IKRIGATION AND DRAINAGE INVESTIGATIONS. 31 



Government for the construction of irrigation works, and large sums 

 are being expended by private parties. This expenditure of public 

 money is made on the supposition that it is all to be repaid by the 

 settlers within ten years after the completion of the works. It is 

 on this promise of repayment that the act was passed, and it is on 

 this that the success or failure of the act will in time be largely meas- 

 ured. The same necessity for repayment exists under private work, 

 only in a greater degree, since failure on the part of farmers to make 

 payments means financial disaster to both themselves and investors. 

 A very large percentage of these farmers will come from the Eastern 

 States and will know nothing about irrigation methods. No other 

 influence is of as much benefit to these farmers as plain, practical 

 instructions as to how to prepare their lands and how and when to 

 water them. If the}' are compelled to find these things out by expe- 

 rience, the waste and loss inevitable from this kind of education 

 largely absorb their earnings for the first three or four years and 

 lead to discouragement and often financial ruin. To meet this need 

 the Office published last year a manual " giving such plain directions. 



Although there have been distributed gratuitously more copies of 

 this bulletin than of any other ever published by the Irrigation and 

 Drainage Investigations, a large number have been disposed of by 

 the Superintendent of Documents, wdio receives pay for it. For the 

 past two years all of our field agents have had instructions to keep 

 this matter of irrigation practice in mind, and send in descriptions 

 of methods successfully used in the sections visited by them, and fur- 

 ther bulletins on this line will be issued from time to time. Mr. 

 H. G. Raschbacher, of this Office, made studies of this kind in south- 

 ern Idaho last year, and the results have been published. 



Another method of helping beginners in irrigation has been adopted 

 wlierever possible. That is the employment of exj)erts to give per- 

 sonal advice as to jiossibilities and methods. A part of Mr. Stover's 

 work in Oregon in 1005 was of this nature, while Mr. Culbertson, 

 who was working in western Texas, devoted his entire time to this 

 line of work, with very favorable results. 



The exhausting of surface streams has made resort to underground 

 sui)plies more and more necessary until pumping has become an ini- 

 l)ortant means of securing a water sui)ply. To determine the feasi- 

 bility of pumping and the best types of machinery, kinds of fuel, and 

 arrangements of ])]ants, in 1004 we gave much attention to tests of 

 pumping plants, a large j^art of the last anmial report of the Irriga- 

 tion and Drainage Investigations being made up of the results of 

 this work. It was continued in IDOH. Mr. C. E. Tait, of this Office, 



a U. S. Dept. Agr., OfTice of Experliuent Stations Bui. 145. 



