10 IRRIGATION. 



courses, and are lost to vegetation. Our fall, winter, and 

 early spring rains come at times when the crops derive 

 the least benefit, or none at all, from them. The amount 

 of rain-fall that thus escapes paying tribute to our crops 

 is by far the largest portion of it. To estimate it at 

 three-fourths of the whole would not be unreasonable. 

 There would then be left less than 12 inches of water to 

 meet the necessities of the growing crops. That this 

 sufficiently accounts for the low average of our yearly pro- 

 duction of grass and grain is not at all improbable. The 

 supply of water then becomes the measure of the fertility 

 of our soil, and our climate, subject to torrid drouths in 

 the midst of the growing season, is the obstacle to success 

 which meets the farmer rather than the impoverished soil 

 a condition, indeed mainly due to a poverty of water. 



To remove this obstacle to successful cultivation, it is 

 only necessary that a system of irrigation be adopted. 

 An adequate supply of water, ready for use in case of 

 emergency, will render the farmer, the gardener, or the 

 fruit grower, to a very large extent, independent of the 

 vicissitudes of the season, and secure, beyond accident, 

 a full reward for his labor. If with a system of irriga- 

 tion a proper system of drainage be also adopted, the cul- 

 tivator of the soil will have removed two adverse influ- 

 ences, against which he is now called upon so frequently, 

 and so ineffectually, to strive. To irrigate economically, 

 and successfully, however, is a business which requires a 

 large amount of technical knowledge and skill, and the 

 expenditure of a considerable amount of capital either in 

 money or labor. Irrigation belongs, in fact, to a highly 

 advanced condition of agriculture, and can only be ap- 

 plied to lands of high value or capacity in the hands of 

 intelligent owners. 



But it is clearly manifest at the present time, if it never 

 was before, that the farmer, or other cultivator of the soil, 

 who would succeed in keeping abreast of our progressive 



