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the soil in which we happen to be engaged in fruit growing. In some of 

 the valley lands, where the moisture comes near the surface of the earth, 

 it is not necessary that there should be much irrigation; but there are 

 certain places in the State, especially in the foothills, where I do not believe 

 it is possible to make a very great success in the business of fruit raising 

 without irrigation. On any land that is easily drained I think it is neces- 

 sary to have a good deal of irrigation, and the easier you can have your 

 land drained, and the more water you put on, the better and larger fruit 

 you will have as a rule. In Placer County, where I live, they cultivate as 

 much as they can, and at the same time they all use water; many of them 

 have tried to get along without irrigation, but they have found that it is 

 . not profitable; they find that the price paid for water comes back to them 

 many times — by a proper use of water — they of course recognize the fact 

 that it is not necessary to flood the land with water. We raise peaches 

 rather more than we do any other class of fruit, and we fancy that the 

 peaches of that country are the equal of any in the State, and I believe 

 they have that reputation abroad, and in almost every instance where 

 they have the best fruit, they are raised by irrigation. I am told, in the 

 lower counties (by a gentleman who lives there) that they do not attempt 

 to raise very much fruit without water, if it is possible to get it. We think 

 in El Dorado County that water is the only means by which we can pro- 

 duce good results; cultivation maybe recognized as being important, and it 

 will assist very materially in the production of good fruit, but no one there 

 any longer attempts to produce fruit without the application of water. 



Mr. Wilcox: By irrigation we do not have to do half the cultivation that 

 he does there, but I would say cultivation should follow irrigation if we do 

 it properly. 



Mr. F. A. Kimball: Last April, at the horticultural meeting in Santa 

 Barbara, I exhibited some very fine specimens of oranges, which I am 

 informed by our Secretary, Mr. Lelong, were still on exhibition, having 

 been sent from the Santa Barbara meeting to the Board rooms at San 

 Francisco, and have been there on exhibition until within the past two 

 weeks. They were picked about ten days before the convention, that is, 

 early in April. They were grown on adobe land where the water is not 

 less than eighty feet to the surface. The oranges were irrigated, but not 

 copiously, as they were irrigated from a well — the orchard covering some 

 eight or ten acres — so I am fully of the opinion that the subject of irrigation 

 must be applied to the locality and the character of the soil largely. No 

 one rule will apply to all sections of the State; you must study the locality 

 and the condition of the soil. Some of those oranges having stood up so 

 well for so long, it does not argue very well against irrigation. I made an 

 experiment I think it was some five years ago; I picked and packed one 

 box of oranges, I think there were eighty-four oranges in the box, and they 

 lay in that box for eighty or eighty-one days, and I did not lose a single 

 specimen. Those oranges were irrigated and finer oranges you will go a 

 long way to find. 



Mr. Johnston: I have a piece of peach orchard that has never been irri- 

 gated, from which I sold the crop on the tree without picking, packing, or 

 any expense at all, and it paid me at the rate of $500 an acre for the 

 peaches on the tree, and there were one hundred and sixty trees to the 

 acre; no irrigation. 



