FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
179 
1,000 gallons per minute will cover two 
and one-fifth acres one inch deep in 
one hour, or about twenty-two acres 
one inch deep in ten hours. One inch 
of water over an acre or, in other 
words, one inch of rainfall, will wet 
thoroughly six to eight inches of per¬ 
fectly dry Florida sand. 
By L. B. Skinner. 
Mr. President } Ladies and Gentlemen: 
I received a letter from Prof. Rolfs 
asking me to give a little talk on irri¬ 
gation. I am always ready to talk on 
irrigation, but I was not posted as to 
what special branch of irrigation I was 
expected to talk on, until I came into 
Gainesville. 
My experience has been entirely 
with what is called the sprinkling sys¬ 
tem. When I first had an idea of tak¬ 
ing up irrigation, I felt that I had to 
take it up if I were going to grow or¬ 
anges as a business and make a suc¬ 
cess. Of course, the first question 
that came into my mind was, where to 
get the water. There were only two 
ways: from a pond and from a well. 
I spent a little time going to see the 
irrigating plants through the state, 
and among them was one of Mr. 
Adams of Thonotosassa. His struck 
me as being the best I saw. It con¬ 
sisted of large pipes with small mains 
connected with them, running to dif¬ 
ferent parts of the grove. From these 
laterals were standpipes to which the 
hose was attached. By using the hose 
he was able to get along without using 
so much iron pipe. To the hose were 
attached the McGowan sprinklers, 
which he considered the best in all re¬ 
spects. They throw a large amount 
of water and throw a very fine spray 
with plenty of force all over between 
the trees. It struck me as being the 
best and most successful system I had 
seen, and he had a fine crop of fruit 
from his grove. 
At that time, iron pipe was beyond 
my reach, and I investigated the ad¬ 
visability of using cement pipe. The 
best iron main will cost thirty-five 
and forty cents a foot for four- 
inch pipe. I think a six-acre grove 
irrigating plant with steam pump and 
boiler, iron pipe, etc., will cost in the 
neighborhood of $1,000.00. I had 
plenty of muscle, time and some labor. 
I investigated the cement pipe and 
made up my mind that it would do. 
I bought a machine and a car of ce¬ 
ment and went to work. We turned out 
lots of pipe; I now have about 35,000 
feet of that cement pipe. It has cost 
from three to six cents a foot; gen¬ 
erally about four cents; but there is 
no time to stand around when you 
make it at even four cents. I think 
you can possibly make it at an average 
of five cents. 
You dig your ditch and put your 
machine right in it, and make the ce¬ 
ment pipe as you go along, cleaning 
out your machine when stopping at 
noon or night and starting again. I tried 
to make a solid joint by pressing the 
cement together with my hands about 
the core of the machine, but found that 
it would not do. When I put on my 
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