50 



TWENTY-EIGHTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



of the ditch-tender who turns him out his water. Get the area under 

 irrigation, not only from the owner, but by your own measurement of 

 his fences or corners. Make an estimate of his run off or end waste by 

 repeated watching of his irrigation. Then, and then only, can you 

 know what amount of acre-feet or acre-inches he has put on the land. 

 Then by considering his cultivation, the skill of his handling irrigating 

 heads, the rainfall of that section, the nature of the subsoil, the tempera- 

 ture of the water, which is a great item little thought of by those not 

 familiar with the hoe handle, you can get an approximate idea of the 

 duty of water. And you must study your own work in the same way. 

 It will be found that the amount of water needed for any crop is greatly 

 overestimated by all but the most intelligent irrigators. 



Neglect of the subsoil causes the beginner in irrigation great loss of 

 faith. It is the most common of all errors, especially on the desert, 

 where it is of the most importance. Nearly every one leaves the ground 

 dry until about ready to plant, then wets a thin skin of soil on top of an 

 ash heap dozens of feet deep that has not been wet for centuries, plants 

 seed in this, and then says you have to keep pouring water on all the 

 time to keep things alive. That is not the worst of it, for if that pour- 

 ing is neglected even a day the plant may fail in very hot weather. If 

 anything fails on a dry subsoil it is very hard and often impossible to 

 revive it after it wilts a little. But with a wet subsoil it will not only 

 go long without wilting if 'the top soil becomes too dry, but it will stand 

 days of wilting and then revive and go ahead with little injury. 



With this subsoil in proper condition there is no such increased 

 quantity of water needed as one would imagine on the deserts. In the 

 hot, dry air of the Sacramento Valley the great crops of deciduous 

 fruits are grown almost entirely on the water stored in the ground by 

 the winter rains. And most of this is in the subsoil. If that were dry 

 it would sap the moisture from the top soil downward as fast as the sun 

 and wind sap it above. But if the top soil is well cultivated the subsoil 

 actually supplies moisture to it. For the past two years I have been 

 trying to work out a problem on the lower Mojave River, on which nine 

 different hard-working settlers failed. I have had my share of tribula- 

 tion, but none of it from miscalculation about the duty of water. I was 

 told I would have to sit up nights to pour water on the things fast 

 enough. Yet last year I raised as fine melons as can be seen anywhere 

 with a ten-hour run of water once in two weeks, although the ther- 

 mometer was at 110° almost every day, and for days at a time at 115° 

 inside the largest buildings, with a hot wind blowing at about double 

 the velocity of the Seabreeze on the coast and not a particle of dew at 

 night. Yet not a leaf wilted, although melons in the gardens at Daggett, 

 on the same soil, less than a mile away, and watered every day, wilted, 

 failed to bear, and even died. The difference was that those were merely 



