166 IRRIGATION. 



Irrigation of land is an art that has existed for many 

 centuries previous to any authentic written history. The 

 traditions of the Chinese people are very ancient, and ir- 

 rigation is mentioned in their most ancient traditional 

 history, as being extensively practiced. In Egypt, Syria, 

 and the ancient kingdoms of Eastern Asia, agriculture 

 depended almost wholly upon irrigation, and still so de- 

 pends in these lands where the people have survived the 

 political changes of thousands of years. Virgil in his 

 rural poems thus describes exactly the processes which are 

 followed now. "He leads the stream and flowing rivu- 

 lets, to the growing corn, and when the burnt field dries 

 up, the herbs dying, he leads the water and cools the 

 parched fields with rills." The irrigation of gardens, 

 vineyards, and fields, is frequently referred to in the 

 Scriptures, one of the earliest books speaks of it and one 

 of the prophets refers to "furrows of the plantation." 

 And so agriculture has continued to the present day, the 

 necessities of the majority of the cultivators of the soil 

 in the Eastern hemisphere, and the natural opportunities 

 possessed by them, combining to render the system vital 

 to their existense. When the Spaniards occupied the new 

 found continent, they introduced their system of irriga- 

 tion wherever the dryness of the climate demanded it. 

 In Chili, Peru, Central America, and Mexico, the canals 

 and ditches made by the early Spanish settlers remain, 

 and many are still in use ; the systems adopted in Cali- 

 fornia, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado, are mainly 

 copied from the ancient models. It is hardly necessary 

 to say that these models are not of the best construction, 

 nor at all satisfactory to the engineer of the present day, 

 but they are of cheap and easy construction. 



The settlement of the drier regions of our territory, 

 adds another instance to those of past history, of the 

 reclamation of deserts by irrigation. It will be of in- 

 terest to glance over what has already been done in this 



