The Florida agriculturist., 1906-03-14

pOrCun1ty is any greater III CQe SaCrd-
mento than in the San Joaquin valley.
which is longer, and equally fertile.
Only the various private systems of
irrigation in the latter valley do not
promise the efficiency which may at
tach to one system, which prevents
injury from excessive use of water by
providing ample drainage. But in
both cases the wisdom of artificial
irrigation turns about the mildnesS
of the climate and the character of the
seasons. Where the summer is absO-
luteIy rainless. as here. irrigation is
common sense. For while the winter
rainfall. if ample and always to be
counted OH, would make "dry farm
ing as successful as in many humid
lands. yet the seasonal precipitation
varies greatly i'm different years. and
i'm different localities. Irrigation
makes crop failure thing of the past.
1t takes the farmers work out of the
realm of uncertainty, and makes him
practically sure of a crop every year.
1t is only necessary to remember
what are the prime factors of prOduc-
ton. fertility, temperature and moist
ure. to see the importance of the lat
ter i'm summer land like California.
Winter is but a prolonged spring; the
summer has almost no cloudy days:
the frOstless season is long, and makes
a succession of tender vegetable
growth possible while the abundant
sunshine makes acre-crops which tax
credulity.
The land of the green winter and
the brown summer, California has
been called. and to the Fasteners
10 @f of
valleys in July or August is appalling.
He wonders how any growth survives
the long drOuth. In the East six
weeks are often fatal to many forms
of plant life, but here six months rain
less weather, untempered by cloud or
fog. is common.
Meantime, you hear the sound of
running water. you walk beside the
irrigation ditch, and note the 1usty
vigor of all growing things wherever
the water flows. You see the truck
garden repeating it's harvest every
month, and the alfalfa field returning
four, five. six cuttings in the season.
1t is one of the queer things an east
erner said. this dust-covered greenness
and vigorous growth where for three
months it has not rained. and for three
more it is not expected to rain.
The practical advantages are that
you get your moisture when you want
it and where you want it. Nothing
suffers unless you allow it to, and
nothing gets wet unless you choose to
have it so. Your strawberries flourish
because you keep them moist; your
beetS at the proper time lay i'm supplies
of sweetness because you keep their
soil dry; your alfalfa cures in a day
without being injured by rain, and the
new growth starts at once because you
turn the water over the field
Major Powell said many years ago
that there is probably not an acre of
land in the United States the produc-
tive capacity of which would not be at
least doubled by irrigation and Sec
retary Wilson, of the Department of
Agriculture, says that sin those COM
munities of the West which have
been created by irrigation, the farmers
have learned that forty acres well
titled will yield more than one hundred
and sixty farmed i'm the old haphaZard
way" Besides, it multiplies neigh
bors, takes away the isolation of farm
life, invites the trolley car and the ru-
raj mail, and adds to the country some
of the attractions of the town without
its perils.
The great interior valley is travers-
ed by two lines of the Southern Pa