452 IRRIGATION PRACTICE 



large canals have been constructed; in Spain, also, much 

 irrigation progress has taken place during the nineteenth 

 century, and in Italy the Great Cavour Canal was built 

 about 1844, with minor ones since that date, and in 1865 

 the valuable irrigation code of Victor Emmanuel was 

 promulgated. 



The greatest recent progress in irrigation has occurred, 

 chiefly, under Anglo-Saxon direction in newly settled 

 countries or in older settled countries brought under 

 Anglo-Saxon rule. 



Thus, in Egypt, under English rule, with the wise 

 initiative of Mehemet Ali Pasha in 1820, an irrigation 

 revival has begun which promises to eclipse in its results 

 the noonday of ancient Egyptian irrigation. The old 

 channels have been deepened and extended, new and more 

 economical methods of irrigation have been adopted, new 

 and profitable crops have been introduced, and, as the 

 climax, the great Assuan Dam has been built as the first 

 main step toward utilizing the varying flow of the Nile 

 in an unvarying manner. True, while this revival began 

 early in the nineteenth century, it was only in the last 

 quarter of the century that the really big things in recent 

 Egyptian irrigation have been done. 



India, under English rule, is likewise in an irrigation 

 development far beyond the greatest in the history of this 

 age-old land. From immemorial times droughts, with 

 consequently fearful famines, have vexed India. Early in 

 the nineteenth century, the rulers began to look to an 

 extended irrigation for relief from famine. The year 

 1878, at the end of a disastrous famine, may be said to be 

 the beginning of modern irrigation in India. Commissions 

 were appointed, new canals constructed and great efforts 

 made to establish a large and thoroughly modern irrigation 



