WHAT TO GROW ON THE IRRIGATED

FARM.

BY F. C. BARKER, OF NEW MEXICO.

HAT is the best thing to grow? is

WHAT

a question often asked, but very seldom satisfactorily answered. The usual advice is to grow what there is most money in.

Sometimes there is a rage for peaches, at other times for alfalfa, with the usual result, that whatever crop is popularly believed to be the most profitable, is usually overdone and the markets glutted with an over-supply.

If a man is a working farmer, and understands his business, I believe there is always most money in raising what is consumed in the family, and herein lies the first advantage of having a farm under irrigation. It will always insure food for the farmer's family however small the farm be.

The first consideration, therefore, should be to see that the family is supplied with flour, fruit and vegetables. Wheat may not be profitable as a market crop, if grown on a small scale, but better raise it yourself than pay some one else to do it for you.

Besides you probably save freight or hauling and the profits of two or three merchants. The same may be said of corn, which has the advantage of being raised the same year after wheat in many irrigated countries of the South. The fodder will also make very useful feed for stock if a corresponding proportion of alfalfa is fed with it.

Alfalfa is a crop that should never be omitted on an irrigated farm. It will supply more food for hogs, cows, horses and poultry to the acre than anything I know of, and is a sure cropper with plenty of water.

With the crops already mentioned a farmer should insure a regular supply of eggs, milk, butter, poultry and bacon, and have something left over to sell.

But I am aware that this advice, al. though perfectly sound, will not satisfy the average farmer, who is always hankering after something that there is money in.

Well, on this point I think it good policy to grow that which cannot be successfully grown without irrigation. In my experience those are the crops which usually pay the best in the long run. This is what makes alfalfa such a paying crop. On no other food can bacon and milk be so cheaply raised, and if it were not for the fact that it cannot be grown without irrigation, no farm in the world would be without its alfalfa field.

Celery and strawberries are two other cheap crops which, except in a few favored localities, do much better with irrigation than without. Several strawberry growers in the East have made up their minds that, even where the rainfall is excessive, artificial irrigation is necessary to insure regular crops and they are putting up windmills and other devices for pumping water. I believe the day is not distant, when very few strawberry growers will risk the loss of their crops by droughts, and they must necessarily go to a great expense if they have to pump the water. pense is saved on the farm furnished with water from a canal. A good principle to follow in business is always to stick to some line in which you have special advantages. Don't do what every fool can do.

This ex

Do not be led away with the idea that there is a fortune in lemons, or in almonds, or in olives. The natural law of supply and demand tends to reduce the profits on all crops to a level, and what to-day looks the most profitable, will tomorrow be the most unprofitable. grow what you are best situated and fitted for and you will hardly ever make a mistake.

But

together with some of his corn-raising methods in general:

"The portion of my crop giving a yield of 104 bushels of husked, well-dried (fifty-six pounds, shelled) corn per acre was five acres of fifty-seven I planted last year. My land is slightly rolling prairie and about a fair average of Kansas soil, with a hard, impervious subsoil. The five acres mentioned were at one end of a twenty-five-acre field, part of which had been in potatoes for two years and the last crop dug with a listing plow late in October, which was equivalent to a deep fall plowing.

In spring the ground was much like a bed of ashes. It was then deeply plowed, made fine and smooth with a plank-drag and drilled the first week in May with a 'Farmer's Friend' planter of medium width, with a deep-grained yellow Dent corn; about the same quantity of seed was used as would have been if from three to somewhat less than four grains had been placed in hills the ordinary distance apart. This was cultivated four times with common gang cultivators and hoed three times the last hoeing after it had been finished with the cultivators.

"I am a strong believer in deep and thorough cultivation, and long since learned that a good crop of corn and a rank growth of cockle-burs, crab-grass and similar weeds cannot occupy the same ground at the same time. I have not subsoiled for previous crops, but last fall invested in a Perine subsoiler and used it on fifteen acres. I intend planting 100 acres in corn this season and aim to have it all subsoiled. Am subsoiling my fields the narrow way first (they are from forty to eighty rods wide and 120 rods long) as deeply as four horses can do the work, at distances of two and one-half feet. Will then throw up the ridges cross-wise of this with a listing plow, following it in each furrow with the subsoiler as deep as three horses can pull it, and drill the seed immediately in the track of the subsoiler. This will leave the land subsoiled in both directions.

"My whole crop for 1895 averaged only fifty-seven bushels per acre, yet would have made seventy-five bushels but for an unfortunate invasion just at the critical time by an army of chinch bugs from an adjacent thirty-acre field of oats. With proper treatment of our soils and

thorough cultivation I am of the opinion that in all favorable seasons such as last we should raise from seventy-five to 100 bushels of corn per acre instead of the more common twenty-five to fifty bushels. I am always careful to avoid cultivating when the land is very wet, and think many farmers make a serious mistake by working their corn when the soil cleaves from the shovels in chunks. The sun is likely to then bake the ground and the growth loses its bright, healthy green and turns a sickly yellow."

SUGAR TO REPLACE WHEAT AND COTTON.

FROM

BY W. C. FITZSIMMONS.

ROM the Florida Farmer and Fruit
Grower we take the following:

"We pay annually about $125,000,000 for foreign sugar. It should all be made here. The sugar beet crop should take the place of wheat on the great prairies where farmers are in poverty because wheat no longer yields a paying crop, and the cotton fields and the reclaimed glades of the South should be turned into cane fields where they will produce from $50 to $100 per acre without bounty."

The above is in some respects a misleading statement; especially that part of it relating to the feasibility of planting the wheat fields of the North and the cotton fields of the South with sugar-beets or cane in the hope of realizing $50 to $100 per acre for the crop. It is impossible. Such results have scarcely yet been assured by the best land in the world, when planted on so large a scale, and cannot be on the worn wheat and cotton lands of the North and South.

are

The total importations of sugar enormous to be sure; and for the year ending June 30, 1894, amounted to 4,261,360 004 pounds, valued at $124,720,681. For the previous fiscal year the imports were 3,731,219,367 pounds, valued at $114,959,870. While it is certain that this immense quantity of sugar can be and should be produced in the United States, it should be also remembered that all land is not adapted to sugar beets or to cane. More than 20,000,000 acres are annually planted with cotton in the United States and the yield averages less than 200 pounds of lint per acre, worth last year about $10.90. The 34,000,000 acres of land planted with wheat last year yielded but about thirteen bushels per

acre, worth less than $6.50 per acre at the farm. It is manifestly impossible for land either North or South which yields only thirteen bushels of wheat or 200 pounds of cotton per acre to produce beets to the value of $100 per acre. And experience in California, Nebraska, Utah and Virginia Virginia shows conclusively that the best beet land in cultivation in most of those States does not give the returns announced by the Florida Farmer. But an average of thirteen tons of beets per acre which sold at $5 per ton during the life of the bounty law is the highest product ever reached in this country and probably in the world on large areas. Thus, while

sugar production should be encouraged by all legitimate means, it should not be stimulated by holding out inducements impossible to realize. But let the sugar industries be built up! There is ample room for them to flourish.

PRACTICAL FRUIT AND VEGETABLE IRRIGATIOΝ.

JOHN

OHN TANNAHILL, of Columbus, Neb., in a recent speech before the Horticultural Society, gave the following as the result of his work:

"From an orchard of apple trees, of which 190 are beginning to bear, I got twenty bushels of apples in 1894, and this year I got from the same trees over 300 bushels. The trees are twenty feet apart; water is run between the rows, and I find that it does not take nearly so much water this winter as it did last, for the reason that the subsoil has been moist since last winter. As an experiment, I left some apple, cherry and apricot trees unwatered last winter; those apple trees not watered were in bloom just six days before those that were watered, with the exception of one tree that I mulched, which, after watering, was six days later and was loaded with fruit. The spring frosts hurt some of those that were watered, but, as they were not overloaded, the fruit was much larger and very superior to that of the others. Of those trees not watered two died and seven had some fruit to set, but it kept dropping until time of ripening, when there was but very little of it left, and that was poor, almost worthless. My

cherry trees, ninety-three of which I watered, bloomed two days later than those not watered, and all were heavily laden with large, juicy fruit, none dropping off or drying up; of the eighteen unwatered, ten died, eight bore very inferior fruit, hardly worth picking, and the trees made but six inches of growth of wood, while those watered made a growth of twelve inches. The cherry trees were watered during the last week of December, and received no water before or after; the apple trees were watered previous to this and when the ground was frozen. Water goes much farther and does more good in orchards if used in winter, but in no case let the water come into contact with the body of the tree, as freezing will injure it. Always have the ground a few inches higher around the tree.

AS TO VEGETABLES.

"I irrigated six acres for vegetables and made more profit off those six acres than off thirty acres unwatered. I grew from one-fourth acre that was watered three crops of cabbage, and the best part of it was that I got a good head of cabbage from every plant. At the same time I had two acres of unwatered cabbage, and I did not get one-fourth as many as from the one-fourth acre, and they were very poor. I plant cabbage two by four feet and water between the rows. The ground should be kept not only moist, but quite wet for them. When I see a cabbage beginning to head, I set a plant close by it, and when it is ready to cut, pull the roots and give room to the plant set a week or ten days beforehand. On all other vegetables on which water was used we were well repaid, as they were larger, smoother and of better quality, and the crop always sure. I have been in Nebraska twentyseven years and am satisfied that a practical man with five acres under private irrigation would make more money than from fifteen acres without irrigation; and no one need to be without it in our valleys, as we have plenty of water just a few feet below us, also plenty of wind above us, and by combining the two I believe ᎳᎾ can irrigate more land than we can from rivers and creeks by ditches, believing that there is more water passing in the underflow than passes down rivers and creeks."

"Be

An Object Lesson. Two days after irrigating my acre patch of strawberries the other day I started my Mexican boy in with a wheel hoe to cultivate the soil. After doing about half an acre, which took him some six hours, he remarked to me in his native tongue, "Patron, it seems to me that this stirring of the soil will make it dry out much faster than if left alone." "I don't think so, José," I replied; "you hoe your chili after each irrigation. Why do you do it?" cause it won't grow thriftily unless we keep the soil around continually hoed," he explained. "Yes," I replied, "it is because the loosening of the top soil preserves the moisture and lets in the air to the roots." To-day, nine days after the last irrigation, I took my Mexican to a patch of ground that had been left unhoed, and he was obliged to admit that at a depth of three inches it was much drier than the land he had hoed. To-morrow we irrigate the strawberries again, and when the Mexican hoes them, he will have the satisfaction of feeling that at any rate it is not labor lost.-F. C. Barker.

Antidotes for Alkali.-There are antidotes for all the different forms of alkali. The neutral alkali salts, common salt, Glauber's salt, sulphate of potassium, etc., are only injurious when present in large quantities, and must be washed or drained from the soil. There are but few localities where there are such quantities as here. The soluble earthy and metallic sulphates and chlorides, such as Epsom salts, bittern, chloride of calcium, alum, copperas, etc., find their antidote in lime, says a writer from New Mexico. Alkaline carbonates and borates, which are the most injurious, rendering the soil-water caustic and corrosive, find their antidotes in gypsum or land plaster.

The experience on my own land, where I am cultivating purposely the greatest variety of plants, shows that there will be practically little trouble in overcoming all difficulty from alkali. In fact there is scarcely a thing we have planted where it has been properly irrigated, which has not made satisfactory growth. If we find an exception it is almost invariably because water has been permitted to stand around the plant for lack of proper drainage, or in places where too much water has settled during irrigation, and this has been quickly remedied by providing the drainage.

Asparagus in the Garden.-A writer in the Montana Fruit Grower says that in his village there are four hundred gardens but only twenty asparagus beds. Writing of the little care necessary to have this delicious vegetable in ample supply for the family, he says: "Seventeen years ago I set an asparagus bed, ten by fifteen feet, using fifty plants in rows three feet apart. The ground was prepared the same as for an onion bed. For fifteen years that bed has been cut every other day, from its first appearance late in April until July 1. As soon as the last cutting is made, about four inches of fine, well-rotted manure is put on. No further care is needed, except to take out the weeds coming up from the manure. The tops may be cut and burned in the fall, or left until spring to retain the snow and prevent deep freezing. As soon as the ground can be worked in the spring, the manure should be forked in, being careful not to injure the crowns, which can be felt the moment the fork touches one.

The

An Important By-Product.-An Eastern fruit dealer saw a specimen of dried orange peel on exhibition at Los Angeles and had this to say about it: "That is the first lot of California dried orange peel I ever saw which comes up to the requirements of the trade, and that is as good as the very best I ever saw from Italy. peel is cut properly from point to stem, so that they are about an inch wide at the middle. The white is all carefully removed from the outer peel, and the goods are nicely dried. They are of a high, rich color, and perfect in all respects. In New York that peel is worth eighteen cents a pound, wholesale price. A great deal of it is used in making elixirs, cordials, bitters, etc. The refuse oranges of Southern California ought to be put through a proper press to express the juice, which will sell in large quantities in Eastern cities. Phosphates are all the go now, and orange phosphate is one of the most popular.'

Growing Celery.-The time for transplanting celery is now at hand. Probably the best variety for general crop is the Golden Dwarf, although the White Plume and many other kinds are recommended as their equals. If the plants have not been grown in a cold frame or out of

doors, they can be purchased from those dealing in vegetable plants. The ground

for celery should be well prepared to obtain the best results. A soil that is rather damp, but not wet; a heavy loam containing but little sand, or a spot slightly approaching to alkali, will make a good place for celery, providing the land is rich enough.

Early varieties may be transplanted any time during June, while the late kinds will do well if not planted till the middle of July in most sections of the irrigated region. The plants should be removed from the bed with care, to prevent breaking the roots. To secure uniformity in growth and make cultivation. easier, the plants should be of a similar size and set about fifteen inches apart when transplanted. They should be planted in rows and irrigated during the planting by allowing a small stream to flow down the row where the plants are set. The treatment for two months consists in good cultivation and frequent irrigation.

Simple but Important. The first three commandments in successful fruit growing are:

Thou shalt not use poor plants.

Thou shalt not set plants carelessly. Thou shalt not use ground until well fertilized and thoroughly prepared.

Neglect these three things and all the woes of a careless grower shall be thine.