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cultivation. Right in our valley, with a fence between, might be seen the 

 difference between cultivation and non-cultivation, or, as I call it, irrigation 

 and non-irrigation ; one was irrigated with the cultivator and the other was 

 not, and we found moisture there during the year sufficient to make Orange 

 Clings that would weigh seventeen ounces where the water was twenty feet 

 from the surface, and Bartlett pears that sold this year as high as $6 a box 

 in New York. In reference to Bartlett pears, several of the shippers have 

 told me that they didn't want Bartlett pears raised near the coast for east- 

 ern shipment; they are beautiful and good to can, but they are tender, and 

 will melt away much sooner than those raised without irrigation. I had a 

 little experience one time with some raised on the coast, near Vallejo; mine 

 were raised about twenty miles from there. Those from near Vallejo were 

 brought on the table at the opening of the fair, placed there in green con- 

 dition, and mine had been picked two weeks, and were yellow when they 

 were taken there. At the end of the fair those from Vallejo had melted^ 

 flattened down on the plate, and those that I had placed there were still 

 firm. I believe, as I said before, that there are many places where irriga- 

 tion is necessary — where they have plenty of gravel and loose soil, plenty 

 of climate, and plenty of water — that will make good oranges and some 

 other fruits, but I do not believe fruits raised by irrigation will carry for 

 eastern shipment nearly as well as those without it, but to raise them to a 

 large size without irrigation I know must be with good cultivation. 



Mr. Johnston: I agree with what Mr. Hatch has said concerning irriga- 

 tion. It is probably true that on some soil you can raise better fruit with 

 irrigation than without; but if you have good soil where you can raise good 

 fruit without irrigation, you can raise a better article of fruit, and fruit that 

 will last longer, keep better, and bring a better price, than fruit that has 

 been irrigated. A great many irrigate more than is necessary; they do not 

 use Mr. Hatch's ditch enough, that is the cultivator, the plow, and the 

 pulverizer; that is the greatest and best irrigator and the one that will pro- 

 duce the best results. The peaches that bring the largest price and that 

 produce the most money to the acre in California that I know anything 

 about, are grown on lands without any irrigation. Mr. Wilcox spoke of 

 canners preferring irrigated fruit in San Jose. Perhaps it is necessary to 

 irrigate in San Jose in order to have large, fine fruit; but I know of one 

 instance of canners in Sacramento that have been in the habit of using fruit 

 that was raised on a ranch that was not irrigated, a year or two ago, and 

 when we had a very dry year, one party who had made a contract with 

 the canner for his fruit at a certain price per pound, irrigated his fruit; of 

 course he had larger peaches and larger pears than he would have had 

 without irrigation, but the consequence was that the next year the canners- 

 refused to buy his fruit unless he agreed to produce it without irrigation. 

 The fruit became soft, and as the canners termed it, it sloughed off, melted 

 down in the can, did not keep its shape, as fruit that had been raised on 

 the same ground with cultivation. There is a good deal of good land in 

 California that will produce fruit without irrigation, and that is the kind 

 that I prefer. 



Mr. Hatch: I would like to tell what I know about cultivation: I made 

 a contract with some men to work several places this year and that con- 

 tract says " plow the trees twice, once away from the trees and once back, 

 harrow twice, cultivate ten times, weed cut three times, and hoe the trees 

 five times." 



Mr. Hall: I do not claim that I know much about the fruit business or 

 irrigation, but to some extent I have given some attention to it, and I think 

 that, generally speaking, our opinions of irrigation are formed according to 



