The old-fashioned summer rhubarb usually goes off that way in very hot localities.  If there is too much alkali or hardpan, or if planted too late, the same results will be had with any sort of rhubarb.  Where it is very hot, plants, irrigated in the morning near the plants, scald at the crown and die in a few days.  If irrigated in the afternoon and the ground worked before it gets hot the next day fine results are obtained.  The winter rhubarb varieties do well in hot districts if the roots are planted from September 15 to May 1, while in cooler sections, April, May, June and July are the best months and will insure a crop the following winter.

Squashes Dislike Hardship.

What caused these squashes, of which I send you samples, to be so hard and woody?  They were grown without irrigation.

Your squashes were grown without irrigation under conditions which were too dry for them and became inferior in quality.  Possibly the variety itself is not of good quality or the specimen from which the seed was taken may have been inferior.  A squash, in order to be tender and acceptable, needs rich feeding and plenty of drink.  Otherwise, it is apt to resent ill treatment by very undesirable growth.

Harvesting Sunflowers.

What is the method used in saving or threshing the seed from the Giant
Russian sunflower?

Cut off the seed heads of your sunflowers when the seed seems to be well matured but before any of it falls away from the head.  Throw these heads on a smooth piece of ground or a tight floor and when they become thoroughly dry thresh out the seed with a flail, removing the coarse stuff with a rake and afterwards cleaning the seed by shoveling it into the wind so that the light stuff may be blown away.  A more perfect cleaning afterwards could be secured with a grain fanning mill or a simple sieve of the right mesh.

Irrigating Tomatoes.

How much water does it take (in gallons or cubic feet) to properly irrigate an acre of land for tomatoes?  The soil is adobe, and the customary way of planting tomatoes is 6 feet apart each way, plowing a trench of one furrow with the slope of the land for irrigating, that is, a trench between every row and a cross trench as a feeder.  The land is low and in the driest part of the year the surface water is from 2 to 3 feet beneath the top of the ground.

It is not possible to state a specific quantity of water for any crop, because the amount depends to such a large extent upon the retentiveness of the soil, the rate of evaporation and the kind of cultivation.  The best source of information is the behavior of the plant itself, bearing in mind that tomato plants require constant but not excessive moisture supply, and that if moisture is applied in excess it will promote an excessive growth of the plant, which will cause it to drop its blossoms and therefore be unsatisfactory and unproductive.  In such land as you describe no irrigation whatever would be desirable except in years of short rainfall, and such land, if properly cultivated, would always furnish moisture enough by capillary action to support the growth of the plant.