June 1 1907 
—— ned 
their revivifying oxygen; their beneficial 
effec's cease partially or wholly, and the 
soil becomes “adobe” or “ brick.” The 
sub soil loses largely its capacity to retain 
moisture in its capillary or useful state, 
owing to the small particles cohering to 
form larger ones; within ten days or so, 
the crop shows signs of distress, and 
another watering—as wasteful as the 
previous—is required. Small wonder 
need be felt when assertions are heard 
that the life of lucerne is not more than 
five years—at other times, eight years is 
the statement—and that at the end of 
such a period, replanting’ is necessary. 
The cry that ‘‘irrigation does not pay ” 
is justified by the results achieved under 
such methods. 
It is not, of course, claimed that drain- 
age, and drainage alone. will prove the 
severeign remedy for all ills attendant 
upon irrigation Far from it. Drainage 
is, however, a first essential. and the 
irrigationist employing or introducing 
drainage will rarely be found deficient in 
other respects. For orchard lands, and 
for like crops where the capital value of 
the producing land is high, there is 
nothing to excel the tile or agricultural 
pipe system. Its cost is high, as much 
as £6 or £7 per acre, though its general 
adoption should lead to the establishment 
of ti:e-making works in the locality, and 
consequent?y cheapening of the tiles, 
Besides, a complete system is necessary 
for trees and vines, it is a matter of life 
and death; lucerne. although a deep 
rooter, is rather a gross feeder, while the 
annuals are content with a much shallower 
root system. They do not need such a 
perfect system as the orchards. For them 
a system sufficient to keep the soil bacteria 
lively, to keep the soil particles small, 
ahd to prevent the accumulation of the 
soluble salts—principally soda and lime— 
‘at the snrface by capillary action, should 
suffice. Such a result should be capable 
of attainment by, first, better methods of 
watering—the use of furrows for watering 
or properly graded and small checks, jf 
flooding be adhered to; secondly, by sub- 
soiling—breaking up of the “ plough-pan”’ 
—and allowing the water into the sub- 
soil, along with its fertilising agencies ; 
and, thirdly, combining with the sub- 
soiling a few open or closed drains to 
insure moyement in the sub*soil. Such 
a system, on a very elaborate scale, is 
employed at the Werribee Sewage Farm, 
Melbourne, and has proved highly suec- 
cessful both from the financial and 
hygienic stand-points, in dealing with a 
most difficult problem—the disposal of 
large volumes of sewage matter, which, 
unless an efficieet system of drainage 
were in vogue, would form most objec- 
tionable and useless.marshes. 
In our shallow soils, with sub-soils of 
a highly clayey nature, great care must 
be taken in sub-soiling not to bring much 
—none if possible—of the sub-soil to the 
surface, as the sub-soil, though chemical 
analysis shows it practically as rich in 
plant foods as the surface soil, is known 
THE AUSTRALIAN GARDENER. 
by bitter experience to be useless to 
plants for many years. The effect of 
sub-soiling to a considerable depth upon 
the unlocking of these unavailable plant 
foods is a problem which, apart from the 
question of drainage, offers considerable 
allurement to the investigator, and profit- 
able returns to the community, should it 
be satisfactorily solved. It may be pre- 
dicted that sub-soiling, combmed with 
proper surface cultivation and sub-surface 
packing, will render as much service to 
onr farming community as the introduc- 
tion of phosphatic manuring. 
Experiments to determine the move- 
ments of the soil moisture in the surface 
and sub-soils are being carried on at the 
Wyuna Governmeut Irrigation Farm in 
the Goulburn Valley District, Victoria. 
Samples of the soil at the surface, and at 
every 6 inches iu depth down to 2 feet, 
are taken at frequent intervals of time, 
depending upon climatic conditions, to 
ascertain the amount of moisture present, 
The samples are taken from virgin land 
of various classes, land cultivated on 
ordinary methods, land subsoiled, and 
land irrigated, embracing as far as possible 
all cases of variation of soil moisture 
movements due to man’s interference, 
These investigations are, as yet, in their 
initial stages only ; but they promise to 
yield much of interest. 
Reference has been made above to 
American ideas as to the relative import- 
ance of drainage and irrigation. An 
authoritative Indian Commission on the 
effects and causes of alkali in the Aligarh 
district of Northern India reported in 
effect that the introduction of irrigation 
increased the alkali areas, both by seepage 
from the channels, and by excessive use 
of water in irrigating, and that where the 
removal of such excess waters was mainly 
due to evaporation, the result was a 
destructive accumulation of alkali. The 
remedy proposed by the Commission was 
subsoil drainage. Apart from the injury 
to the productive power of the soil, much 
ill effect on the health of the residents 
has been caused throughout the irrigation 
districts of India. “ The high fever death 
rate 1s largely due to the stagnating water 
in the soil.” Mr. D. H. Anderson, editor 
of the “‘ Ivrigation Age,” Chicago, says :— 
«The constant pouring of water upon the 
soil in many of the older irrigated dis- 
tricts ] as resulted in creating a water 
table near the surface; so near, in fact, 
that formerly fertile tracts of land have 
been converted into swamps. -Hence, 
drainage has become a problem necessary 
to be solved if fertile lands and profitable 
orchards are to be saved from destruction, 
and it is gradually dawning upon the 
minds of irrigators that where there is a 
system of sub-irrigation there is also a 
system of drainage ready to hand. , , 
According to the common understanding, 
drainage means carrying off an excess of 
water from swamps and cold, over-moist 
soils for the purpose of reclaiming them 
or conyerting then into fertile fields. 
- But since irrigation plays so important a 
II 
eee A 
part in farm economy and profitable plant 
culture; indeed, since it has become an 
absolutely essential element of success in 
the arid and sub-humid regions of the 
United States, and is gaining ground in 
the humid regions, it has been discovered, 
through costly experience, that drainage 
and irrigation are inseparable systems.” 
One further factor in the problem 
remains to be considered. Our older 
schemes of irrigation were almost wholly’ 
designed upon the principle of carrying 
water to the land along the ridges or high 
ground, and above the level of the land 
to be watered—in fill, to use the technical 
term. No, or but little, provision was 
made for drainage of surplus waters, the 
channels, as constructed, being manifestly 
unfitted for sush use. Neither is there 
legislative provision whereby an irrigator 
cau obtain an outlet for his drainage 
system through the land of another owner. 
In the reticulation of the Wyuna Settle- 
ment, an area of about 20,000 acres—the 
latest system of distributary channelling 
carried out in Victoria—ample provision 
has been made for drainage channels in 
the low-lying sround to carry off the 
surpius waters, though not providing for 
each individual irrigator’s requirements. 
The need for the construction of collective 
drainage works and for legislation for the 
individual’s needs will not, however, arise 
until such improved methods of irrigation 
have been adopted with snch consequent 
great improvement in profits that the cost 
will not prove so great a burden as it at 
present appears. 
The experience of all other irrigating 
countries warns us that it is essential to 
drain to achieve the best results. In 
laying out the farm, as well as the great 
State schemes, this fact should be borne 
in mind, and ample provision made. The 
result will be less water required for 
irrigation, and much greater profits. 
Already we know that as great profits 
can be achieved here, as in any other 
country ; that areas supporting a few 
sheep can be made to support as many, 
nay, more, men ;’and that living can, in 
our once arid, inhospitable regions, be 
made a joy instead of a punishment; but 
this can only be done by the use of much 
labour, and of the best methods of irriga- 
tion. of which drainage is not the least 
important. 
PICOTEE, 
