228 DEPARTMENTAL REPORTS. 



stream will irrigate in certain sections of its course can be doubled or 

 trebled in more favorable sections. As an illustration, it may be 

 stated that during the past season, while Snake River, Idaho, was dry 

 at one point in its channel, at a point 40 miles below it contained over 

 2,000 cubic feet per second. The percentage of the volume of water 

 used which returns to the channel of the stream helps to measure the 

 ultimate duty of water, and in order to ascertain this, studies were 

 inaugurated the past season to keep a record of the volume diverted 

 by the different canals along an entire river, the volume of the orig- 

 inal flow, and the total volume which seepage and percolation per- 

 mitted to be used. These studies will not only answer the question 

 of how much land the stream can irrigate, but will show the locations 

 where water can be best diverted. The most extensive of these 

 studies is being carried on in Nevada under the direction of Prof. 

 J. D. Stannard. The next most extensive is in California under the 

 direction of Prof. J. M. Wilson. Hon. D. W. Ross, State engineer of 

 Idaho, has begun a similar study m Idaho, and A. P. Stover is making 

 a special study of the same subject in Colorado and Utah. 



COEFFICIENT OF FRICTION. 



This investigation has also secured the interest and cooperation of 

 a large number of irrigation engineers and managers of canal compa- 

 nies in a series of measurements to determine the coefficient of fric- 

 tion in canals and laterals, especially the latter, data for the accurate 

 determination of the flow of small ditches being very much needed. 



IRRIGATION IN THE HUMID PORTIONS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



During the past two years more miles of irrigation canal have been 

 built and more money expended for pumping plants to furnish water 

 for irrigation in the State of Louisiana than in any of the arid States. 

 The application of irrigation to growing rice has raised the value of 

 large areas of land from $5 arid $10 an acre to $50 or $100 an acre, 

 and promises to make the United States an exporting instead of an 

 importing country so far as this product is concerned. At the request 

 of those interested, Mr. Frank Bond, irrigation expert, has been 

 detailed to aid in the solution of the problems created by this new 

 form of agriculture along the Gulf coast, and Mr. George H. Keeney 

 is making similar investigations along the Atlantic seaboard. In the 

 Mississippi Valley provision for the experimental use of water in irri- 

 gation was begun in 1900 in Wisconsin under the direction of Prof. 

 F. H. King, and in Missouri under the direction of Prof. H. J. Waters. 

 The work in New Jersey, inaugurated the year previous, has been 

 continued. The severe drought of 1901 has given a more than local 

 interest to these efforts to provide a water supply, whenever needed, 

 for the lands of the humid States. The director of the Missouri experi- 

 ment station states that their irrigation experiments are being watched 

 by the farmers of that State with more interest than any work previ- 

 ously attempted by that station. 



SEDIMENT INVESTIGATIONS. 



The studies of the amount and character of the sediment carried 

 by streams used in irrigation and its influence, beneficial or otherwise, 

 on the land where applied, have been continued under the direction 

 of Prof. J. C. Nagle, of the Texas Agricultural College. It has been 



