OCR Text |
Show DEPTH FOR IRRIGATION DITCH To Make Soil Retain Moisture It Must Be Kept Well Mulched Deep Plowing Necessary. If the soil la dry and aard and the water will not go Into it, the Irrigation ditches must be made below the hard layer of aoiL It la necessary In many of the orchards to make tbe ditches with a plow. Make them deep with wide bottoms where the aoll is heavy or made up of fine particles In light sandy aoll It is not neceaary to make the ditches so deep, the ordinary shallow, shal-low, narrow-bottomed ditchea are good under such conditions, wrttee R. E. Tremble of Wenatchee, Wash., In the Western Farmer. To make the aoll retain moisture It must be kept well mulched, a dust mulch Is very gpod, but It must be kept well worked and tbe mulch ahould be three or four Inches deep. Another grest help In making the aoll bold moisture Is to keep a good quantity pf humus In the aoll. This can be done by plowing under cover crop or by applying manure, or both The best method for our conditions, since there will be alwaya a shortage Df manure, la to grow a cover crop and add a small quantity of manure to the cover crop and plow both under together. to-gether. We must provide for the continuous con-tinuous additions of humus to the aoil for In thla district the humus Is very toon consumed out of the soli. For a aoll to properly receive the moisture frcm an irrigation. It must be In good physical condition. It Is Impossible to properly Irrigate a aoll o-hich la In a poor physical condition. Many orchard soils are In a poor physical phys-ical condition purely because ibey liave not been properly plowed, or. , shat li worse, have not been plowed it all With orchards properly plowed it the right time. Irrigation la much 1 nore efficient, and It la easier done. , |