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get electricity. Irrigation is the only successful way to grow your fruit. It
assures you crops. Last fall and winter you had plenty of water, and your
apples instead of falling from the trees remained on until ripe. Only for the
dry spell, the crop would have been satisfactory this season. My apples, this
season stayed on the trees, and have been satisfactory. I would not undertake
to farm any other way. It is poor satisfaction to get the water from ditches;
so people got to using wells and pumps, and in that country it can be done.
I think there is not a quarter of the land in western Kansas but can be irri-
gated from the pump. One man irrigates 10 acres this way, and grows every-
thing he wants. It is said there is only sufficient water to irrigate 7 per cent.
of that territory. I think there is more. I have 70 acres set in orchard, and
all my expectations in that line have been realized, and I see no reason why
fruit-growers there should not be successful. During the past season I irri-
gated my orchard twice, probably about 25 inches each time. I irrigated
thoroughly in February, and again in July. I think it went clear down to the
water again. I found the trees rooted down six or seven feet; I do not know
how much deeper they go. I found if I did not stir the soil as quick as I could
go on it, the water goes right out. It is an important thing to stir the surface
and make a fine dust or sand on top, and that will keep the water down. If
I had to choose irrigation or cultivation I would take cultivation. There is
where many make a mistake. Many think they must irrigate all the time, and
as soon as the water dries they pour on more, and many get unsatisfactory re-
sults. I do not use one-fourth the water I once did. Keep the ground moist,
put water on it; and in order to keep it moist we pulverize the surface. I tried
subsoiling, and found it a great advantage. When the ground is subsoiled
it holds the moisture a week longer. By careful cultivation of the top dirt-not
deeply, but just well stirred on top-you hold the water for the plants to take
up, and it does not require as much water for the work.
I find twice a year
enough. I grow mostly vegetable crops, sweet and Irish potatoes for my own
use, and garden vegetables of all kinds do exceedingly well. Cabbage will do
well anywhere with water. I think it will not pay to irrigate any kind of
grain at present prices. I think subirrigation is a humbug. Most of my land
has 10 feet of underflow water. I have no faith in subirrigation. I may be
mistaken, but I have no faith in it. It would be a difficult question for me to
determine, where there are different kinds of soil all over these farms, as to
what distance apart you should put the pipes for subirrigation. If it was suc-
cessful it would be the finest way in the world. In different fields you would
have to put pipes differing distances apart. Tests are expensive. I am going
to use water by pumping. I have no satisfaction in water from ditches.
Pumping is cheaper, but the power bothers me. I doubt wind-power. If a
person wants to utilize that do not use too large windmills. I have one 14-
and one 10-foot wheel, and I believe the 10-foot mill gives most water, and is
cheaper three to one.

William Cutter: I listened to the talk about subirrigation until I got pretty near mad-until Mr. Longstreth said it was no account. The best apples in the country are on Republican river. We proved that at Chicago. We bought 80 acres on Republican river, land that raised 75 bushels of corn this year without irrigation; and we started an orchard. I do not believe we need go 100 miles south to get our apples. The roots of our trees will reach water, because from the very first spade of earth, the ground is moist there.

W. H. Barnes, Acting Secretary: Some people think Kansas the only place they have to irrigate. Before me is the programme of the annual meeting

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of the Michigan State Horticultural Society, which took place last week at Adrian, and irrigation was up before them. I have the programme of the Illinois State Horticultural Society, which met on the 2d and 3d; it has irrigation on it. Kentucky, Minnesota and Nova Scotia are interested in the same subject.

JAPANESE HORTICULTURE.

By Professor Georgeson, Kansas State Agricultural College.

I was employed by the Japanese government for four years as professor of agriculture at the college, and I had abundant opportunities to observe horticulture. In fact, I made a special study of their economic plans, including horticulture. Japanese plums are prized highly in this country. Introduced by the dozens, they do well all over the United States-certainly so in the Southern and Central states. They are superior to our home plums in quality and size. I think they have at least 50 varieties there. The first comes early in June--a small plum, very meaty, with small stone. About the same time comes another fruit, the Lugford, a little early fruit, found in China also. This fruit, much relished, is about as large as small plums, and excellent, but not very meaty. They have no commercial value in this country. Later plums continue to come in. Some are very large. The Japanese do not appreciate ripe fruit. They pull it before it is ripe. They pickle them, and eat them the first thing in the morning to clear the stomach. They are exceedingly sour, and not agreeable. There are upward of 40 varieties of persimmons. They are as common as our apples here. Some have been introduced here, and do well in the Southern and Middle states. Some are very large-larger than my fist. The majority are small. Some look juicy when ripe, others firm. The majority have no astringency. Their grapes are excellent. I do not know whether they have been tried here or not. There are white, brown and black grapes. This nearly completes the list. They have no apples nor cherries. They cultivate cherry-trees for the bloom, which is large, double, and fragrant. They grow them for ornament. They do not seem to know that there are cherry-trees that bear fruit of value. I shall be glad to answer any questions, if you have any to ask. It was distressing to me to see the Japanese on the streets eating green persimmons. Imagine my surprise to find they were not astringent. They use irrigation for rice cultivation. The rainfall is heavy, and they need irrigation only for rice. Japan is comparatively a small country, about the size of California, and contains 40 million people, who mainly get their sustenance from an area of 20,000 square miles. The interior of this country is thinly settled, few people living there. The population being crowded together in a small area, their system of cultivation must be the most intense. An average-size farm is less than two acres. They have few domestic animals on such a small farm. They have horses for driving, and I have seen a few used in stirring up rice-fields, but hand-labor prevails. Cattle are used chiefly as beasts of burden. A few cows are used for milk and butter. In the interior of the country they use American condensed milk. Our horticulture has derived vast numbers of ornamental plants from Japan. One of the most beautiful sights was a hillside covered with large tracts of lilies, in full bloom. I have seen on one side the deep blue mountain lake, and the north side-slope covered with these large lilies in bloom. They grow a few peaches, also pears and almonds. The best that can be said of their pears is they are juicy, a sort of sweet water with no distinct flavor. I will also men

tion the quince; it belongs to the species of Rios Chues. Our quince is a small, stunted tree or bush. Theirs is a magnificent tree, larger than most appletrees, and the fruit larger than my two fists. It is not as good a quality, but can be used as we use the quince. They are strong in flavor. They raise a few Irish potatoes, and sweet potatoes abundantly. Some strawberries are raised for the large cities. They have many vegetables unknown to us here. They grow some of our ornamental plants as vegetables. Caladiums they call sugar potatoes, and dig them just as we dig potatoes. They are eatable, but not as good as potatoes. In the spring they use, as we use the asparagus, a plant of aralea cordata. It is a weed on the mountain. They sow the seed in the garden, to care for itself until three or four years old, and then take them up and fill in manure in the pit prepared, and arrange them on top of this manure and fill in the earth to this. They leave them a year, then dig up and cut these shoots. It answers for asparagus.

THE CAMPUS.

By Prof. J. D. Walters, Kansas State Agricultural College, Manhattan. Having spoken before this Society, at former meetings, of the "Improvement of Home Grounds," the "Remodeling of Old Homesteads," the "History of Landscape-Gardening," and other kindred topics, I shall now take up the improvement of school-grounds and the landscape setting of public buildings. There is a vast amount of missionary work to be done in this direction in our state. While the Society in its meetings from year to year discusses how to raise the red apple, the yellow pumpkin and the swelling cabbage, it should not neglect to cast a glance at the 5,000 school-grounds, most of them as barren and dusty and shadeless as the "Valley of Death." I venture to assert that of the country school-grounds of Kansas fully 30 per cent. have no trees at all, that less than 500 school-grounds can show any systematic attempt at planting and ornamentation, and that over half of the city schoolgrounds can exhibit little more than a few neglected, scraggly trees, planted in rows around the square. This is not as it ought to be. The esthetic training of the rising generation should not be neglected. The influence of the beautiful upon the growing mind is recognized to be among the first forces in education-a force that can hardly be overestimated; and it should not be forgotten that lawns, shrubs and trees have a powerful hygienic influence as well. To my mind no sight can be more desolate than that of a lonely, whitepainted schoolhouse upon the sun-burned or black-burned prairie, with scarcely a fence around it and not a tree or shrub in sight. How can such an utterly-neglected shanty become an agora of learning, of science, of character, of morality?

In many cities spasmodic attempts are being made from time to time to improve the character of the environments. A few trees are planted, and then Borers, maple-worms, box-elder

left to shift for themselves as best they can. bugs, storms, droughts and hungry horses at once begin their war of extermination, and within a year or two the result may be expressed by an equation. I know of a three-acre school-lot surrounding a high-steepled stone school

PLAN FOR IMPROVEMENT OF GROUNDS OF THE THE OKLAHOMA AGRICULTURAL AND MECHANICAL COLLEGE. (See opposite page.)

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building in a town of 4,000 inhabitants-a lot that has not a single shadetree or bush upon it. The only sylvan ornaments are two or three scraggy little Scotch pines, about fence high, and planted just where they should not be. Yet the schoolhouse was built 10 years ago, and stands on the main street, near the center of a city that loves to call itself the "Queen of Kansas. The soil of the yard is all that could be wished for, and the charter of the water-works contains the clause that the educational institutions within the city limits are to receive all needed water free of charge. The cited case is not an exception, it is the rule all over the state. The state institutions score a little better. Attempts have been made at all of them to fence the grounds and to plant trees, yet even here but little effort has been made, as a rule, to work in accordance with some carefully-prepared plan. The handsome grounds of the Agricultural College stand in strong contrast with those of some other state institutions, from which the stone-chips of the builder were never fully removed, or which were laid out so narrow and cramped as to indicate a state measuring 20 by 40 instead of 200 by 400 miles, and reaching to the stars.

However, it is easy to criticize. The question is, What can be done? And it is here that our Society should lend a helping hand: (1) By teaching the principles of the art of landscape-gardening, i. e., the planning and laying out of landscapes; (2) by giving practical instruction as to the proper varieties of trees, shrubs and lawn-grasses to be planted, the best methods of their propagation and care, the correct methods of building roads, walks, etc. The first part of our problem deals with fine art, for the principles of landscape-gardening are the same as those of all other art, from architecture and sculpture to painting and decorating. To state these principles is difficult, because they cannot be covered by mathematical formulas. All fine art is a conception of the mind. It exists at first in the form of an ideal, and ideals may vary infinitely. Every work of art consists chiefly of composition, and the artist is in the main a composer. To compose a beautiful whole with a number of related party is its purpose. The details, then, may be furnished or worked out by mere skill, and skill is not necessarily art. To illustrate: A polished column, a well-cut corner-quoin or keystone, a finely carved finial or rosette, are not architecture. Architecture is composition. An architect is one who composes, who adds together to a harmonious whole materials of many kinds, that the product may express the character of his ideal of a building. His art-work is done as soon as he has expressed his ideas on paper, i. e., as soon as he has made the drawings and specifications. The work of constructing the building belongs to the artizan, the stone-cutter, the mason, the carpenter, the tinsmith, the plumber, etc., and these are not artists. The architect may act as superintendent of construction, but even here he is an artist only as far as he continues to compose.

Applying these general facts to our subject, we may say then that landscape art is the art of composing ideal landscapes. In doing this the landscape-gardener, like the architect, must depend upon artizans for the actual shaping of the ground; upon the engineer for the construction of the drives and drains, upon the nurseryman for the growing of the trees and bushes, upon the mason for the building of the enclosures, upon the florist for the care of the flowers, etc. These men are not artists, because they do not compose, but work out details.

I have thus tried to clearly draw a line between art and skill, which should never be obscured, because the term landscape-gardening leads many into

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