IKRIGATION INVESTIGATIONS. 427 



Voorhees collected data from private parties in regard to the irriga- 

 tion of various kinds of garden truck. In most cases the results were 

 equal to those obtained in the experiments made under his personal 

 direction,, paving the entire cost of installing the pumping plants, with 

 a profit, in a single season. 



An analysis of the rainfall records at Philadelphia, covering a period 

 of seventy years, shows that in considerably more than half the years 

 there was a lack of rainfall in some one month of the growing season 

 to seriously affect the yield of small fruits and garden vegetables, which 

 constitute so large a part of the products of the Eastern farms. Taking 

 Philadelphia records as typical of the eastern United States, and the 

 results so far obtained in New Jersey as a basis for deduction, it will 

 be seen that an irrigation plant would be a profitable investment for 

 most of the farmers living where our large cities provide a ready 

 market for small fruits and vegetables. 



It is not likely that the water-right problems which are so large a 

 factor in Western development will prove of equal importance in the 

 East, owing to the larger flow of streams and the fact that the areas to 

 be irrigated will always be restricted, but in many localities there are 

 already indications that important legal problems will have to be 

 solved before irrigation can safely assume the importance which its 

 value will naturally give it. The work of this investigation along the 

 legal and social lines can well be extended to this section. The experi- 

 ence of the West will in time come to be of value in solving the water 

 problems of the East. 



Among the important work which needs to be done in the East 

 along agricultural and engineering lines is a study of the cost of 

 installing and operating pumping plants for small areas. Something 

 has already been done along this line and arrangements are being made 

 to continue this more effectively in the future. 



RICE IRRIGATION. 



During the past season the problems of rice irrigation have received 

 much attention from this Office. The investigations inaugurated have 

 been principally along agricultural and engineering lines. In the 

 Oarolinas it has included a study of the methods of storing water to 

 provide a supplemental Water supply; the methods of diverting and 

 distributing it over the fields and the problems connected with the 

 regulation of tidal rivers so as to determine what may be done, either 

 by the Government or by the concerted action of private individuals: 

 and the construction and maintenance of levees for the protection of 

 fields against floods or injury from breaks above, or below. 



Rice growing in the Carolinas and Georgia is not as important an 

 industry as it was fifty years ago. In part, this decline is due to the 



