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Show INTENSIVE FARMS PAY WELl System Practiced Almost Exclusively by Truck Farmers of Canary Islands Is-lands How They Irrigate. The truck farmers of the Canary Islands, Is-lands, says Consul William K. Kitches, Teneriffe, in Consular Reports, engage in intensive farming almost exclusively, exclusive-ly, as the farms average but two to five acre in size, rarely more. The largest farm in the islands Is about five fanegadas (the fanegada varies in the different islands, being usually a ! little less than an acre). Plowing Is done with primitive plows, consisting of a rough hewn pole or tongue to which is fastened an iron pointed stick, drawn by oxen. These plows are not so easily Injured by ti'e large, loose rocks below the surface of the soil, as steel blades would be, and the low cost of labor, about 50 cents American a day, makes the demand for a modern time saving implement slight. The result obtained ob-tained with this method of cultivation are excellent, and the appearance of a newly plowed finca (fnrm) is equal to that of the best English and European Euro-pean market-gardens. The Irrigation, which the average yearly rainfall of fifteen Inches makes imperative, is supplied on these miniature minia-ture farms by the use ol' hand watering water-ing cans. The larger farms have cement lined stone reservoirs, some of which have a capacity of several thousand thou-sand gallons. These aiv filled from permanent streams by cement troughs. These leads are economically provided (by forming cement grooves on the tops of the stone fences, which separate sepa-rate all the farms and are often used in dividing hillside farms into terraces. ter-races. A fanegada may produce 300 bushels of bananas a year. Six hundred kilos (-,300 pounds) of seed potatoes are required re-quired to plant the same area, the field being five to twenty times the amount planted. One and a half to two pounds of tomato seed will plant a fanegada and yield 200 to 600 sixty pound cases. |
