466 IRRIGATION PRACTICE 



irrigation bulletins appeared, which have continued to 

 the present. Doctors Mead and Fortier gathered about 

 themselves a body of young able men, who for half a 

 generation have been devoting themselves to a study of 

 the farmers 7 side of irrigation. The practices of irrigation 

 have been collected and organized; the irrigation systems 

 of foreign countries have been studied; experiments have 

 been conducted, and in numerous ways the irrigation 



FIG. 175. Steam power digs the modern canals. 



farmer has been given needed help. Not the least of the 

 achievements of the United States Irrigation Investi- 

 gations has been the encouragement it has given irrigation 

 studies at the experiment stations by an intelligent and 

 liberal system of cooperative work. 



267. The experiment stations. Modern agriculture 

 was founded in humid regions and, naturally, little 

 attention was at first given irrigation. When, however, 

 in 1887, an agricultural experiment station was established 

 in each of the states and territories, irrigation problems 

 presented themselves for solution at most of the western 

 stations. E. W. Hilgard, the great man of arid agri- 



