EXTENT OF SOIL IRRIGATED IN EUROPE. 459 
acres. * In these three states alone, then, there were more than 
three thousand square miles of artificially watered land, and if 
we add the irrigated soils of the rest of Italy, + of the Mediter- 
ranean islands, of the Spanish peninsula, of Turkey in Europe 
and in Asia Minor, of Syria, of Egypt and the remainder of 
Northern Africa, we shall see that irrigation increases the 
evaporable surface of the Mediterranean basin by a quantity 
bearing no inconsiderable proportion to the area naturally 
covered by water within it. 
Arrangements are concluded, and new plans proposed, for 
an immense increase of the lands fertilized by irrigation in 
France and in Belgium, as well as in Spain and Italy, and 
there is every reason to believe that the artificially watered soil 
of the latter country will be doubled, that of France quadru- 
pled, before the end of this century. There can be no doubt 
that by these operations man is exercising a powerful influence 
on the soil, on vegetable and animal life, and on climate, and 
hence that in this, as in many other fields of industry, he is 
truly a geographical agency. 
* Nev, LD’ Agriculture des Etats Surdes, p. 232. This estimate, it will be 
observed, is 275,000 acres less than that of Lombardini. 
+ In 1865 the total quantity of irrigated lands in the kingdom of Italy was 
estimated at 1,357,677 hectares, or 2,000,000 acres, of which one-half is supplied 
with water by artificial canals. The Canal Cavour adds 250,000 acres to the 
above amount. The extent of artificially watered ground in Italy is conse- 
quently equal to the entire area of the States of Delaware and Rhode Island. 
—See the official report, Sulle Bonificazioni, Risaie, ed Irrigaziont, 1865, 
p. 269. 
+ It belongs rather to agriculture than to geography to discuss the quality 
of the crops obtained by irrigation, or the permanent effects produced by it 
on the productiveness of the soil. There is no doubt, however, that all crops 
which can be raised without watering are superior in flavor and in nutritive 
power to those grown by the aid of irrigation. Garden vegetables, particu- 
larly, profusely watered, are so insipid as to be hardly eatable. Wherever irri- 
gation is practised, there is an almost irresistible tendency, especially among 
ignorant cultivators, to carry it to excess; and in Piedmont and Lombardy, if 
the supply of water is abundant, it is so liberally applied as sometimes not 
only to injure the quality of the product, but to drown the plants and dimin- 
ish the actual weight of the crop. Grass-lands are perhaps an exception to 
