Vol. LVI. No. 2473 . NEW YORK, JUNE 19, 1897 • *1.00 PER YEAR. 
A NURSERY BOTTLE FOR STRAWBERRIES! 
FEEDING THE PLANTS THROUGH TIPES. 
Sired by a Hydraulic Ram. 
A drought in June had, for several years, shortened 
my crop of strawberries about one-half. This caused 
me to consider whether it would pay to irrigate them, 
and what kind of plant would be the most economical 
and satisfactory. My truck farm is favorably situated 
for irrigation, having a large brook running through 
it, dividing it into two nearly equal parts. The bed 
of the brook is from four to eight feet lower than the 
surface of the garden. The problem for me was, how 
the most economically to elevate the water to be able 
to use it for irrigating purposes : a windmill was too 
uncertain, and an engine too expensive. I finally de¬ 
cided to use a hydraulic ram. I placed one of the 
largest sized rams in the brook. The drive pipe was 
extended 60 feet above, where a dam was made, rais¬ 
ing the brook about four feet. The fall in the drive 
pipe is about one foot, which, with the dam, makes a 
fall of five feet, which is sufficient to elevate all the 
water I usually 
need. 
Near the ram, 
on the highest 
bank of the 
brook, a tank 
was built of 
pine planks, 
holding 100 bar¬ 
rels. See Fig. 
172. From the 
tank, iron pipes 
are laid in dif- 
ferent direc¬ 
tions over the 
gardens. Every 
third coupling 
in the pipe is a 
T coupling 
with an iron 
plug which can 
b e unscrewed 
and a hose at¬ 
tached. The 
water is usual¬ 
ly distributed 
over the garden 
at night, and 
may be applied 
either through 
a sprayer or 
poured on in a 
stream as de¬ 
sired. To pre¬ 
vent the ground from baking with surface irrigation, 
and to retain moisture, I sometimes place a mulch be¬ 
tween the rows of strawberries and celery. 
One object I had in view in building the water tank, 
was to dissolve fertilizers in the water, and feed them 
to the plants through the pipes. The objections to 
putting stable or poultry manure directly in the tank 
is, that it may clog the distributing pipes ; this, how¬ 
ever, may be overcome, by building a slatted box in 
the center of the tank, putting the slats close enough 
together to hold the manure, while allowing the 
water to go in and carry out the fertilizing materials 
in the manure. In using fine manure, such as poultry 
or sheep manure, it would be necessary to cover the 
receptacle with wire cloth, or put it in loosely made 
sacks. The manure should be taken out every few 
days, when it can be placed between the rows of 
plants for mulch, and more manure put in the tank. 
My experiments in irrigating strawberries have 
been quite satisfactory ; I begin when the blossoms 
appear. The pipes are laid over the field about 1Q0 
feet apart, and I can distribute the water with 75 feet 
of hose. I have sometimes used a revolving sprinkler, 
but it applies the water too slowly for me. I take a 
large hose, start the water at the upper end of a row, 
then move the hose when it has run as far as it will. 
If the hose is laid on the ground, manure water may 
be run between the rows without injuring the foliage 
of the plants. I am looking forward with interest to 
the result of some experiments in dissolving nitrate 
of soda in the water and feeding it to the plants. 
May 23, there was a hard frost, and the plants were 
badly frozen. Just before daylight, I began to sprinkle 
them with the hose, and before the sun was shining 
upon them, I had drawn the frost nearly all out. 
They did not escape some injury, but I think the 
water did much to save the crop. The hydraulic ram, 
which is not shown, is placed in the brook close by 
the water tank, and a discharge pipe, 22 feet long, 
carries the water from the ram into it. The ram sets 
about 10 feet below the top of the tank, and fills the 
inch discharge pipe, which fills the tank once in 24 
hours. By raising the dam to get more pressure on 
the ram, I can get considerably more water. I am 
not well satisfied with the dam, for it is often injured 
by high water, and shall lay a pipe in the brook, as 
far up as it is necessary to get sufficient fall to operate 
the ram. For irrigating two acres, I use about 60 
rods of iron pipe. The cost of the plant was about 
$100. I use it for irrigating celery and other crops, also 
in transplanting, and consider it a good investment. 
Delaware County, N. Y. w. n. jenkins. 
R. N.-Y.—The present season, in this part of the 
country, irrigation hasn’t been needed for strawber¬ 
ries or anything else. We have had an excess of rain ; 
but its effects are plainly apparent in an extra and 
vigorous growth of vines, and increased size of fruit. 
But irrigation in a dry time would prove superior 
even to this natural watering, for then we would 
have the sun to ripen the fruit, whereas, this year, 
there has been so much cool and cloudy weather that 
it has been deficient in flavor. Nothing brings out 
the sweetness and flavor in fruit like sunshine. With 
plenty of water, the combination is ideal, 
gasoline or wind for pumping. 
WHICH IS THE BETTER POWER? 
Gasoline Engine Suits Me. 
In The R. N.-Y., page 157, appeared a query about 
gasoline engines for pumping. I purchased a three- 
horse-power gasoline engine last year for irrigation, 
pumping water from a stream running through my 
place, furnishing 18 to 20 gallons of water per minute. 
This stream I dammed, collecting, ia 16 hours, about 
20,000 gallons. My engine and pump would pump 
these 20,000 gallons to an elevation of 62 feet in eight 
hours, or by actual test, 55 gallons per minute. My 
engine would consume one gallon of gasoline to pump 
60,000 gallons of water. The engine requires no atten¬ 
tion after everything is in running order, except 
lubricating. We have left the engine running by it¬ 
self hours at a time. I have watered half an acre 
during a severe drought in three hours, so that it was 
so wet that the land would not bear walking over it. 
There is no danger whatever. The gasoline tank may 
be located outside the building. I had mine outside, 
but I shall 
move it inside, 
as I believe 
there can pos- 
sibly be no 
danger. There 
is, however, a 
great differ¬ 
ence in pumps, 
and some 
pumps require 
more power to 
do a certain 
amountof work 
than others. 
The past win¬ 
ter and spring 
were extreme¬ 
ly wet here and 
about April 10, 
the weather 
turned dry ; by 
May 1, our 
crops were suf¬ 
fering and we 
had a drought 
on us. We at 
this time began 
irrigating. The 
strawberries 
especially were 
most in need of 
moisture. Our 
soil is a light 
loam, and the surface is subject to baking after heavy 
rain or irrigation ; for this reason, when we prepare 
the land, which is somewhat undulating, we bed it in 
beds so as to leave a small furrow between each two 
rows. These furrows are run at a light incline, so 
when the water gets in them it will move, yet not 
wash. The water is taken from the pipe as it comes 
from the pump, and is divided in as many rows as the 
rows will admit without washing or rising above the 
beds. By this method, the surface about the plants 
never bakes, while the moisture rises under the plants. 
We have been irrigating in this manner for the past 
month, strawberries, cabbage, beans, tomatoes, beets, 
and cucumbers. The water was turned in these fur¬ 
rows as described above, and as soon as the ground 
was well saturated about these furrows, the water 
was moved to as many more new ones, and so on till 
the field was well watered. In 43 hours, the ground 
had sufficiently dried to admit the cultivator, which 
was run turough the rows, and the furrows thereby 
were leveled down. In the course of 8 or 10 days, we 
A NURSERY BOTTLE FOR STRAWBERRY PLANTS; RAM IRRIGATION. Fig. 172. 
