306 RURAL CALIFORNIA 



in new regions desiring to follow in this line of ad- 

 vancement but in old countries, chiefly in the Medi- 

 terranean regions, in southern Asia and in South 

 America where irrigation has been practiced for cen- 

 turies. During the decade preceding the World War 

 nearly all foreign nations, either occupying semi-arid 

 country or interested therein by colonial possessions, 

 sent expert investigators to examine and prepare re- 

 ports on Calif or nian achievements in irrigation en- 

 gineering, organization and production. The United 

 States government has maintained irrigation inves- 

 tigations in California continuously for the last 

 twenty years, covering all branches of irrigated farm- 

 ing. The national policy of arid land reclamation 

 by the erection of vast irrigation works in the arid 

 states of the Pacific Slope, as provided for by the na- 

 tional irrigation law of June 17, 1902, was largely 

 based on and its constructive and operative meth- 

 ods suggested by the individual, corporate and co- 

 operative irrigation achievements of California. 



Thus, through reports of governmental investiga- 

 tions and enterprises, through the publication of de- 

 scriptions and comments by foreign experts and 

 through private publication in popular periodicals 

 and in technical journals and text-books, there has 

 been created an irrigation literature so varied and 

 extensive that the bibliography of it alone would 

 fill a long chapter (if not a whole volume) and in 

 this literature California enterprise and achievement 

 occupy a large place. In this connection it will be 

 the purpose to set forth a few facts and considerations 



