110 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



for about $100 an acre. The appearance of the crops on the iinirrifrated 

 lands in July and August was very like those of Kentucky, Indiana, 

 or ^Missouri. The grass along the roadside was green and there were 

 no sharply defined lines between the irrigated and unirrigated lands, as 

 is true in the arid part of the United States. The same crops grow 

 above ditches as below them, but there was a luxuriance and perfec- 

 tion in the irrigated farms not seen where they depended on rain. 



The oldest canal inspected in Lombardy was constructed in 1150. 

 This was built by the monks and was small and crooked, as were nearly 

 all the canals built during the next live hundred years. The land could 

 be faimed without irrigation and the building of canals meant increased 

 expenditure, more people to cultivate the land, more houses for them 

 to live iu, and more barns in which to store the products. The large 

 outlay in other dii'ections, besides the cost of ditches, retarded this 

 change. Init in recent 3"ears progress has been rapid because of the 

 need of finding emplo3'ment and support for the dense population, 

 there being about 380 people to the square mile in the province of 

 Milan. There are several important ancient canals which are used for 

 navigation, but many of the large irrigation canals have "been built 

 within the past fifty 3'ears. Among those visited, the last to be com- 

 pleted cost about $1,^00,000 and has been finished about five years. 



One of the instructive features of Italy's irrigation system is the 

 way in which farmers have united in cooperative societies to build 

 and operate canals or to distribute water from laterals. The largest 

 of these societies is the Irrigation Association at Vercellesi. It has 

 11,000 members and controls the irrigation of 123,500 acres. It super- 

 vises the operation of over 7,000 miles of canals and ditches, with 10 

 water masters, and has about 150 miles of telephone lines. It buys 

 water at wholesale and pays on an average $170,000 a 3^ ear for the 

 quantit}' purchased. The main society is divided into 10 subordinate 

 societies, each of which elects a member to a general assembly which 

 directs the polic}' of the association. This societ}" transacts a business 

 of about $0(JO,000 a year. 



One of the effects of these cooperative societies is the absence of 

 friction and controversy' between neighbors and neighborhoods, so 

 often manifest in the United States. In the societ}- above referred to 

 there has never been an appeal from the decision of the manager, nor 

 a single instance of a member's failing to pa}' his water rentals. In 

 traveling through a region in which 27,000 cubic feet of water per 

 second was being distributed every day there was not a single com- 

 plaint of injustice or extortion, nor a fear expressed bv an}^ farmer 

 that he Avould not receive his share of water when his turn came. 



Much of the land is farmed by tenants, and as the area each culti- 

 vates is small, the general practice is to rotate the use of water along 



