Arizona citizen., 1877-12-21
TIE CITIZEN.
LD4Y. DECEMBER 2l, 1877
Winter Irrigation.

\ late number of the San Francisco
 Bulletin has an excellent article or
 Winter Irrigation" in California
 which will apply equally well to Ari
 zona Every farmer should read it
 think of its suggestions and also act
 upon them to the fullest practicable
 extent. The subject of irrigation is a
 most important one to every person in
 terested in the prosperity of Arizona TIE CITIZEN has heretofore given il
 some thoughtful attention and will
 continue to dc so. At present, we will
 give the Bulletins article, and urge
 our farmers to gave it careful consider
 ation:
 The subject of most general discus
 sion among farmers everywhere is
 how their lands can best and most economically be irrigated. But this discussion and the public mInd is too
 much directed towards irrigation in
 the Summer, when the crops need it,
 but when water is almost impossible
 to be had in quantities sufficient to do
 any good, and when that water has to
 be raised out of the rivers at their low
 est stage and spread over the land a
 very large portion of it to be taken up and carried away by evaporation al- most before it settles into the ground
 to refresh the roots of vegetation. Now, all will agree that there is but very little soil in California that will not produce good crops of most any kind if sufficiently well saturated with water in the Winter season. We nev. Ter yet failed to have good crops and prosperous seasons following a Win ter when the rainfall reached twenty inches, especially if good share of this fell after the first of January
 California is so situated that the az ricultural portions receive and conduct to the ocean all the water that falls on a watershed at least three times as great as that agricultural portion. There is not a valley in California into and through which from two to three times as much water does not run from the surrounding mountains as falls from the clouds on that valley. By far the greater portion of this noun tain water passes through the creeks and rivers in the Winter season, when the land is comparatively wet with water that falls directly upon it, and hence, at a time when we dc not feel the need of irrigation; at time when we are filled with hope that we will get rain enough to carry us through the following dry season successfully without the trouble and expense of ar tificial irrigation.
 The cid way of farming in Califor- mia was to put of blowing till the land had been wet down by the Winter rains, so that the blow would run and turn it over easily; but has taught us that this isl not the best way, even though it may be the cheapest. It has been found that we get better crops by anticipat- ing the time of sowing, by plowingI before we want to sow-by Summer and cultivating our lands during the Summer the year before wei expec: to harvest our crops.
 Now, the question arises if thereI cannot be something gained also byI the time of irrigation. In the Winter, as we said before, theI creeks and rivers run full, and as the waters pass us by on their way to the sea, they seem to say to us: Here we are now at your service, but if you do not use us now you will not see us again for a year, and you may want us IlCAN DuAAL4itA NAAIu hC Ciul1bL COlllt 1t your bidding Winter irrigation is comparatively inexpensive, and the waters at that time are charged with illuvium from all the surroundingI Hence if we take time by he forelOck and run the water out over our lands in the Winter, we ac- the double purpose of irri-' gating them for the season and of fer .ilizing them, at least for the season. Now IS the time for action Tn this di- -ection. It is an old saying, make nay while the sun shines" but in Cali 'ornIa agriculture nearly all things are changed from the old style, and so this 1ld saying should read: Make hay when it rains that is, flood your ands in the rainy season so that the nay will grow when the sun shines, md when there is no water to flood it with.
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