464 IRRIGATION PRACTICE 



Great American Desert. Major J. W. Powell, Director of 

 the United States Geological and Geographical Surveys, 

 and lover of the West, together with G. K. Gilbert and 

 other colleagues, did much to advance the early cause of 

 irrigation. Under the direction of the Geological Survey, 

 also, with F. H. Newell as hydrographer, the notable 

 water-supply papers were issued which laid a foundation 

 of knowledge concerning stream flow upon which irri- 

 gation plans could be builded. 



266. The United States Department of Agriculture. 

 The building of dams and canals will end, but the use of 

 the impounded or diverted water must go on forever. 

 Irrigation is essentially an agricultural practice to which 

 the civil and mechanical engineers can give only initial 

 help. In the earlier days water was plentiful and people 

 few, and little water scarcity was felt. The big thing was 

 to dig more canals and induce more people to settle under 

 the ditch. Now, the question of the best use of the water 

 on the land is the big one, because the opportunities are 

 fewer, the people more numerous, and those of the arid 

 region more determined to build permanently and largely. 

 The Department of Agriculture, although somewhat slow 

 in sensing the needs of the irrigation farmers, organized 

 in 1898 the Irrigation Investigations of the Office of Experi- 

 ment Stations, to expend a Congressional appropriation 

 "for the purpose of collecting from agricultural colleges, 

 agricultural experiment stations, and other sources, 

 valuable information and data on the subject of irrigation 

 and publishing the same in bulletin form." Elwood 

 Mead, already of long and splendid irrigation service, 

 was first appointed chief of the Investigations, followed in 

 1906 by Samuel Fortier, also with a long and honorable 

 irrigation record. In a short time, a series of remarkable 



