 monthly journal would keep it in close touch with 

 the laboring classes? What, again, is to hinder the 

 Government starting an engineering journal in com- 

 petition with the leading engineering publications, 

 or mayhap a coal publication? 



If the plan inaugurated by the Reclamation 

 Service, a branch of the Department of the Interior, 

 is followed, we may have many official Federal pub- 

 lications in the future so that sentiment may be 

 shaped in all branches of industry to suit the party 

 in power, and it would not be a far step to give Gov- 

 ernment-owned publications a political complexion 

 to suit the reigning powers of future years. 



Once more we ask, is the United States Gov- 

 ernment in the periodical publishing business? 



Intensive Farming In Kansas 



Ey E. E. Frizell, President Kansas State Irrigation Congress 



HOW TO FIGHT GUMMOSIS 

 Old cankers of cherry gummosis should be 

 cleaned at once if the damage caused every year by 

 this disease is to be materially reduced, according 

 to Professor H. P. Barss, of the Oregon Agricul- 

 tural college department of plant pathology. New 

 infections should be treated as soon as they appear. 

 The organisms that cause the cankers live over win- 

 ter in the edges of the old cankers, and start out 

 late in winter to enlarge the old injuries and infect 

 new areas and other trees. All infected bark should 

 be removed with a draw knife or other tool, care 

 being taken to cut out all discolored portions or 

 even a little above and below them. The wound 

 should then be washed with a 1 to 1,000 solution of 

 corrosive sublimate, allowed to dry, and coated with 

 a good tree paint. Tablets for the wash can be got 

 from the druggist, who will explain how to prepare, 

 use and handle the deadly poison. Bad cankers 

 sometimes form with but slight exudation of gum, 

 and careful watch must be kept all spring for their 

 first appearance, and for blighted fruit spurs and 

 buds. 



That the smooth valley lands of western Kan- 

 sas, which were stretches of prairie country a few 

 years ago that could be purchased for a mere song, 

 can, through irrigation and intensive farming, be 

 developed until they are worth $200 an acre, was 

 the assertion of E. E. Frizell of Larned, president 

 of the Kansas State Irrigation congress, in an ad- 

 dress before that body at the annual meeting in 

 Larned. 



"By intensive farming," said Mr. Frizell, "I 

 do not mean that farmers should grow radishes and 

 lettuce and other garden truck, but such crops as 

 alfalfa, sugar beets, and potatoes, which command 

 good prices. After growing these crops for a few 

 years the land will produce wheat, oats and corn 

 equal to or better than that, grown on the high- 

 priced lands of central Illinois and Iowa. For 30 

 years I have been preaching, teaching and practic- 

 ing irrigation in Kansas. 



"The farmer should do more diversified farm- 

 ing instead of growing wheat continuously for 30 

 years, as we are doing in Pawnee .and adjoining 

 counties. Some of the eastern Kansas farmers have 

 almost reached the end of their string in growing 

 wheat, and such farmers should recoin the old 

 slogan, 'You must irrigate or emigrate.' My ad- 

 vice to the young man is to go west and irrigate. 



"We grew enough alfalfa and sugar beets the 

 dry year of 1915 to pay the entire cost of our pump- 

 ing plant. The year 1915 we did not irrigate an 

 acre. That year we needed a reversible pump to 

 pump the water off of our lands. This year irri- 

 gating is like the latest style in ladies' hats, very 

 fashionable. It will become more so each year. 



"I predict the time is not far distant when 

 every county in the state will have successful irri- 

 gating plants for growing fruit, berries and vege- 

 tables. In the western half of the state thousands 

 of acres of alfalfa nd other field crops will be irri- 

 gated. The people of Pawnee county proudly boast 

 of growing almost eight million bushels of wheat 

 in one year, or one thousand bushels for every man, 

 woman, and child in the district, yet we are buying 

 apples from Oregon, potatoes from Idaho, grapes 

 from New York, onions from Texas, celery from 

 Michigan, cabbage from Iowa, peaches from Arkan- 

 sas, and sugar from beets grown in Colorado. All 

 of these crops can be successfully grown by irri- 

 gation in Pawnee county. 



"Pawnee county has 150,000 acres of smooth, 

 level valley land underlaid with an inexhaustible 

 supply of sheet water at a depth of from 10 to 30 

 feet ,and there are many counties in the state that 

 have from 50,000 to 100,000 acres of similar land." 



