30 



BULLETIN 518, U. S. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 



the district was bonded. In lOl-t the rate per acre under the ditch 

 was $1.24, while for 1915 it was $2.50 per acre. Previous to this 

 the rate was from $5 to $8 per miner's inch, the farmer buying as 

 much water as he desired. There is an area of over 18,000 acres under 

 this ditch. (See fig. 11.) 



The water is usually turned on from the 1st to the 15th of June. 

 The orchards are ordinarily rilled out for irrigation. Some growers 

 prefer to flood their orchards, but this is not a general or popular 

 practice. As yet the irrigation system is far from being universally 

 satisfactory. As in many other places, it takes time to adjust con- 

 ditions when changing from a dry-land system of farming to one 

 of irrigation. Prior to the time the ditch was bonded those not 



Fig. 12. — One method of irrigation followed in the lower valley. This is a ti'iiiixnary 

 lateral and rills are made at right angles to it. This is not the common method. 



holding stock received no water unless they used waste water, which 

 was always uncertain. 



Twenty-seven per cent of the clean-cultivated orchards and 100 

 per cent of those under mulch crops are irrigated. 



Creasing, or rilling out, is a general practice in the clean-culture 

 orchards. Usually about two irrigations are made on these orchards, 

 the first coming about the latter part of June and the second about 

 the 1st of August. Rilling is not generally practiced in the mulch- 

 crop orchards, the soil being creased but once after sowing. Creas- 

 ing is usually done with homemade drags, or " rillers." Four, five, or 

 more furrows ordinarily are made at a time, at an average distance 



