there is rarely danger of being a few days too soon with the water. It is always the

other way.

But if you must trust your eye to tell when to water anything, learn to tell in advance of any suffering. Allow nothing to wilt or twist or look yellow, if you can avoid it, for although it may be pulled out all right, something is lost, and there is generally no excuse for it.

LITTLE FEAR OF OVER-IRRIGATION.

The proper time to irrigate will vary with every product, every locality and every temperature. As a rule, one should be careful about applying water too freely when anything is in bloom. The same when fruit is ripening. But to this latter there are large exceptions, especially with berries to be sold fresh in the local market and fruit that is to be sold to the cannery or shipped but a short distance. Injuring the flavor of fruit with too much water is much exaggerated. Much of the California fruit in the eastern market is flat because picked too green, as it must be to stand the long journey. Most of the talk about its being over-irrigated is done by cranks with dry land to sell. Stuff to be shipped far and keep well should not be bloated with water. That is about all there is in it. There is very little danger in watering too often if the ground is well drained and it is not soaked too much. I

have seen peaches, plums and pears made very flat and sour, as well as small, on very well drained ground. But it was because the water was running in large quantity almost all the time. I have seen several million times the quantity made small, flat and sour with too little water. Last summer, in my garden, I tried to see how much water a few peach and pear trees would stand. I failed to damage the quality and had the finest I ever saw. But they were not kept in a mud puddle. I watered them every week, but just enough to keep the soil so that it would pack into a ball readily in the hand without any mud clinging to it. It was done by frequent watering with a moderate quantity and digging three days afterward with a potato. fork.

It is doubtful if any fruit can be hurt as long as the soil is not muddy enough to stick to the hand. And I would rather trust to keeping the soil in that condition the whole season through than to wait for anything to show the want of water. It cannot always be done, especi

ally on a large scale, but the more nearly you approach it the better.

In southern California peaches, apricots, prunes, and most other deciduous fruits, rarely have an "off year," and when they do it is seldom a serious shortage. This is largely due to irrigation of the trees. once, and often twice, after the crop is picked. This starts the trees into a new growth before the setting of the fruit buds for the next year. The most regular, as well as the heaviest crops, are from trees thus treated, and it would be well to follow this course wherever the climate will permit a late growth in time to harden up the wood to endure the winter. This latter is a point always to be kept in mind, for there are many places where a late growth will be nipped by frosts, while in other places it will not. But this recuperation of the tree in the same season will doubtless give it a longer and healthier life, even if it does not save it from an occasional off year.

After what is above said you will see how impossible it is to say how often during the season one should water. It will vary with the soil, the climate, the age of the trees, the nature, and especially the size of the crop, the amount of hot weather, etc. In 1894 I had to irrigate a number of trees twelve times, because the rainfall of the preceding winter had been so very The trees light and the subsoil was dry. were heavily loaded, and I could get but a short run of water and a small stream. Every tree carried its fruit through in fine shape, but if I could have controlled my water supply I could have done it with four irrigations, and had the preceding winter been up to the average in rainfall two good wettings would have sufficed.

SOME GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS.

In general, it is not necessary to water as often as one would suppose, provided the ground is well soaked at each time and good cultivation is kept up. With a winter rainfall of twenty inches, the average of a highly productive and extensive area in southern California, the last rain of any value being rarely later than the 1st of May, followed by seven months of sunshine, with an air most of the time drier than is ever felt east of the Mississippi, and often intensely dry for weeks at a time, the periods of irrigation on well cultivated land run nearly as follows:

Oranges and lemons, four times a year.

(These need more water than any other trees).

Apricots, peaches and prunes, once or twice before picking and once or twice afterward. The once or twice depends much upon the nature of the soil and the ideas of the irrigator. It is the same with pears and all other deciduous fruits.

English walnuts, twice a year.

Corn-most of the corn in California is grown without irrigation, but water three times will double the crop and twice will increase it immensely. If planted straight both ways, as in the east, and well culti vated, two irrigations will more than double the yield. It is the same with beans, beets, potatoes, cabbage, peanuts, peas, and a host of things.

Alfalfa, once after each cutting. Some irrigate just before cutting. This will vary some with locality, but does not affect the rule of once at each cutting. In some places there are seven cuttings a year. Four of these will mature in five weeks from the last cutting; one more will take a trifle longer, the rest considerably longer. At two of these cuttings flooding is sometimes omitted, but seven times a year will not be too much for alfalfa raised for profit in the lands of warm winters.

It will thus be seen that irrigation is not a constant drenching of the soil, or even an attempt to pour on water as often as rain generally falls. It should be at each time what rain ought to be-enough to last until the roots have absorbed it. The quantity should be so great that surface evaporation and drainage beneath can do their worst and still leave enough to carry the plant for a period that, in the lands dependent on rain, is generally considered a drouth.

This assumes a thorough wetting of the whole ground. Where less than the whole is wet with basins or single furrows, there is no possible way of getting reliable data. But even then, two or three times a year more should suffice if the work is well done and the intermediate ground well cultivated.

LOW AVERAGE RAINFALL.

Where the rainfall is but ten inches the number of irrigations is generally increased by two more for oranges and lemons and one more for deciduous fruits. The latter are sometimes watered twice more. Lowering the rainfall to five inches would not

now make much difference, though if the air is very dry it will probably pay to add another dose of water. Reducing it to nothing would make little difference, as a five-inch rainfall for the year is practically nothing. But still, another watering would not hurt it. There is a difference between what you can do and what there is no need of doing that should be kept always in mind, if you want to make money out of the ground. Many give less than the quantities above given, but where you don't have to stint your vegetation don't do it, for, everything else being equal, the most money is steadily made by those who use the most water.

For berries, especially strawberries, and vegetables that are worthless unless crisp. and succulent, no analogies like the above are of much use. They need water very often for the best results, but the soil and the weather affect the question too much to allow any rules. In hot weather, if the water, too, is warm, it would be hard work to injure strawberries with a light dose every three days, while there seems limit to the amount radishes and cucumbers will take without injury.

no

The practice of irrigators, however, is not always a sure guide. It will undoubtedly pay to irrigate the olive well. I have seen it treated like the orange with stupendous results, but hardly anyone does so because it is so tough and does so much without water that it is generally left to shift for itself. The number of times a year that anything needs water will also depend somewhat on the position of the roots. If you keep a sprinkler running all the time on a lawn you train the roots so near the top that they need water almost constantly in hot weather. But if wet by the running of small streams a long time, or by good flooding, so that the water soaks in deep, the lawn will not need one-fourth of what it needs from the sprinkler, and the roots will follow the receding moisture until the grass will soon go two or three weeks in the driest weather with no sign of suffering. Where water is short it is well to train everything in this way; but where water is plenty almost everything does better with the roots in the top soil where it is richer and warmer and more accessible to air.

I considered cultivation quite fully in Chapter V. Allow no one to inform you it is not necessary. It is entirely too late in

the century for any one to tell us this. At Santa Fé last summer I was shown a fine young orchard of various trees about ten feet apart, flooded but uncultivated, and the trees in such shape that it could not well be cultivated.

6.

Very good for a young orchard," I replied, when pressed for an opinion.

"And what will be the matter with it for an old orchard?" asked the owner, with a touch of indignation.

"You will wish the trees were so that you can cultivate them," I replied.

"Ha! ha! ha!" he sneered; "we have to plant them close so as to shade the ground in this hot sun."

"We got over that in California fifteen years ago," I answered.

If the ground is well stirred and kept stirred there is not sun enough or heat enough in North America to rob the moisture from the soil in seven months. California proves this in thousands of places every year.

If ground is flooded and then left to bake, as this was, there is not shade enough in Erebus to keep the soil from drying out in half the time it should dry out.

But will you not get more fruit from many trees close than from fewer ones farther apart?

When young-yes; when old-no, not by several fold. And the percentage of first grade will be very light.

I was shown the old Chisum orchard at Roswell, New Mexico, on the same trip. It, too, was all uncultivated. It had a very fine crop of apples, but it simply proved that that part of New Mexico, like many other new sections, will raise very fine apples. In the course of a few years those who continue to raise apples in that

way will make considerably less money than those who cultivate. It has been so everywhere it has been tried, and with every kind of fruit. There is no reason why any section should be an exception. It is as plain as can be that the soil needs aerating as well as moistening. It is certain that good stirring will retain most all the moisture until the roots take it out; it is equally certain that it flies out rapidly under a hot sun where it is not stirred, and especially where it bakes to a hard crust after flooding. Cultivation, therefore, saves that much water and keeps the soil in a more uniform stage of moisture, which is exactly what everything needs. There is, therefore, no excuse but laziness for neglecting it, aud the man who tells you it is not needed is not a benefactor, but one of those smart fools who never think about running to the patent office to see if any one has been ahead of them with their new discovery.

Cultivation after irrigation needs a machine that stirs and pulverizes instead of turning up the moisture, as a weed-killing cultivator generally does. It wants teeth instead of shovels, and plenty of them. Disks pulverize well but do not stir enough. Such a machine should be light and easily handled, and made to turn easily without injuring trees, and also easily raised or lowered to run deep or shallow, as needed. The Killefer cultivator, made at Los Angeles, has been devised expressly to meet this demand, and seems to do the work better than any other. But almost anything is better and quicker than a common shovel cultivator, such as is made for killing weeds. The other will keep the weeds out if used enough, while the shovel brings up too much moisture and runs hard.

IN

N the case of Moyer vs. Preston, 44 Pac. Rep., 845, the Supreme Court of Wyoming held: That the common law doctrine of the rights of riparian owners to the waters of natural streams being inapplicable to the requirement of the land owners of Wyoming, was not in force in that state. And further, that Section 1317, providing that persons owning land in Wyoming bounded on or in the neighborhood of a stream shall be entitled to the use of the water of the stream for the purpose of irrigation, does not entitle such owners to claim the water of the stream as riparian owners as against prior appropriators.

In the same case as above, the court held: That the owner of land on which was situated a spring, the waters of which were tributary to a stream flowing through the land, worke several days in 1885 clearing out that spring and facilitating the flow of the water to the stream, and in 1886 again worked one day in clearing the spring, with the intention of appropriating the waters for irrigation, no further work of appropriation being done until 1887, was not an appropriation of the water as against a person prosecuting his work of appropriation in 1886.

CLAIM OF APPROPRIATION-REASONABLE DILIGENCE USER.

In the case of the Nevada Ditch Company vs. Bennett, 45 Pac. Rep., 472, decided by the Supreme Court of Oregon, the facts were as follows: In the early summer of 1881 persons claiming an ap propriation of water from a public stream posted a notice at the head of the proposed ditch, as required by local custom, stating the amount of water claimed, the purposes for which it was to be applied, and the route and terminals. Work was begun shortly afterward, and a dam was built and a diversion made for the purpose of aiding in the excavation. The first section, two miles long, was completed in the spring of 1882. During 1882 the ground

was cleared for the excavation of the second section to the further terminal. In the spring of 1883 the work was prosecuted till the irrigation season, when it was stopped to permit the use of water through the completed portion. It was resumed in the fall, and continued until the completion of the second section, in the spring of 1884, and during that year water was run through the full length of the two sections, a distance of about nine miles, and used for irrigation purposes.

The action was one brought by the plaintiff above named to determine the quantity and priority of plaintiff's appropriation of water from the stream, and to restrain defendants from interfering with its use. It was held by the Supreme Court that the plaintiffs had exercised due and reasonable diligence in the prosecution of the work, and that in such a case the appropriation dates back to the first steps taken in the construction of the ditch.

It was also held that a claim to a water right ripens into a valid appropriation only when there is an actual user for a beneficial purpose, and that the claimant is entitled to a reasonable time, after he has diverted and carried the water to the place of use, in which to make the actual application to the contemplated useful purpose, using reasonable diligence under the circumstances of the case.

TRANSFER OF CLAIM.

In the case last cited it was also held that where a person who initiated the appropriation, but has not yet completed it, transfers the possessory title to which the water right was appurtenant, his successor can complete the appropriation.

And also that the bona fide intention which is required of the appropriator to apply the water to some useful purpose, may comprehend a use to be made by or through another person, and upon lands and possessions other than those of the appropriator.

STRAWBERRY CULTURE UNDER IRRIGATION.

BY F. C. BARKER, OF NEW MEXICO.

THE

HE strawberry calls for a special system of culture where irrigation is practiced. In very few localities will matted rows be successful. If the beds are flooded most soils will cake to such an extent that cultivation in the matted rows will be most difficult, if not altogether impossible. On the other hand, many soils are so deficient in porosity that the plants in the middle of the rows will be left dry if the furrow system of irrigation be followed. It is also difficult to properly mulch strawberries in the matted rows so as to keep the berries out of the mud.

The system of planting on narrow raised beds, with wide water furrows between, is popular in small gardens, as, by setting the plants just above the water line, the berries are raised above the mud. Cultivation, however, is tedious, and in the event of any scarcity of water the plants suffer terribly.

On the whole, I am inclined to favor hill culture and the flooding system of irriga. tion, the plants being set on the flat.

In my own case I have adopted the following method with success: The land is cleared of rubbish and lightly plowed in the late fall or early winter, and any ap parent irregularities in the surface made level with the scraper. During the winter stable or cow manure, or, indeed, any kind of manure that is procurable, is carted on to the extent of not less than sixty loads per acre. This quantity may appear ex

cessive to some farmers, but it must be borne in mind that three crops will be taken from the land before it is again fertilized. Most of my own land received more than double this quantity of manure. Wood ashes are also an excellent fertilizer,

and so are ground bones, where they can be obtained. For my own part I am a great believer in stable or farmyard manure, as it improves the mechanical condition of the soil and the humus, in which our soils are naturally deficient, is not only beneficial to the plant but it tends to hold moisture.

Having carted on your manure and spread it, plow it under and give the land the heaviest irrigation you can manage. The object of this irrigation is to rot the manure and enable you to give the final and deeper plowing. The winter irrigation will also enable your land to better stand the droughts of summer.

When the land gets sufficiently dry to work, which will be in about two or three weeks, and before it gets too hard, plow as deep as ever you can, following with a subsoiler. Then drag or harrow so as to break up clods and get the land smooth.

Now, lay out the land in small oblong beds, say not over thirty feet wide by ninety long. It will be difficult to get the water over larger beds quickly and evenly. The water must not be allowed to run from one bed to the other, but lateral ditches must be run to irrigate a row of these beds on each side, the water being let in by small boxes or water gates, say 6 x 4 inches inside measurement. Each bed must be most carefully leveled by means of a spirit level, so that there be no greater fall than two inches in ninety feet. Indeed, if absolutely level they will be all the better. This leveling is of the greatest importance; if not properly done the plants will be standing in muddy water at the lowest. point and the berries ruined. The more efficient method of leveling small beds is to run a row of small stakes, the tops of which are placed on a level with the spirit level, down the middle and across. The height at which they stand above the sur