The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-09-27

may be an early spring crop of wheat sown, but most of the growers keep the ground clear of other crops than the trees.
 The trees are planted from sixteen to twenty feet apart each way, and along the rows are run one, two and some times three irrigating furrows. Through these the canal water is sent streaming at the regular intervals of eight days or oftener in the rainy sea- son when water is more abundant. Ar ter each irrigation, or each second one at most, the furrows are turned over, the ploughman working away from the trees to the centre of the lands between the rows and then back again in rota- ton. Thus is served the double pur- pose of covering up the water so that it may soak down to the tree roots ana of stirring up the soil so that 1t may be free to take water next time.
 In late February and in March be- gins the anxious time for the almond grower. It is then his trees blossom, and it is then the blossoms are liable to be blasted by late frosts. The blos- soms are pink and white, the preva-
  ing upon the variety of the nut. The orchards in bloom look like huge square bouquets set upon the landscape. The trees grow with rather long branches, which point straight upward from the main limbs and give the trees rather stiff appearance, except when the straight lines are softened by the di- yersity of the blossoms.
 The frost danger lies not so much-ln the frost itself as in the intense warm ing influences of the early morning sun. After frosty night the little fruit cups of the blossoms are filled with moisture almost at the stage of ice. Then comes the sun hurrying up over the surround ing mountains and pouring down such hot rays that even in March the mer- cury may be sent Up to the one hun dred degree mark. Such a sudden warming of the moisture-laden blos- som Is apt to be disastrous, so the grower builds smudge. This is noth- ing more than brush pile arranged to give out the largest amount of smoke for the least amount of fire. The pail Of smoke from the smudge lighted at sun rise is designed to float over the or chard as a veil while the blossome are drying slowly. In this way are frost dangers avoided.
 Another danger is that of too much water in blossoming time. Sap rushes to the tips of the branches and the eX- cess of moisture is liable to blast the blossoms much as heavy rains may do it in a part of the country where na- tures way of irrigating still prevails
 These dangers past and the fruit set, there is only the regular round of cultl- vating and irrigating until July. Then come of the growers prefer to withhold the regular run of irrigating water for two or three weeks or until just before the nuts are ripe, when another run is given to aid in opening the hulls. 9th CTS, unless by water famine they are compelled to do differently, keep on ir- rigating the trees right up to the day of picking. As the last preliminary to picking, the ground must be cleared and levelled by drawing over it heavy dray, especially if there has been any surface growth allowed in the orchard. Stubble, grass of weeds would interfere seriously with the picking.
 By this time the hulls, which enclose each nut singly, have opened, according to the variety. The two halves flare widely with the nue adhering to the hinged side, or the lips of the hull are just parted, as it were, and the sharp edge of the nutshell shows between them. From vivid green the hull has by this time changed to a grayish brown, and from a thick and fieshy covering it has changed to a thin and dry husk, all ready to be broken away from the nut.
 All is now ready for the pickers. To the growers living near Proenix the In- dian Territory school is great conven- fence by furnishing pickers and hullers. A crowd of twenty-five or thirty Indian boys, and sometimes girls, too, Is sent to the almond orchard and put to work at from one cent to one and one half cents a pound of the hulled nuts. The larger boys are furnished with sixteen foot poles and sent out to beat the trees. First big canvas sheet is spread around the tree trunk, and on this the nuts rain down as the beaters work. Many of the nuts are beaten out of the hulls in this process of the pick ing.
 As soon as a tree is stripped the can- | vas is gathered up and it's contents of nuts, hulls, leaves and twigs dumped | into boxes or sacks provided for that ! purpose, after which it Is spread un- ] der the next tree. A squad of smaller boys now take up the work and pick up the nuts that have fallen outside the bounds of the canvas All the product is carried to a central hulling place, where the other boys and girls are sta toned That is where delft fingers count for there is 8 knack about peel ing off the hull. and little strength is required.