Canadian Forestry Magazine, November, ip20 



529 



Extending Irrigation in Canada West 



3(/ H. S. Muckleston 



The problem of making three blades 



of grass grow where none 



grew before 



"I have inade the ivatcrcourse to 

 he a blessing for the people of Shu- 

 uiir and Accad. I have spread the 

 waters upon the desert. I have made 

 the zvater to flow in the dry chan- 

 nels and changed the desert into 

 well watered lands. I have given 

 them fertility and plenty. I have 

 made them the abode of happiness." 

 (From the Tablets of Hammur- 

 abi.) 



The document from which the above 

 text is quoted was written something 

 like three thousand years before the be- 

 ginning of the Christian era by an As- 

 syrian monarch, but it sums up as well 



for this day as it did then the great 

 things which the further extension of ir- 

 rigation can do for the prosperity of 

 Western Canada. To the uninitiated 

 the word irrigation unfortunately con- 

 notes deserts and famines and other un- 

 desirable features, but to those who 

 know what irrigation really means the 

 associations are very different. To them 

 it means intense cultivation, co-opera- 

 tion, peace and plenty, "the abode of 

 happiness." 



Irrigation is nothing more than the 

 extension on a large scale of a practice 

 indulged in by every housewife when she 

 waters the carefully tended plants in her 



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IK. 11,. I luM ..i n 



