Irrigation Experience 



175 



The following notes on irrigation for the market -garden are 

 by Frederic Cranefield (^^The Market Garden," April, 1896). The 

 experiences are drawji from experiments made at the Wisconsin 

 Experiment Station. For full information on subjects connected 

 with irrigation, consult King's "Irrigation and Drainage." The 

 book discusses garden irrigation. 



"It has been proved that irrigation may also be profit- 

 able even during seasons of normal rainfall. It is seldom we 

 get a sufficient amount of rain at the time when it is most 

 needed. Rain falls alike on the just and the unjust, and 

 does not discriminate between gardener A, who desires a heavy 

 shower for late cabbage just set, and gardener B, who would 

 like to have dry weather for a few days. Rainy summers are not 

 unmixed blessings, for they are usually cool and cloudy ones as 

 well. The bright, continuous sunshiny days of Colorado and 

 California, with the mineral -laden waters of the mountain 

 streams, produce crops that cannot be equaled in the East or 

 South. The small fruit grower is even more dependent upon an 

 abundant water supply at the right season than the gardener. 

 Abundant rains during April will not insure a full crop of straw- 

 berries in June. Moisture, and lots of it, is needed just at 

 fruiting time. One acre of corn, abundantly watered just at the 

 time the ears are setting, would yield as much as five acres not 

 watered. 



"Not every farmer, fruit-grower or gardener, may irrigate 

 profitably. On the other hand, millions of barrels of water run 

 to waste every summer, which at slight expense could be di- 

 rected to the adjoining parched fields. The enormous outflow 

 of dozens, if not hundreds, of artesian wells in the Dakotas was 

 allowed to find its way to some underground lake or river for 

 years before even the slightest effort was made to utilize it. In 

 almost every section of our country innumerable inches of rain- 

 fall glide by our fields in brooks unchecked, that could be used 

 for irrigation purposes at trifiing expense. 



"The first point to be considered is, naturally, the water 

 supply. If that is abundant and reasonably accessible, other 

 obstacles may be overcome. The ground level is of less im- 



