CXII EEPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTUEE. 



Johnston's report will present man}^ matters of practical information 

 regardinj^- the size and construction of canals, the manner in which 

 water is distributed and applied to crops, and the yield and value of 

 the products. 



A number of the arid States are cooperating with the Department in 

 these studies of sociological and legal problems. Montana and Nevada 

 appropriated money for such studies, and the irrigation officials of 

 Wj'oming, Colorado, and Idaho have given both personal and official 

 aid. No branch of the Department's irrigation work has received 

 more cordial recognition than its studies of legal and sociological 

 questions, and it is believed that they are destined to exert a beneficent 

 influence on the future industrial life of the AVest. 



IRRIGATION IX THE HUMID STATES. 



,The development of the rice industry in Louisiana and Texas has 

 had the effect of enormously increasing the value of land hitherto used 

 only for grazing purposes or not at all. Its success has led to the 

 investment of large sums of money and a marked increase in the pop- 

 ulation. In the amount of mone}^ invested in canals and pumping 

 plants and in the increase in the acreage reclaimed, the rice districts 

 of Louisiana and Texas have made as great progress during the past 

 two or three years as an}^ of the irrigated districts of the West. This 

 rapid growth has given rise to a number of practical problems in 

 which the aid of the Department has been invoked. 



Establishing and maintaining pumping plants requires a knowledge 

 of the amount of water required, the cost of furnishing it, and the 

 methods by which waste in use may be reduced to the minimum. The 

 light rainfall of the past two seasons has also made it manifest that the 

 time is not far distant when there will be need for establishing rights 

 to the use of streams and some division of their water supply- among 

 these irrigators. During the present season the rainfall from June 

 to September was little more than that of many of the arid States, and 

 this, combined with the large increase in the irrigated acreage, has 

 made the drain on some streams cause their current to be reversed and 

 salt water to flow in from the Gulf. 



The growth of irrigation in the Southern States is not, however, 

 confined to the rice districts. During the past year the experts of 

 this investio-ation have furnished information and advice to farmers in 

 Georgia, Alabama, and the Carolinas under which a immber of irri- 

 gation S3\stems have been installed. The drought of the present season 

 has made the first year's trial a marked success, but it will require a 

 number of j^ears to determine to Avhat extent irrigation can be profit- 

 ably emplo3"ed in this section. The fact that the Department was able 

 to answer these inquiries has saved large sums of money to individual 

 farmers. In nearly every instance they had planned to put in pumps 



