22 IRRIGATION. 



tially at certain seasons, or land in similar situations, but 

 not overflowed, may frequently be brought under recla 

 mation and made subject to drainage and irrigation with 

 great profit. 



There are also numerous tracts of lands along the bor 

 ders of many rivers and streams that have been washed 

 and injured by freshets so as to be in their present con 

 dition worthless for cultivation, which at a small outlay 

 may be covered with new soil of a most fertile charac 

 ter, and again rendered useful and profitable by the use 

 of appropriate methods of irrigation. Besides these, 

 there are extensive tracts of land at the mouths of tidal 

 streams or estuaries, or at the confluences of large rivers, 

 which are always under water or exist as mud banks, 

 which may be reclaimed by judicious engineering, and 

 converted in a few years into agricultural land of the rich 

 est quality. All these processes belong to the art of irri 

 gation, and the cases in which one or another of them are 

 impossible of application are very rare indeed. 



The supply of water is a more serious consideration 

 than the shape or configuration of the land. Where this 

 is not naturally available no art of the engineer can pro 

 vide it. The only safe dependence is upon streams or 

 springs, and reservoirs in which the rain-fall of winter 

 and spring may be gathered and stored. Wells can only 

 be depended upon for such a small supply as would serve 

 to irrigate a garden or small market farm, where the large 

 value of the crops would admit of the cost of raising 

 water for a lengthened season and storing it in reservoirs 

 for use in emergencies. The idea that artesian wells may 

 be made a source of supply for completely irrigating large 

 tracts of land, if ever held by any over-sanguine persons, 

 must be abandoned. For partial irrigation they may be 

 made available, but the quantity of water needed for the 

 irrigation of a few acres of land only, in localities where 

 there is no summer rain-fall, as upon our Western plains, 



