The Mason County journal. [volume] (Shelton, W.T.) 1886-1927, 1896-01-17

quantity Of product, the certainty or I'M
certainty of crops. the desirability of irri-
gated lands for homes, in short the gen.
eral advantages and disadvantages of an
irrigated country or district for homes.
First let us consider some of the adverse
CRITICISMS OF irrigation. Perhaps the most
silly objection is that irrigation is a
method devised by man." that IF God had
intended crops to be grown in any certain
place, ne would have furnished the rain
fall" that Irrigation being in contraven-
uon or natures laws is something to be
avoided. While such an objection is
| plainly too ridiculous to need a serious
answer 1t is frequently advanced by people
| supposed to have some common sense:
and shows the kind of argument often
adopted to convince ones own self. And
| yet 1t is on plane with many of the
| stereotyped objections which are based
upon false premises and maintained large
| ly through prejudice.
The most common objection is the one
heard so often that it makes us tired, for
we know what is coming even before the
| obJector has said three words, and yet he
| VIII usually elaborate upon it as though
| ne was giving you something that the
word had not known before, and
something which he had acquired thrczl
deep scientific research and a wide field
| OF observation. He will tell you that irri-
| gated fruits look beautiful but they lack
navor and are watery, and in the same
breath will compare California peaches
| and apples-which by the way are gener-
! ally not irrigated at all-With the apples
and peaches of New York and Delaware.
| He will tell you that irrigated potatoes
| are Watery and will explain in detail why
| they are so. telling you that so much water
mas to be put into the ground that the po-
| tatoes cannot be dry and mealy.
! NOW, the facts are these: That with
4 even a small amount n
| experience, potatoes can be grown and
are grown of better quality on irrigated
| lands than on any other lands. Why? Be-
| cause the farmer can have the soil just as
moist or just as dry as he pleases, and he
| does not depend on the uncertainty of too
! much or too little rainfall. It is true ha
can ruin the quality of a potato crop by
| TOO much water, but it is not true that ir-
| ngaton farmers do this, except in rare
| instances from lack Of experience.
| The irrigated potatoes from Greedy Col,
outrank any others that are put upon the
market Of Chicago, st. Louis and the otber
| great cities. "Greely'' potatoes in Chicago
are like ~ akima' potatoes in Seattle and
Tacoma. They rank first and are the
standard as to excellence and price. Ask
any commission man in Seattle or Tacoma
what are the best quality potatoes on the
market and he will tell you Instantly
| ~ aklma." Three years ago when the
| non-lrrlgated potatoes were selling in
| your markets at $14 to SIG a ton. Yakima
| potatoes were bringing $26 to $50 a ton.
! MOI that Yakima potatoes Were any bet
| ter than any other irrigated potatoes. hut
| because of its large acrea ge it rather nre-
| empted this market. The average WELD
being about 300 bushels Give tons) per acre
ana average cost Of production delivered
on board the cars being about 81 per ton.
anu the rallroad freight $500, every farm
| er thought his potato patch a gold mine.
| 1ao 1,~
10 81. Paul, and last spring over 200 car
| loads of Yakima Burbanks went to ST
| Paul and st. Louis at very profitable prices
I to the grower. They are now being used
! by your merchants with which to open a
| trade in Central America AS soon as Some
| ehtSrpf1Slng man or company gets around
to starting a starch factory in this state
you will find that it will be located where
| an abundance of dry, mealy, starchy irri-
| gated potatoes can be easily obtained, and
where there will be no danger of too little
rairltall 10 spoil crop, or too much rainfall
to spoil the quality.
| Now as to fruit. The criticiser of irri-
cation is as far away from the truth as be-
FORE, and for the same reasons. An orchard
! can be irrigated too much or too little, and
the crop injured the same as it can be in
! Jured by lack Of care in pruning or cult
waiting. But 1t is only justice to our farm
| erS TO say that as a rule they use as much
! common sense in this matter, as the farmer
| IN a non-irrigated country uses in the
| handllng OF his crops and orchards. The
| people IN Spokane know what kind of
| peaches, they get from the irrigated or
chards along the Snake river and the CO.
| lumbia, and the people Of Tacoma and Sc
attic know the peaches they get from Yak
ina and Wenatchee. The earliest orchards
| set out in these valleys were mostly seed
| lings, and of course are poor in any coun-
try, but the orchards that have come into
| bearing within the last three or four years
| are Of the very best varieties, and the big
! lucious peaches you get from them are rot
| for one minute to be compared to the Cali
| fornia peach, which whether it be good or
bad at home is certainly very insipid when
| it gets up here.
AS for apples nobody thinks Of compar-
| ing ours with our southern neighbors, and
| even the Calfornians themselves do not
| pretend to raise good apples.
An illustration showing the superiority Of
| irrigated prunes is furnished by G. P. Will
| cox, of North Yakima, who is one of the
best authorities in the state on prune dry
I ing. His French prunes after evaporation
amounted to 46 per cent. of the green fruit
| in 1894, and IS 1-6 per cent. in 1896. Italians
dried 80 per cent. each year. Silver about
| 30 per cent. The usual percentage in nom
irrigated districts is, French prunes IS per
| cent. to 40 per cent, and % per cent. to so
| per cent. for the Italians. Thus the irri-
|
more substance than the prunes raised
without irrigation in a humid atmosphere.
The quality Of fruit is always affected by
| the climate and SOIL But whether the
| moisture required by the fruit runs into
| the orchard in open trenches along the
| ground by a gravity flow from rivers or
| artes.an wells, or whether it is pumped
| into a. tank and sprayed on the trees as
| they are obliged to do down in Florida,
| and for the market gardens of the Eastern
| cities, or whether it comes in the form of
| rain, it matters little; except that the rain
| fall is often so insufficient that the fruit
wthers and dries up, dropping from the
| trees before maturity, or if it has life to
| hang on till harvest is, under such cir
| cumstances, sorry specimen.
In this connection wish to mention a
! few things seen in Niagara county, New
| York, in September, 1899, county with an
| international reputation for it's fruit. 1
! drove through dozens Of the best orchards
! in the best part of that county (along the
| Niagara river and below Lewiston), and in
| company with as good an authority on
| fruit as there was in New York state, a
| man of middle age who had been buying
| and shipping fruit in large quantities for
! over twenty years, and who was living on
| a farm that his grandfather had taken up
| in 1904. He claimed to know every or
| chard in that county that had shipped
| barrel of apples in twenty years, and he
| introduced me to a score of the large APP
| pie growers in that section. The story of
every one of them was the same lamenta-
| bic experience, that the best thing man
| could do with an apple orchard in that
| country was to cut it down. Many ap-
| Die orchards that had been set out twenty
! five years had not in all that time borne
| as much fruit as a Washington irrigated
| orchard of one-half the size, and one-haf