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Show FRUIT ON A DRY FARM Method Given to Make It Absolutely Abso-lutely Drouth Proof. Before Planting Single Tree Two Years' Moisture Is Secured by Plowing Yesr Ahead and Keep- ' Ing'Ground Cultivated. (By E. It PAItHONS) Twenty years ago 1 published a statement that trees and crops could be raised anywhere on suitable soil between the Hocky mountains snd Missouri Mis-souri river, without irrigation, fcvery-body fcvery-body laughed, some went as far as to say that such exaggerated statements only hurt the state, a tew took the j" hint, others besides myself had arrived ar-rived at this truth, and there are now fthade trees and family orchards all over the state, tew and far between It Is true, but quite enough for proof and now after twenty years every word or this statement Is accepted as fact Now I make another statement, which even the Colorado writers and professors are afraid of, and which tbo eastern papers altogether decline to print or believe, yet which Is capable capa-ble of proof and will be generally accepted ac-cepted In another twenty years, and that Is that any man can plant a dry orchard according to the following method and make tt absolutely drouth proof. .Jfhts knowledge will do you more1 good now than twenty ears hence and 1 submit It not for the enlightenment of Mr. W. U. Curtis, Mr. Wallace and others who affect to see ItUle or no good In dry farming, but for the benefit bene-fit of the few who can grasp a truth In advance of the popular heller and turn It to their own advantage. Hefore planting a single tree we go to work and secure two years mols-tiinu mols-tiinu for that tree by plowing a year ahead of time, keeping the ground cul tivated and digging the holes In the tail to catch snow and moisture all winter. Now Is the time to get to work, liow the ground as deep as you csn and arrange your lands so as 1 to bring your dead furrows where the 1 row of trees Is to be; by doing this the surface Is dished toward the tree ' and If there is any run off It drains 1 towards their roots. These dead furrows fur-rows are also of great advantage as now catchers. i Now a piece of land prepared In this manner will accumulate during sn ordinary season from three to four Jeet of moist earth from the surlace down, and In the holes after a wet winter even five or six feet, -Now to dry all this moisture out to t cultivated area without cropping would take two years or more without a drop of rain, so that wbeu a young tree Is planted two or three feet deep In all this moisture It Is as 1 contend absolutely drouth proof,, for In the past thirty years the longest drouth has been only a few months' duration, drying out no more than the top six or eight Inches, which Is of do value whatever to the tree anyway. Then we go to work and Impound rvery year ten times as much moisture mois-ture as the tree needs, as follows: A young apple tree Just planted jses up a lew hundred pounds of moisture every year, but we give .bese trees an area of 40 feet square, plums and cherries, 20, small fruits 10. Now If you figure out the precipitation pre-cipitation on an area or 60 feet square, 1.600 square feet, you will find that It amounts to about tio tons per annum. Now an apple tree from 15 to 20 years of age will use up only from 30 to 40 tons per annum, and can live, If necessary, on half of that, so that It is easy to understand that while the tree Is growing up the orchard Is gaining n enormous amount or moisture for future use and even when the tree Is full grown you will have several tons to the good each year, which you hold by cultivation In your subsoil, and even If your trees should need more moisture yet when they get, say 20 or 40 years old, tbey can be thinned out to fcl) feet apart, which would give ach tree about 240 tons per annum, to that there Is no need whatever to take any chances. You make the moisture question In the orchard as exact a science as building a bridge or t battleship. In fact. If 1 knew a man would follow these Instructions Implicitly, Im-plicitly, I would pay him a thousand dollars for every tree lost by drouth. We keep every weed out of the orchard or-chard and cultivate from ten to twelve times during the season with a homemade home-made cultivator about ten feet wide, which cultivates about twenty acres s day. Every year from the start the surplus sur-plus moisture sinks deeper and deeper deep-er Into the subsoil. 1 have followed It down foot by toot, year by year, until now It reaches a depth of nearly twenty feet. The apple ap-ple trees tbat are forty feet apart stand in a cube of moist earth 40 teet square by twenty feet deep, containing contain-ing between 200 and 300 tons ol water; wa-ter; wi make our estlmstes by taking samples all through toe aforesaid tube, weighing them, then drying tbetu out thoroughly, then weighing igaln. This gives us the exact amount or moisture in each sample and by running aa average, we get an appro-proximate appro-proximate estimate of what eaio cube contains Hy compsrlng wttb other cuSes oo shlch no trees are set. we are able to .ell almost exactly what each tree Is islng up, and by comparing with tbe precipitation can compute the luta by run off or etspwaiion. |
