Watering place

“ This was a watering place, perhaps a never-ceasing watering place—and to his desert-born-and-bred race all water was a spirit gift never to be taken for granted. ”

“ Soc., a singular instance of obstruction of drains by the roots of the mangold, as well as instances of obstructions by the roots of trees.
Obstruction by Per-oxide of Iron. In the author's barn-cellar is a watering place, supplied by a half-inch lead pipe, from a spring some eight rods distant. This pipe several times in a year, sometimes once a week, in cold weather, is entirely stopped. The stream of water is never much larger than a lead pencil. We usually start it with a sort of syringe, by forcing into the outlet a quantity of water. ”

“ Whether by these thunderbolts or not, the No Gas party were defeated; and in this present season we have had our handful of shops illuminated for the first time. Such of the No Gas party, however, as have got shops, remain in opposition and burn tallow - exhibiting in their windows the very picture of the sulkiness that punishes itself, and a new illustration of the old adage about cutting off your nose to be revenged on your face, in cutting off their gas to be revenged on their business.
Other population than we have indicated, our watering-place has none. ”

“ No water company has robbed it, and besides "The King's Pool," which is the old name of the water, there are overflowing streams in every direction, now used in careful irrigation for the growth of watercress, one of the prettiest of all forms of minor farming. Fertile land, shelter from gales by the overhanging hill, great trees, and abundance of ever-flowing water, are the natural commodities of the place. ”

“ Irrigation, or watering land, is a practice, he observes, which at first view appears the reverse of torrefaction; and, in general, the operation of water in nature is to bring earthy substances into an extreme state of division. But in the artificial watering of meadows, the beneficial effects may depend upon many different causes, some chemical, some mechanical. It may act as a simple supply of moisture to the roots, or it may carry into the soil foreign matter, or diffuse that which exists in it more equally through its substance. ”

“ Every twenty yards along these small pipes a standard is erected about five feet high, on the top of which is a rose like that on a gardener's watering-pot. When the water is turned on at the tanks the pressure attained from its height forces it along the pipes up through the standards, and a few seconds later the whole field is being deluged with an artificial rainfall as if from a myriad fountains. Three times a day the clover crop is thus watered. ”

“ When water is brought to the termination of the canal, which we can accomplish in a few days, I presume that the reservoirs on the line of the work and those portions which are excavated in full will contain water enough to allow the people to irrigate when necessary, and thus do away with the practice of watering only two hours a week on a city lot, and much of that to be done in the night. ”

“ I put three inches of sand over the whole slate surface of the tanks, using a part for cuttings, and the rest, (say 100 running feet of the three feet wide table) , for standing pot plants upon the surface of the sand. The plants dried rapidly, and required watering every morning. The result was, that in watering the plants, and of course the sand on which they stood, to some extent, it was like pouring water upon a flue, or upon hot pipes: a constant steam was given off; all the moisture in the sand was rapidly converted into steam; so, also the water in the pots was quickly expelled. ”

“ The first time the land is watered it takes from two to five times as much water as is required later, and now we find the best results are obtained by watering about 10 days before cutting, using three or four inches of water. ”

“ It is always advisable to have the water at least as warm as the plants to be watered; and for this reason the water to be used in hot-houses and green-houses, is generally kept in an open vessel in the house some hours before using. [Pg 69] Watering with warm water is very efficacious in forwarding the flowering of plants. ”

“ He worked each day on his little motel, painting and hammering, while his wife, always with a cigarette in one hand, planted shrubs, lined the driveways with big rocks which she painted white, and did the watering--an important job in this part of the country. Our own shrubs, the islands of grass and the geraniums beneath our sign needed a thorough watering every day. We discovered that watering every other day was not enough; the grass would turn brown and die in spots unless it received a daily watering. ”

“ AERATION BY DRAINS.
Among the advantages of thorough-drainage, is reckoned by all, the circulation of air through the soil. No drop of water can run from the soil into a drain without its place being supplied by air, unless there is more water to supply it; so that drainage, in this way, manifestly promotes the permeation of air through the soil. ”

“ To insure success in the cultivation of plants in frames it is necessary to provide some means of applying water to the soil. Occasionally the supply of water can be obtained from the system of some city, but more often it must be pumped from a well or stream and stored for use in an elevated tank. Watering is gen [35] erally done during the late afternoon, but should be completed early enough to permit the foliage to become reasonably dry before closing the frames for the night. If the plants are young and very tender it will be important to avoid too great a degree of moisture. ”

“ The rule should be, to water as little as possible, and to wait as long as possible for nature's heavenly rain, which is better than any artificial watering. Plants should never be watered [Pg 101] during the middle of the day, but early in the morning, or when the sun is descending in the evening. Pump-water should never be used if rain or pond-water can be obtained. Much good often results to plants and seed-beds from the use of liquid manure. ”

“ A part of the rain-water is there held, until it returns by evaporation, to the clouds, while a part slowly percolates downward, finding its way into swamps and springy plains, and finally, after days or weeks of wandering, slowly, but surely, finds its outlet in the stream or pond. ”

“ The bottom being planted, the water may be introduced through a watering-pot, or poured against the side of the tank, so as to avoid any violent agitation of the bottom. The water should be pure and bright. River-water is best; spring-water will do, but must be softened by the plants for some days before the fishes are put in. ”

“ A great deal of the good produced by watering depends on the state of the ground; as when the ground is hard and compact, it is very possible to throw a great quantity of water upon it without doing any service to the plants. ”

“ In the second case, the excess of cold by evaporation is withdrawn; the cold water of attraction is removed out of its way; the warm air from the surface, rushing in to supply the place of the water which the drains remove, and the warm summer rains, bearing down with them the temperature which they have acquired from the upper soil, carry a genial heat to its lowest roots. Health, vigorous growth, and early maturity are the natural consequences. ”

“ It may be well to state here that this can never occur exactly in nature, because, water having the power of dissolving air to a certain extent, the seed a in Fig. 2 is, in fact, supplied with a certain amount of this necessary substance; and, owing to this, germination does take place, although by no means under such advantageous circumstances as it would were the soil in a better condition.
Fig. 3 - A DRAINED SOIL. "We pass on now to Fig. 3. Here we find a different state of matters. The canals are open and freely supplied with air, while the pores are filled with water ”

“ I believe that the spring we will discover there is not only the cause of that bog and the rank growth of weeds and briars, but it also furnishes the tiny stream of water that trickles past the barn. If this is so, Norma, then our hardest problem is already solved. In building a water garden the question of water supply is the greatest thing.
“One can run a pipe line from the house to any locality, and one can divert a nearby stream into a pool, and then lead its overflow away again, but that means a lot of work and expense. ”

“ A pond with its lilies, overhung by weeping willows and shaded by stately elms, is an unusual sight even in this county of abundant irrigation. The packing-houses and dryer all display a taste and practical arrangement hardly seen elsewhere. A climb to the top of the tank-house is well worth the trouble. The view becomes wonderfully enlarged; we overlook the level plains, all in vines, with houses and groves scattered about like islands in a sea,—no wild, unbroken country anywhere. ”

“ If this water fell upon a flat surface of soil, with an impervious subsoil of rock or clay, we should have some sixteen inches of water in the course of the year more than evaporates from the land. If a given field be dish-shaped, so as to retain it all, it must become a pond, and so remain, except in Summer, [70] when greater evaporation from a water surface may reduce it to a swamp or marsh.
With 16 or 18 inches more water falling annually on all our cultivated fields than goes off by evaporation, is it not wise to inquire by what process of Nature or art this vast surplus shall escape? ”

“ The water below the drains stands at a level, like any other water that is dammed up. Rain water falling on the soil will descend by its own weight to this level, and the water will rise into the drains, as it would flow over a dam, until the proper level is again attained. Spring water entering from below, and water oozing from the adjoining land, will be removed in like manner, and the usual condition of the soil, above the water-table, will be that represented in Fig. 3, the condition which is best adapted to the growth of useful plants. ”

“ Its fresh air, and the air which follows the descent of the water-table, carries oxygen to the organic and [pg 025] mineral parts of the soil, and hastens the rust and decay by which these are prepared for the uses of vegetation. The water itself supplies, by means of their power of absorption, the moisture which is needed by the particles of the soil; and, having performed its work, it goes down to the level of the water below, and, swelling the tide above the brink of the dam, sets the drains running, until it is all removed. ”

“ We have, in the northern part of America, most water in the soil in the Spring of the year, just at the time when we most need a genial warmth to promote germination. If land is well drained, this water sinks downward, and runs away in the drains, instead of passing upward by evaporation. ”

“ When the surface of any portion of land has to be drained of its accumulated water, where the soil is of an impervious nature, like clay, it is usual to cut deep furrows from the higher to the lower parts and fill these up with gravel stones or brushwood; the moisture which collects in these is made to flow into the lowest part, and there form a pond, from which it evaporates as fast as the drains supply it; or if the quantity be too great, a main drain or ditch carries it onwards to some stream or river. ”

“ Driven wells find this water almost everywhere. In places it rises to the surface in clear ponds which have no apparent inlet, and from which little water flows, but which are clear and sparkling at a good level the year round. ”

“ Land thus reclaimed is of extraordinary fertility by reason of the fact that the water under which it was once submerged, having been pumped into surrounding canals, is readily available for irrigation purposes in event of a dry season. ”

“ Evaporation lowers the water-level, especially in hot, dry summers. From year to year the water plants draw in to form a smaller circle, the grassy meadow land encroaches on all sides. The end of the story is the filling up of the pond basin with the rotting substance of its own vegetation. This is what is happening to ponds and inland marshes by slow degrees. The tile drain pipes obliterate the pond in a single season. Nature is more deliberate. She may require a hundred years to fill up a single pond which the farmer can rid himself of by a few days of work and a few rods of tiling. ”

“ The vapors of the marshes, and of the exposed manure heaps of the thriftless farmer, are gently wafted to the well-drained fields of his neighbor, and there, amidst the roots of the well-tilled crops, deposit, at the same time, their moisture and fertilizing wealth. ”

“ Draining has been defined, "The art of rendering land not only so free of moisture as that no superfluous water shall remain in it, but that no water shall remain in it so long as to injure, or even retard the healthy growth of plants required for the use of man and beast."
Some plants grow in water. Some even spring from the bottom of ponds, and have no other life than such a position affords. But most plants, useful to man, are drowned by being overflowed even for a short time, and are injured by any stagnant water about their roots. ”

“ The water which falls upon the surface is at once absorbed, settles through the ground, until it reaches a point where the soil is completely saturated, and raises the general water level. When this level reaches the floor of the drains, the water enters at the joints and is carried off. ”

“ Water for irrigation is obtained from streams, and it should be applied as quickly as possible, the best way being to flood the whole field for a few days, and then take all the water off, as standing water will kill the plant quicker than anything else. ”