Irrigated or Non-Irrigated Trees.

Is there any difference between the same kind of fruit trees grown without irrigation and with it?

It does not make a particle of difference, if the trees are grown well and matured well.  Overirrigated trees or trees growing on land naturally moist may be equally bad.  Excessively large trees and stunted trees are both bad; with irrigation you may be more likely to get the first kind; without it you are more likely to get the latter.  There is, however, a difference between a stunted tree and a wellgrown small tree, and as a rule medium-sized trees are most desirable than overgrown trees.  The mere fact of irrigation does not make either good trees or bad trees:  it is the man at the ditch.

Too Little Rather Than Too Much Water.

Looking through an orchard of 18-year-old prune trees on riverbottom land, I found a number of the trees had died.  A well bored in the orchard strikes water at about 15 feet.  I find no apparent reason far the death of these trees unless it is that the tap roots reach this body of water and are injuriously affected thereby.

We do not believe that water at 15 feet depth could possibly kill a prune tree.  It is more likely that owing to spotted condition of the soil, gravel should occur in different places, and with gravel three or four feet below the surface a tree might actually die although there was plenty of water at a depth of 15 feet.  There is more danger that the trees died from lack of water than from an oversupply of it, and it is quite likely also that you could pump and irrigate to advantage large trees which did not seem to be up to the standard of the whole place, as manifested by lack of bearing, smallness of leaves, which would be apt to turn yellow too early in the season.

Possibly Too Much Water.

My trees are four years old and are as follows:  Peach, fig, loquat, apple, apricot and plum.  Last year they had plenty of blossoms, but I got no fruit.  I always watered them twice a week in summer.

You are watering your trees too much; stimulating their growth too much, and this, while a tree is young, is apt to postpone its fruit bearing.  Give the soil a good soaking about once a mouth, unless you are situated in a sandy or gravelly soil, in which more frequent applications may be necessary.

Too Little Water After Dynamiting.

In planting almonds on a dry hard soil I dynamited the holes and ran about 200 gallons of water into each hole before planting.  About 95 per cent of the trees started growth, but seem now to be in a somewhat dormant state, the leaves of some being slightly wilted.  All the trees were watered since planting.  I have been told I made a mistake by throwing water in the dynamited holes.  When the holes were watered the ground was very dry and the water disappeared in a few minutes.

You have used too little water rather than too much.  Dry soil of fine texture can suck up an awful lot of moisture, which can be drawn off so far, or so widely distributed, that there will not be enough for the immediate vicinity of the roots.  The dynamiting tended to deep drying and necessitated much more irrigation.