FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



March 



PARALLEL DRAINAGE DITCHES. ONE MAY BE EMPTIED AND CLEANED WHILE THE OTHER 



CARRIES THE DRAINAGE WATER. 



yeople, and the vast injury that has 

 been done through the occurrence of 

 alkali has prejudiced outsiders in irriga- 

 tion enterprises to such an extent that 

 in many communities the subject has 

 been exceedingly unpopular, and any 

 reference to it in connection with cer- 

 tain localities has been vigorously op- 

 posed and criticised. 



' ' It must be recognized that alkali 

 occurs in all arid countries, and it is a 

 problem for consideration and suitable 

 control by the people of irrigated arid 

 districts, as the suitable drainage of rice 

 lands or corn and wheat lands has been 

 in other parts of the humid regions. 



' ' The experts of the Bureau of Soils 

 firmly believe that the alkali lands of 

 this country can be economically re- 

 claimed, and that the damage from alkali 

 is unnecessary and will not result if 

 proper precautions are taken. Further- 

 more, it is a well-known fact that in 

 most cases alkali accumulates in the 

 most fertile soils, and the presence of 

 alkali in the soils of arid regions should 

 indicate to the people as a rule a high 

 degree of fertility, provided proper 

 methods of handling the soil are adopted. 

 ' The publications of this Bureau 

 have been recommending drainage for 



the reclamation of these waste lands. 

 This recommendation had previously 

 been made by other writers on the sub- 

 ject, and all who have given this matter 

 any thought are unanimous in the opin- 

 ion that drainage will solve the problem. 



"As no work of reclamation by drain- 

 age has been carried on to completion 

 in this country, it is impossible to say 

 what the actual cost of reclamation 

 would be, but very reasonable estimates 

 based upon the cost of land drainage in 

 the humid states have placed the proba- 

 ble cost of alkali land reclamation at 

 from $10 to $30 per acre. In Egypt 

 large areas have been reclaimed and are 

 now producing crops, and from figures 

 given by the engineers in charge of 

 this work the cost of reclamation can 

 be readily calculated. 



"The results obtained in Egypt thor- 

 oughly warrant the statements made as 

 to the practicability of reclamation by 

 drainage, for it will be seen that the 

 cost of reclamation is so low that much 

 of the land of the West now lying idle 

 on account of alkali or seepage water 

 can be made to produce crops in from 

 one to three years, with an expenditure 

 much below the value of the land when 

 reclaimed." 



