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Show There Are Three Principal Reasons Rea-sons for Many Failures. Many Make Mistake In Assuming That by Use of Large Quantities of Water Careful Culture Is Not Necessary. (By M. E. LATNE. Houston. Texas.) The three principal causes of failure fail-ure in farming by irrigation are over-planting, over-planting, under-cultivation, improper application of water, and these apply to all classes of irrigation. Many people make grave mistakes In assuming that by the use of large quantities of water in irrigation it is not necessary to cultivate as carefully care-fully as when the water is applied through rainfall. This Is a mistake and one that the beginner is liable to make. First, one must use good judgment in applying the water so as not to scald the plants and cause the ground to bake or become hard and packed, thus damaging the crop instead of benefiting same by irrigation, losing your time, cost of producing the water and damaging the land, losing interest inter-est on the investment and deterioration deteriora-tion of your plant. Water should be applied in deep, narrow furrows between the rows of truck or trees (preferable by sub-irrigation), permitting the water to sub-irrigate sub-irrigate as much as possible. Never allow tie water to flood the surface of the ground, excepting on rice and possibly pos-sibly alfalfa or small grain crops, if it can be avoided. As soon as the water has been taken up by the soil and the ground is in good tillage condition, con-dition, you should cultivate, rilling the furrows, keeping at all times a good loose mulch, such as advocated in the Campbell system of dry farming. This will prevent evaporation, leaving the soil in a good, productive condition. It is best, when possible to do so, to apply the water in the evening or early in the mdTning, especially on truck. You will remember when nature applies ap-plies the water the clouds usually shade the earth, cooling same after the rain, and the clouds usually continue con-tinue to shade the earth until the soil has properly absorbed the moisture; otherwise scalded crops are the result. re-sult. Always follow watering with careful care-ful cultivation, as soon as the soil is in favorable condition, bearing in mind that r ' i water and sap thituS3-''' and that t--sSJlbsorb vater. unless the loose uracil is reta.TKi in other words, use as little wafer as possible pos-sible and mncfi cultivation and i.hen goop; results will follow. In this way you will reduce the cost of irrigation, owing to the ' less amount of water used, and your land will remain in excellent ex-cellent condition. The usual method of applying water: wa-ter: Flood the ground with too much water, little cultivation and sometimes some-times none. The result is baked and packed soil, plenty of weeds, yellow and dwarfed plants, and irrigation pronounced a failure when it is the irrigator and his methods, or a lack of method, that is the failure. In order that it may be clear, you will see that a reasonable amount of water, properly applied, keeping a good moist subsoil, gives the desired results, while much water improperly applied at an increased cost means no crop but plenty of weeds and land left in poor condition. By pumping water from wells or streams, where the lift is from 50 to 100 feet, and the careful use of same, a handsome profit can be realized, depending, de-pending, of course, upon the local conditions, con-ditions, kind and number of crops produced pro-duced per annum and prices received for same. 1 We can assure you that, in our opinion, opin-ion, backed by years of actual field work, the American people' are just entering the greatest development in the irrigation line tb world has ever known, and much or the water used for same is beiug obtained from the underflows, subterranean rivers, sheet or ground water, all of which are supplied sup-plied by the rain or snow from the mountains. In many instances the rain falls upon porous formations, such as sand or gravel, porous rock or boulders, disappearing beneath the earth's surface in said formations, passing through the earth, and in some instances the water appears miles away at the earth's surface in the form of a spring or an artesian well that flows of its own accord and pressure. |