604 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. -- 



share of water. All over the arid region individuals, associations, 

 and corporations composed of farmers have received from the courts 

 two, three, and even four times more water than their crops require 

 under economical use. Until such evils are remedied this region 

 can ncA'cr hope to jiossess that extent of irrigated land which its 

 available water would furnish if equitably apportioned. 



Sometimes the blame rests with the state legislatures in placing the 

 maximum amount of water which a farmer is entitled to use at so high 

 a figure that waste is almost certain to result. In certain warm parts 

 of the arid region, where evaporation losses are heavy, the continuous 

 flow of 1 cubic foot per second, when economically used, serves from 

 250 to 400 acres. In some of the colder parts of the arid region, with 

 less evaporation, the same quantity of water serves only 70 acres. 



These things emphasize the need of more attention to the methods 

 employed in the distribution, delivery, and application of water, and 

 until this is done it is evident that water will not be economically 

 used in irrigation. So long as we continue to magnify the impor- 

 tance of building costly structures and belittle the more important 

 work of raising valuable crops, just so long will careless, slipshod 

 methods prevail. In the past decade millions of dollars have been 

 expended in securing water, but the assertion is ventured that for 

 every $500 so expended less than $1 has been used in assisting the 

 farmers to make a Avise use of the water provided. A candid con- 

 sideration of the present stage of progress leaves no other conclusion 

 than tluit the material prosperity of the western country is depend- 

 ent on the better development of the agricultural side of irrigation. 



It was the purpose of the organizers of the Brussels Exposition of 

 1910 to make it more than a demonstration of the industrial and com- 

 mercial activity of the nations participating. With a view to giving 

 it a permanent intellectual value, a series of congresses and confer- 

 ences Avas provided for as one of the main groups of the exposition, 

 which Avere held from April to October. There were some sixty-nine 

 of these congresses and a number of conferences, Avhich had to do Avith 

 a wide A'ariety of subjects. 



Among the congresses of special interest to students of agriculture 

 may be mentioned the international congresses of horticulture, botany, 

 tropical agronomy, entomology, popular education, agricultural as- 

 sociations and rural demograph3^ apiculture, and alimentary hygiene 

 and the rational nutrition of man, as well as conferences Avhich had 

 to do Avith municipal sanitation and domestic architecture. 



The Brussels congress of alimentary hygiene and the rational 

 nutrition of man was the second international congress to be held, and 

 like the first is due to the initiatiA^e of the French Societe Scientifique 

 d'Hygiene Alimentaire. It may be mentioned in passing that this 



