FLORIDA ,STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
147 
on almost all crops that are grown in the 
State. There are, however, a great many 
of us who have very vague ideas regard¬ 
ing the subject of irrigation, and it is for 
the benefit of such that I will attempt to 
explain very briefly something about the 
different systems used in the different lo¬ 
calities of the State, and under the vary¬ 
ing local conditions. 
Have a letter here, which is similar to 
a great many I receive, reading as fol¬ 
lows : 
“I am' interested in the subject of irri¬ 
gation, and would like for you to give 
me full information and tell me how much 
it would cost to put in five acres.” 
This is all the information given. He 
does not state what system of irrigation 
he is interested in, the source of water 
supply, the character of soil, the crops to 
be grown, or a great deal of other infor¬ 
mation absolutely necessary in order to 
give him the information he requests. 
If this party, who for convenience we 
will call Mr. Jones, had been located in 
the Sanford celery district where flowing 
wells are easily obtained, and where cel¬ 
ery, lettuce and other similar crops are 
grown, and where on account of the hard 
sub-soil sub-irrigation is successfully 
used, he would probably never have writ¬ 
ten for information, but would have fol¬ 
lowed the example of his successful neigh¬ 
bors, put in a tiling system and used sub¬ 
irrigation, although I know of very prom¬ 
inent growers having perfect systems of 
sub-irrigation, who after seeing the very 
decidedly superior results obtained by 
their neighbors with a sprinkling system, 
have decided to use it themselves, retain¬ 
ing tiling system for drainage only. 
If he is located at Hastings where sim¬ 
ilar conditions prevail, but where potatoes 
are the principal crop, he can plant on 
beds about 20 feet across with water fur¬ 
rows in between them, and by filling these 
furrows with water, it would in a short 
time spread out on the hard sub-soil and 
permeate entire land between. 
If Mr. Jones is in the strawberry dis¬ 
trict of Bradford county, the flowing 
wells could not be obtained, but the water 
supply in the driven wells would come 
up near enough to the surface to be taken 
up with a suction pump and distributed 
into head ditches running along the high¬ 
est point of the tract to be irrigated, and 
as the strawberries and other crops in this 
section are usually planted on individual 
ridges instead of on broad lands, he can 
run the water down between alternate 
rows leaving the intervening middles dry 
for convenience in cultivation and pick¬ 
ing, the operation to be reversed next time 
water is applied. For this kind of irriga¬ 
tion it takes very little power, as the wa¬ 
ter only had to be raised to the surface, 
and a very cheap style of pump can be 
used. If the well is large enough and wa¬ 
ter supply sufficient so that it will not 
lower beyond 18 ft. from surface when 
pump is in operation, a 4 H. P. engine 
will take care of a 4 inch centrifugal 
pump with an approximate capacity of 
300 gallons per minute, which would un¬ 
der ordinary conditions be ample for as 
much as ten acres. 
On smaller acreages in this territory, 
the low pressure type of Rotary pump can 
also be used to advantage, if the wells are 
free from grit. If, however, there is any 
sand in the supply this type of pump 
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