j I 15 It. A it I 

 UNIVERSITY OF || 



CALIFORNIA. J 



X ,-... ^.^s 



IRRIGATION 



FOR THE FARM, GARDEN AND ORCHARD. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE NECESSITY FOB IRRIGATION. 



The American climate is especially subject to destructive 

 drouths, and scarcely a year passes in which the crops 

 do not partially or wholly fail over extensive districts. 

 That famines do not occur is not that there are no fail- 

 ures of crops sufficiently serious to cause them, but that 

 our social system is so instantly helpful in case of need, 

 that the want and misery that would otherwise certainly 

 occur are averted by immediate and generous relief. The 

 farmer, when rain fails, is helpless, yet there may be 

 abundant water flowing uselessly past his suffering crops. 

 We possess vast districts, the soil of which is of the high- 

 est fertility, but which remain barren and desert because 

 the climate is rainless, yet large rivers flow through these 

 arid tracts, and exhaustless subterranean streams pass 

 through the subsoil. "Water only is needed to make these 

 tracts highly productive. The proof of this exists in the 

 fact that already several successful efforts have been 

 made to reclaim portions of these dry wastes by the ap- 

 plication of a system of irrigation. But it is not only a 

 question whether or not crops can be produced where 

 they are now impossible, or whether or not the effects of 



