Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-07-30
j. P. STEELE, EDITOR.

| productiveness of region that draws
i heavy population of farmers, and it is irri-
cation that makes superior productiveness.
Unless the great states not now resorting
to irrigation do speedily resort to it the re-
ports of heavy and regular crops coming
from the irrigating regions of the West will
attract the best Of their people thither, and
when once there their old homes will never
get them back again. But most of our
states will resort to irrigation, Mr.. Soniat
thinks-they cannot help it if they would
hold their own. And looking in imagina-
ton upon what the result will be he contin-
ues:
What transformation do ! see in the
near future. Growing fields OF the finest
cereals and the most luscious fruits shall
follow the course of water, cities shall
spring up as mushrooms in the night, and
| millions of human beings with all their
hopes. aspirations and joys shall contribute
to make of this the greatest, the grandest,
the richest government under the broad
canopy of the heavensf
Some may think that this is the dream Of
a visionary or the offspring of a diseased
imagination; but pardon me, scientist
such as Bousingault states that he has seen
Indian corn grow on the plateau OF the
Andes by means of constant irrigation; Is 1t
| not well-known fact that horticulturistS
grow cuttings of various plants in pure well
watc"? The purest Of natural water con-
taiuS a vast amount of mineral as well as
organic matter which the plants can readily
assimilate; then why should this be too
strange to be truel' Irrigation is an indis-
pensable adjunct to cultivation in dfy
climate and on a sandy soil, where the
ground water is, at times, too far removed
from the surface to be within the reach OF
pants. Deep-rooted plants may endure by
finding their supply of moisture well down
in the subsoil, but for strictly superficial
feeders there must be regular supply OF
superficial moisture else. they fast and do
exceedingly bad, or starVe, Shrivel and die
outright.
Mr.. Soniat then goes on to show that wa
ter leads everything else in d sustenance of
vegetable life. No matter how rich the re-
past of plant food offered to the feeders Of
the plant, it cannot take one particle with
out moisture. The richest lands of the
prairies of Texas or the delta of Louisiana
are but poverty itself without moisture to
dissolve the elements of plant food and fit
them or assimilation by plants. A bank of
clean, rounded glass would sustain plants
equally as well as would the richest and
finest lis known, + entirely dry.
Thus It is plainly shown that drouth-
even though not of the severest type-is
highly injurious to crops. Whenever the
ground moisture gets SO much as scarce,
making what we call dry time" but not
a drouth, the majority of plants will suffer
more or less. Water, then, must be sup
piled b. some means if we woa Id have our
crops do their best-there must not only be
no drouth, but no dry tine.'' The cult
urist can not now afford 70 raise poor crops,
therefore he must arrange to give water
artifcially so often as his crops need it If
natural means bring the necessary water,
ali well and good, but according to Storer
the rainfall is not sufficient to more than
supply the evaporation caused by the sun
throughout the season; even in Louisiana,
wit an annual rainfall of about sixty to
sevent- inches, how much of this wateri is
utilized by the growing plant Only
comparativelv small proportion.
The people of tie North ar considering
the Importance of irrigation, and some of
them are already practicing it with good
success Their entire growing season is
about like what we call our spring season
in the lower states of the South If it pays
to irrigate up there in their short seasons
and for a single crop, ought it not to pay us
much bette here where our frostless sea-
son is fully three times the length of theirs,
and where under irrigation we could easily
grow three crops to I'll, r one?
We leave intelligent exams to make
their own comments.