450 IRRIGATION PRACTICE 



extensive irrigation. Therefore, during their rule, especially 

 in Spain, many large canals were built, and irrigation 

 practices perfected. To Roman and Moorish rule, together, 

 must be ascribed the beginnings of many of the splendid 

 irrigation structures of France, Spain and Italy. 



In France, irrigation has been practised under a great 

 variety of conditions. The first great canal in France, 

 the St. Julien, seems to date from about 1171. Other and 

 minor structures were built in the centuries that followed, 

 up to 1800 A. D. 



Spain, among the countries of southern Europe, has 

 most need of irrigation, and many of her smaller irrigation 

 canals date back to Roman times. After the Moorish 

 occupation, from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries, 

 particularly in the valley of the Genii, in Granada, many 

 great canals were built, which have endured to the present 

 time. The delivery of water was so greatly perfected in 

 those days that the Valencia Canal, for instance, has been 

 managed for 600 years with the laws that now prevail. 

 From the thirteenth century, onward, there was some 

 added irrigation development under many of the enlight- 

 ened rulers of Spain. The modern irrigation activity 

 began in Spain as early as 1759, earlier than in any other 

 land. 



Italian irrigation has grown so steadily and intelli- 

 gently from the eleventh to the nineteenth centuries that 

 Italy has been denominated the classic land of irrigation. 

 In the eleventh century, the old Roman canals in Lom- 

 bardy were reconstructed. In Italy, the twelfth century 

 was marked by tremendous irrigation activity. The 

 thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries 

 all contributed largely to irrigation development, and the 

 canals then built are now in service. In the seventeenth 



