CHAPTER VIII 



IMPROVEMENTS IN IRRIGATION PRACTICE 

 AND IN HIGHWAYS 



IRRIGATION practice is very complex and broad, for 

 it begins with the fundamental relations of the plant 

 to the soil and air in which it grows and ministers 

 to the subsequent development of the plant until 

 its commercially valuable product is attained. Ir- 

 rigation enterprise is also broad and complex for it 

 shapes and provides for everything, from the gather- 

 ing of small waters from springs or pumps to the 

 diversion of a river from its majestic natural flow to 

 lose itself in wandering through the miles of canals 

 and ditches prepared for it over thousands of acres 

 of hillsides and plains. California experience and 

 achievement show that irrigation is an art which im- 

 mediately employs every true discovery of scien- 

 tific research or common observation on the well- 

 being of plants and their products, appropriates 

 widely the principles and practices of hydro-engineer- 

 ing and hydro-economics and attains its greatest 

 achievements by the originality and successfulness 

 of its appeal for service to statesmanship, legislation 

 and finance. It may appear to the casual observer 

 that a rivulet trickling from a spring or stream and 



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