480 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



The first drainage district organized in Alabama revealed the 

 fact that the State drainage law was unsatisfactory. The procedure 

 for organizing and operating a district was cumbersome, the 

 method of financing was expensive, and the bond issue was not 

 suitably secured. At the request of the State authorities assistance 

 was given in rewriting the laws, making changes which made the 

 procedure more simple and the bond issue more secure. 



The extension work undertaken was, as in former years, done in 

 cooperation with the State extension services. Individual assistance 

 was rendered on great numbers of tile and terracing projects, and 

 many preliminarj^ examinations and reports were made on com- 

 munity projects involving the reclamation of swamps and stream 

 bottoms. The interest in terracing as a means of preventing soil ero- 

 sion is evidenced by the fact that during the fiscal year in Arkansas 

 650 demonstrations of terracing were given by county agents and 582 

 farmers were induced to build terraces. The total number of acres 

 terraced in that State during the year was 26,913. 



Consulting assistance was rendered during the year on several 

 large community projects. 



FARM IRRIGATION INVESTIGATIONS. 



One of the things the department undertook to ascertain when 

 its irrigation investigations were first instituted was the duty of 

 water, and the amount of water required in the successful irrigation 

 of dilferent crops under the various conditions of soil and climate 

 of the arid and semiarid regions. Indeed, the principal work for 

 several years centered in that determination. The investigational 

 work has consisted of measuring the water applied to and wasted 

 from selected fields under a great variety of soil, topographic and 

 climatic conditions, more exact measurements of a like nature on 

 small experimental tracts, and laboratory experiments with crops 

 grown in tanks. Crop yields were recorded, together with soil 

 analyses, soil moisture content, temperature, wind movement, and 

 other data having a bearing on the water requirements of crops. The 

 gross duty of water was determined by keeping records of diversions 

 at canal intakes, and losses in transmission were also determined. 

 The accumulation of these data, together with similar records 

 collected by State and private institutions and individual farmers, 

 has reached large proportions and covers a wide field, so that it 

 is now possible to present the results in a form which should prove 

 of great benefit to those interested in irrigation agriculture. 



The importance of doing this is emphasized by the inquiries re- 

 ceived for information from individuals seeking to reduce crop pro- 

 duction costs by the more economical application of water and from 

 State officials, courts, engineers, and managers of irrigation enterprises 

 who must apportion the flow of streams, settle water rights, design con- 

 duits a,nd structures, and store and distribute water supplies. In many 

 of the more important irrigated regions the normal supply of water 

 in the streams has been entirely appropriated and any further ex- 

 pansion of the irrigated area requires the construction of costly 

 storage works, frequently at great distances from the lands to be 

 irrigated. It is, therefore, of first importance to make available 

 all possible information on the water requirements of crops. 



