The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1910-05-24
LITTLE WATER BEST
Properly Distributed Will Go Long
Way in Vegetable Production.
Results from Conserving Moisture
Astounding to Those Who Believe
That Nothing viii Grow With
out CopIous Watering.

Years of experience we're required
before the full knowledge dawned
Upon us, that 1t was possible to over
rrigate and drown our crops, writes
John Isaac, in Orchard and Farm.
In the first Fruit Growers conven-
tons, those held In the early eighties,
1ne Of the most important subjects
lnder discussion was the one of irri-
CATION and cultivation. There was a
strong and well-marked division be-
tween the advocates of the two sys-
TENS, and strange as 1t may appear to
US In these days OF better knowledge,
The advocates of copious watering and
little cultivation were strong and stub
born, but at last the advocates OF
thorough and frequent cultivation
won, and less water and more work
became the shibboleth Of the fruit
growers. The result of these early
experiments and discoveries has been
to make possible the cultivation of
great areas OF what would have been,
under the old system of watering,
barren waste, and to give homes to
thousands of people and to add mil
lions of value to our commonwealth.
We have discovered, in our practice,
what the dry farmers have since dis
covered and carried to a greater ex-
tent, that little water, properly dis
.ributed, will go a long way in vege-
table production, and that by conserv-
Ing 1t, and using it only to obtain re-
suits, such results are astounding to
those who believe that nothing will
grow without copious watering, either
naturally by rains or artificially by
irrigation.
In all nature there are two great
forces, the positive and the negative.
the two poles, which are Numerically
opposed. In mechanics we say that
action and reaction are equal and
contrary in their effects. We. have
attraction and repulsion. It is Just
so with our rainfall on the earth.
The earth absorbs and endeavors to
retain 1t, the sun attracts and en-
deavors to abstract 1t; whether it will
be lost to the earth and escape to the
clouds or be retained, depends en-
t1rely upon conditions and these con-
ditions may be largely regulated by
man. When the rains fall, the sur
face OF the earth Is softened and the
water absorbed; then the sun works
on the ground and removes it's moist
ure, baking the surface and compact
Ing its particles. This compacting
Of the surface forms capillary pas
sages, through which the underwater
Is carried to the surface, there to be
evaporated by the heat Of the sun
and lost to the soil, which needs it,
but which so freely parts with it.
1t is here that the benefits of thorough
cultivation come in.
The constant stirring of the sur
lace soil breaks up the continuous
connection between the soil particles
and destroys the channels through
which the sun pumps the water from
the subsoil to the surface, and leaves
all the moisture to pass through the
roots of any vegetation that may be
growing thereon for the nourishment
OF such vegetation. The constant stir
ring OF the soil improves it's condi-
ton, aerates it, and makes 1t the
more fertile, whereas to over-water
sours the soil, makes 1t sodden and
destroys its fertility. It's effect on
vegetation Is equally, injurious and
by over-irrigating, in the earlier days
of the orchard industry, many a good
orchard was ruined. We have seen
many promising orange orchards.
orchards which should have made
their owners independent, turn yell
low, drop their leaves, become stunted
and die from no other cause than the
extravagant application of water to
them. /.