Show winter irrigation EX dils Alis MISSION sioN slon DE SAN JOSE sept 6 r emron em T tt ron 0 n 0 OF r W WESTERN E STERN STANDARD sir sirl siri I 1 have worked out some experiments the resent present season upon winter irrigation the results have been so satisfactory and its wark working ing so consistent with nature and reason that I 1 am am almost ashamed to acknowledge its never entering my head before believing the subject to be of great importance ard that some of your readers may be ag as unthinking as myself and knowli knowing also that many of them reside in dry countries countries coun dries Cries I 1 look upon it as a duty I 1 owe them to make known my experience P fience ri ence tom tog together ether with some arguments arume ar b ume rits that may be urged upon tile the subject you are aware that many in this r region eg lon ion I 1 ton predicted a large quantity of rain last w winter inter I 1 was faithless believing that there ther ewas was a probability babi lity of their being mistaken and knowing in 1 that my land would not produce a paying crop without more water than fell the previous winter also that we were reliable mo to stif fier in california from a scanty supply of water ater than from a superabundance I 1 concluded to irrigate and commenced in december 1855 to irrigate lands I 1 wished to crop in 1856 I 1 thoroughly wet some eighty acres the wheat on the lands thus ivet wet was forty inches average height containing seventy two grains to the head plump and good the was twenty five inches average height and containing twenty four shrunken grains to the head the tee same quantity tr of seed and the same amount of labor with the exception of the irrigation which cost twenty five cents per acre had been expended on one as the other the vegetable land was cropped in 1855 some portions of which entirely failed other portions were ivere destroyed by a worm the whole was decidedly a poof poor poor poon crop this year the crop is good and the worms have not injured n red it while the adjoining lands a r d s are quite overrun by them and had this th is not n ot been irrigated the crop would scarcely have been worth gathe gathering ring the long dry summers of california extract ex tract or absorb all the moisture contained I 1 in uncultivated ti IT abed lands to the de depth ath at least of ten feet the earth is a reservoir which abich nature fills and anti empties at least once a year in a perfect or imperfect manner if imperfectly filled by nature man should make up the deficiency as far as he wishes to cultivate his garden and orchard should be particularly attended to td ten feet of dry earth will swallow lip up one third of its bulk of water hence if a man be possessed of ten acres of land he has at the end of the dry season a reservoir ten acres acrea in extent and three and a third feet deep ulon upon which it will be impossible to cultivate any crop until il the reservoir is at least partially filled with water if it imperfectly filled your crops will be more or less imperfect if perfectly filled you can raise a better crop with less labor than you could by expending thousands of dollars to construct a reservoir of sufficient capacity to contain the amount of water desired and apply it as a your our dictated after the crop W was a planted 1 ante and A n pd for the he t reason that the first is applied to the roots of the plants upon perfectly natural principles they receiving nourishment reng regularly and constantly caus causing 1 a perfect hirm firm rm healthy growth and maturity while the tile later latter is altogether artificial and irregular in its application frequently stunting which unavoidably happens where water is scarce and then stimulates an unnatural growth and maturity causing premature decay as frequently happens with potatoes onions cabbage ac 0 |