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OFFICIAL REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



Touching this rather suggestive phase of the subject, let me give just 

 one personal incident which may relieve the packers and shippers of any 

 facetious reflections I may have made in a previous paragraph, which goes 

 to prove that all flesh is grass after all. During the early eighties I exploited 

 the shipment of early potatoes to the East; in fact, built up a good trade 

 in that line, and was, you might say, doing well. But suddenly I received 

 dispatches to cease shipping marbles. Now that Was soothing and pleas- 

 ant. An investigation into the field, made sub rosa, brought to light a 

 curious fact or two. For instance, some growers were packing potatoes 

 by the stove-pipe method. Now that was curious, but very simple, though 

 remindful of Dickens' Artful Dodger. The method was to fill the bottom 

 of the sack with a layer of good size potatoes, then insert the stove-pipe, 

 fill in with big potatoes all around it, then fill the pipe itself with small 

 potatoes — what my telegrams designated as marbles — then pull out the 

 pipe, fill the top of the bag with larger ones again, and, presto change, 

 we have a splendid sack of big potatoes. The moral is, do not ship 

 marbles with soil products; it doesn't pay. 



These few cursory remarks lead up to the observance of a few things 

 we must do in order to gain permanent success in exporting fruit 

 products, and also to some we must not do. 



The teachings of Rudyard Kipling apply forcibly to everyday business, 

 viz: Give the world the very best there is in you, or it will turn you 

 down. Grow, pack, grade, and ship only the very best fruit you can 

 produce, and the European markets are yours; observe a strict commer- 

 cial integrity, and they are yours to keep for all time. 



IRRIGATION. 



By S. M. WOODBBJDGE, Ph.D., of Los Angeles. 



Irrigation is the artificial watering of the soil for the production of 

 crops. 



Although irrigation is looked upon by many as a new proposition, it 

 is, in fact, the most primitive method of producing crops; that is, it is 

 the oldest method, for according to written history, "A river went out 

 of Eden to water the garden." Furthermore, it was the only method of 

 producing crops for the first third of human existence; for, from the 

 same authority above quoted, we read: "The Lord God had not caused 

 it to rain upon the earth." As it appears that water was only distributed 

 through irrigating ditches for the first third of the world's written history, 

 it is not improbable that when Abel took his sheep down to Cain's irri- 

 gating ditcn to water them, he made this water business a pretext for 

 " doing up" Abel. The precedent of making trouble over water thus 

 established, has been pretty well followed down to the present time. 



The first rain that we have any record of was in the year B. C. 2349, 



