1904 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



443 



The plank requested is as follows : 



Whereas the forests of the state are 

 of the greatest importance for the pro- 

 duction of timber and the conservation 

 of moisture in the economy of our water 

 supply : and 



Whereas they are being destroyed by 

 fire and wasteful methods of lumbering, 

 to the serious detriment of our leading 

 industries ; therefore. 



Be it resolved, That this convention 

 earnestly recommends such legislation 

 under the state constitution as shall 

 provide for a Department of Forestry 

 and the enactment of such laws as may 

 be necessary to enable it to make our 

 forests more permanent and useful. 



This plank was adopted by the Re- 

 publican State Convention as a part of 

 its platform. 



> 



Good Capt. Geo. P. Ahern, 



Opening in chief of the Philippine 

 Philippines. Forestry Bureau at Ma- 

 nila, is at present in the 

 United States. His address is care 

 of the Philippine Exposition Board. 

 World's Fair, St. Louis, where he will be 

 glad to hear from foresters who would 

 '.ike to enter the Philippine sen-ice. At 

 present there is an especially good oppor- 

 tunity for young men to secure positions 

 in the Philippine Forestry Bureau. 

 Particulars about the work and the sal- 

 aries paid are included in an advertise- 

 ment elsewhere in this issue. 



^ 



Irrigation Irrigation has been prac- 



in Italy. ticed in this country little 



more than 5oyears, while 

 in Italy it has been practiced for more 

 than 500 years. It is. therefore, natu- 

 ral that Italian experience should be 

 able to show much of value to Ameri- 

 can irrigators. For the purpose of de- 

 termining what could be learned in that 

 country which could be applied to our 

 own problems. Dr. Elwood Mead, Chief 

 of Irrigation and Drainage Investiga- 

 tions of the Office of Experiment Sta- 

 tions. U. S. Department of Agriculture, 

 spent the summer of 1903 in the valley 

 of the Po. A partial report of Dr. 

 Mead's observations has just been issued 

 by the Department of Agriculture as 



Bulletin 144 of the Office of Experi- 

 ment Stations. Xo attempt was made 

 to make this an exhaustive monograph 

 upon irrigation in northern Italy, but 

 the study was made solely from the 

 standpoint of obtaining suggestions for 

 American irrigation practice. 



Contrary to a very common opinion, 

 the valley of the Po is not an arid re- 

 gion. The annual rainfall at Milan, 

 the chief city of Lombardy, is more 

 than 40 inches greater than that of 

 Cincinnati. Ohio, or Omaha, Xeb., both 

 of which are situated in regions where 

 irrigation is seldom considered in con- 

 nection with agriculture. The climate 

 of Lombardy is not different from that 

 of the Mississippi Valley, and the crops 

 raised, with few exceptions, are the 

 same. Notwithstanding this large rain- 

 fall and the fact that crops can be suc- 

 cessfully raised without irrigation, the 

 plains of Lombardy are a network of 

 canals and drains. To secure the con- 

 struction of one of these canals, the 

 city of Milan gave a bonus of $400,000. 

 This canal cost 56. 000,000, or $37.50 

 for each acre of land that can be served 

 by it. It supplies water to 8,000 farm- 

 ers, who pay from one to two dollars 

 per acre per year for water. Some of 

 this land supports as many as Soo people 

 per square mile, and has increased in 

 value since the building of the canal 

 from 60 to loo per cent, land which 

 formerly sold for $100 being worth from 

 5 -o to 5200 per acre. 



Under the Vettabbia Canal, which 

 uses the sewage from Milan, meadows 

 yield an annual crop worth $300 per 

 acre. Some of the fields have been used 

 for meadows continuously for 700 }~ears. 

 Annual rentals for these lands are more 

 than 525 per acre. Sewage has been 

 used on these fields for centuries with- 

 out injury to the lands or to the health- 

 fulness or the community. This great 



_- in land values and increase in pro- 

 ductivity of lands, due to irrigation, in 

 a region with a rainfall equal to that of 

 the - :hern half of the Mississippi 

 Valley and a climate no more favorable 

 to crop production, leads to the conclu- 

 sion that in irrigation this section has a 

 means of at least doubling the present 

 Yield from its lands. 



