The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1892-10-01
FARMER AND PLANTER.
VEGETABLE GARDENING.

Irrigation May be Used to Advantage to
overcome the Summers Drought.
On ordinary farms no especial gar.
uener is kept, but the gardening is done
by the farmer and his crop hands at odd
times. When the pressure of planting
and working corn is over and the har-
vest finished, and farmers able to give
more attention to the garden, they are
apt to find 1t SO hard and dry that it is
ulff1cult to work it, and give the vege-
tables fresh start, so much does every
thing in our southern climate suffer
from drought as the summer advances.
In view of this fact, 1 think it is
very important for us to locate
our garden Tor that part of il
intended for late vegetables) in a spot
capable of being irrigated. For spring
vegetables, we hardly feel the need of
irrigation as drought seldom sets in till
summer is well advanced. Accordingly
we can have pease, snaps and all the
early vegetables in abundance, on a
spot so bright and dry as to be incapable
OF bringing the later vegetable In per-
lection, such vegetables for instance. as
tomatoes, satisfy, celery and some
Others. l have known persons living
on-river farms to have two gardens. one
close to their house ION a hilD for early
potatoes and another on a rich little
spot IN the low grounds for such vege.
tables as mature in July, August and
September. In this way they secured
a good supply of late vegetables, but of
late years we have been subject to such
terrific overf1ows of the river that there
Is risk in such plan. and besides the
remoteness OF such garden spot from
the house is drawback.
The safest plan seems to b, to select
some spot near bold branch or creek
and to irrigate it from that. If you can
lind such spot near your dwelling
house, all the better, but Il not, irriga-
ton is SO important and beneficial to
vegetables and small fruits that be-
iieve we would gain by placing the gar
den at some little distance from the
house or spot capable of being irri-
gate3, rather than to have it close to
TIE house on a dry spot. True, IL is
harder to get the vegetables when the
garden is at distance but there is this
advantage in the scheme, the garden is
free from the depredations Of fowls and
young stock which infest the yard
and premises around most farm-houses.
where the garden adjoins the yard.
L have seen housekeepers wringing
their hands with vexation over the |
depredations the fowls had committed |
on their vegetables. especially toma-
toes, whose bright red attracts their |
notice. Sometimes in a whole row of |
tomatoes you will scarcely find single |
ripe one that has not been pecked by |
fo"-ls- No vegetable shows the benefit |
OF irrigation more strikingly than to-
matoes. A few years ago, in a great |
drought. / saw tomato patch simply |
irrigated by little trenches dug with a |
hoe, and conducting water from a |
spring branch. Whilst other tomato |
patches in the neighborhood succumbed |
TO the drought, and either bore very
sparsely, or not at all, the irrigated |
patch was fiourishing and luxuriant
bearing profusely and of fine quality,
and holding out till the last of October.
The beneficial effect of irrigation on
small fruits is also very remarkable. 1t
is especially valuable and important for
raspberries.
I Irrigation may be done either in an
expensive, or cheap way, according to
the taste or circumstances of the indi-
vfdual. Those who can not afford iron
piping for the purpose, may carry on
irrigation cheaply by means of wooden
trOurhs made If two parro,,- x,l,cl~. |
nailed together, or they might do it in
a simpler way still, by digging little
trenches with hoe, leading from the
branch into the patch they designate
to irrigate. The ancient Egyptians per-
formed their irrigation in this simple
and primitive fashion, and their gar
dens were proverbial for their fertility
and luxurance. A traveller in Egypt
tells us that in the gardens into which
they can lead water for irrigation, they
have small trenches between each row
of plants made by a rake or hoe. The
water being led into the first trench.
runs along it until it reaches the other
end, when a slave, with his foot, re-
moves any mold that may have gotten
into the little trench, that il may have
a free unobstructed course; then again,
a way for it, round the end of
the second row of plants. the water
runs freely into the next trench. and in
this way have seen slave lead the
little stream from one trench to anoth-
er, zigzag over the whole garden.-M.
w. Early, in Home and Farm.