FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
177 
grow old before his time and, in fact, 
at times it causes him to almost doubt 
the existence and guidance of an im¬ 
partial and all-wise Providence. 
These conditions have been grad¬ 
ually growing worse for the past two 
or three seasons, until at the present 
time irrigation, which is, of course, the 
only remedy, is regarded as an almost 
absolute necessity. A good many 
growers who happened to be favorably 
situated as to water supply, who were 
sufficiently informed as to what kind 
of irrigation they needed and had the 
means to pay for it, have put in irri¬ 
gating plants which are working suc¬ 
cessfully and which have made their 
owners independent of rainfall. But 
most of these plants have been in¬ 
stalled at an expense which places 
them out of reach of the orange 
grower, one of my neighbors having 
just completed a plant which cost him 
over $10,000.00. It consists of one 
mile of six-inch wrought iron pipe, 
enough smaller pipe to form a com¬ 
plete network under his grove of about 
120 acres, and a rotary pump driven 
by a fifty-horse-power engine. The 
water is delivered through patent 
sprinklers which are placed in the 
centre between each four trees; he can 
run forty of these sprinklers at once, 
thus watering forty trees at one time. 
This kind of irrigation is all right 
for those who can afford it, but is be¬ 
yond the reach of about ninety-nine 
per cent, of us, and for this reason it 
is not necessary for me to enter into 
a detailed description of it at this time. 
What is needed is a system of irriga¬ 
tion which can be installed at a cost 
within the reach of the average grower 
of limited means and yet of sufficient 
capacity to meet all of his require¬ 
ments. 
For the past eight years I have had 
charge of the property of Chase & Co. 
at Waco. This property consists of 
the famous Isleworth groves and nurs¬ 
eries and, incidentally, an extensive ir¬ 
rigating plant of about the same ca¬ 
pacity in gallons of water as the one 
above mentioned and costing about 
one-eighth as much. I have visited 
and made myself familiar with the 
workings of irrigation plants of nearly 
every kind or system now being used 
in our part of the State, but for hand¬ 
ling vast quantities of water at the 
least possible expense, which is, of 
course, what the grower of limited 
means wants to do, I have never seen 
anything to equal our plant. 
A description of our pump and 
method of distributing the water over 
the graye will be found in the report 
of last year's meeting, but for the 
benefit of those who may not have 
been present at that meeting I will 
give a brief description here. The pump 
consists simply of a square box two 
feet in diameter inside and about eigh¬ 
teen feet high, or about six feet above 
the highest point in our grove. This 
box stands one end in the edge of the 
lake, where water should be two to 
three feet deep. Through the center 
of this box, from top to bottom, there 
is a steel shaft, with a water wheel on 
the bottom end; another one of the 
same kind in the middle and a pulley 
at the top for connecting with the en¬ 
gine. This bottom wheel, by being 
revolved at a high rate of speed, lifts 
a column of water two feet square, up 
to the upper wheel, which catches it 
in the same way and carries it out at 
an opening near the top of the box, 
