IRRIGATION PRACTICE AND HIGHWAYS 305 



hiding itself in verdure wherever gravity leads it, 

 while all the surrounding landscape may be sere and 

 bare, is a very simple thing. It is, however, quite 

 otherwise. It is the suggestion on which the great- 

 est civilizations of antiquity arose and also the great 

 civilizations of the future will arise because the larg- 

 est areas of earth surface salutary to man and the 

 plants he lives on are more or less deficient in rain- 

 fall to serve his highest broadest purposes. The peo- 

 ples of northern and central Europe, North America 

 and Asia which now dominate the world, are nat- 

 urally disposed to look on irrigation as a vain at- 

 tempt to make good some creative incompleteness and 

 to claim that by the accident of irrigation arid coun- 

 tries may become habitable. They forget that it was 

 the accident of rainfall which made the narrow belt 

 of adequate heat and moisture for a few staple plants 

 during a short growing season capable of sustaining 

 them. Irrigation is not merely a remedy for drought : 

 it is a primary process of production. 



California has made notable contributions to the 

 advance of irrigation science and practice. All the 

 oranges and lemons, nearly all the raisins, walnuts, 

 melons and alfalfa, the greater part of the peaches, 

 table grapes, apricots, shipping plums, berries and 

 summer vegetables and fractions of almost all other 

 commercial products are secured by irrigation. This 

 demonstration of the value of irrigated products on 

 the markets of the world has exerted a marked in- 

 fluence and created a wide demand for information 

 concerning Californian policies and methods, not only 



