60 



TWENTY-EIGHTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



result. The first year I think there was fully as much fruit on the trees 

 where we had cut off the roots as there was on trees anywhere else in the 

 orchard; as much as usual; but after that there was a loss. That was 

 ten } r ears ago. And I don't think the trees have caught up in their 

 bearing where those large roots were cut off. Now, we have about 22 

 inches as the average rainfall, winter and summer, in our climate. 

 Most of my orchard is drained. We drain with tile 28 feet apart, 3 feet 

 deep, and we keep those tile drains open at both ends, and there is a 

 current of water usually through that tile, especially in the summer, 

 when we notice it more particularly. And we cultivate and keep a dirt 

 mulch 2 or 3 inches deep upon the surface; and with that and the irri- 

 gation from that tile drain, which is open at both ends, we think we 

 get an abundance of moisture, except perhaps in the very driest of 

 times. And it strikes me that that is something very like your irriga- 

 tion. But we notice that where we have built tile drains 28 feet apart 

 and open at both ends we do not suffer very much with drought in the 

 driest of summers. 



PROFESSOR PAINE. I want to speak on the matter of irrigation, 

 the subject President Cooper assigned us, and state some practices of 

 mine that relate both to surface irrigation with ordinary surface fur- 

 rows and subsoil furrows at the same time. I do not like to cut the 

 roots deeply in growing times, so I make my subsoil furrows quite near 

 the center. I frequently make, near the center, about 3 feet apart, 

 two subsoil furrows, from 12 to 14 inches 'deep. In that way I think I 

 injure the growing roots as little as possible. And in preparing the 

 ground for irrigation, at the same time I am going to run water through 

 the subsoil furrows in the middle, I make two other furrows nearer the 

 trees. So that all in all there are six furrows in the tree space — two 

 of them near the row of trees and two in the middle. The object of so 

 doing is that the subsoil furrows may provide water to tide over from 

 one irrigation to the other, provided I don't come to them at the right 

 time and provided I have not given them sufficient water and evenly 

 distributed it. And I find it is effective in that respect. But I know 

 that in the line of a row, from tree to tree, there are a good many roots 

 near the surface which I think do not get water from the percolation 

 from the bottom and from the low depth of these subsoil furrows, and I 

 therefore provide those four furrows near the line of the trees to wet the 

 roots along the line of the rows, both about the trees themselves and in 

 the space from tree to tree. And I think that in that way I provide 

 for the greater part of the root surface as well as can be done by sur- 

 face irrigation at all. And it works very satisfactorily. 

 • MR. WEEKS. I don't know whether Mr. Stone referred to me or 

 not when he spoke of irrigating in a single furrow. But I have irrigated 

 that way for some time. I don't irrigate in deep subsoil furrows, but in 



