THE NEW SOIL IRRIGATION. 83 



enough water runs to waste in New Jersey to irrigate the 

 entire area of the state, and that considering only the south- 

 ern portion, where there are particularly favorable conditions 

 for the storing of water, and neglecting what may be ac- 

 complished by the use of wells, fully 320,000 acres may be 

 served by a canal system enough to increase the value of the 

 agricultural products of the entire state by 30 per cent. Thou- 

 sands of farmers throughout all our humid regions are des- 

 tined to find it practicable and profitable, by the use of wind- 

 mills, gasoline engines and other prime movers requiring little 

 attention, to pump water at first for the irrigation of a few 

 acres and then for very much larger tracts before really ex- 

 tensive systems are put in under state control ; this was pre- 

 cisely the sequence of development of irrigation in the arid 

 West. It will yet be found to be good practice to drain a 

 great deal of land in such a manner that the most persistent 

 wet weather experienced in a given locality will be unable 

 to do damage, while the same system which drains away any 

 superabundance of water with which the clouds may soak 

 the soil, being shut at the outlet and kept full of water either 

 by gravity or the operation of pumps, will, by the escape of 

 the water through the pores of the pipes, keep the soil suf- 

 ficiently damp though the season should be one of prolonged 

 drouth. This system of sub-irrigation, though more expen- 

 sive in its first cost, has many advantages over a system of 

 open ditches, not the least of which is its non-interference with 

 the operations of cultivation. 



Just how rapidly irrigation as a practice is to become gen- 

 eral in the middle West, the East and the South depends 

 upon a good many factors, and prophecies would be valueless. 



