240 SOILS 



humid sections of the country. Many small irrL 

 gation systems are in profitable operation in the 

 Eastern States, aside from the large areas of 

 rice and cranberries that are necessarily irrigated 

 by flooding. 



The reason why it sometimes pays to irrigate, 

 even when the annual rainfall is forty to sixty 

 inches, is because of the frequency of serious 

 droughts during the growing season, especially 

 at the time when the crop is approaching maturity. 

 Over a large part of eastern United States pro- 

 tracted summer droughts are common, and often 

 reduce very seriously the yields of crops. It is 

 argued that if the crops could have a few irri- 

 gations at these critical times the gain in yield would 

 more than pay for the cost of establishing the 

 irrigation plant. This contention has been fully 

 establishea in many cases. The construction of 

 an irrigation plant in a humid region may be 

 regarded as an insurance against unfavourable 

 weather that may or may not come. There is 

 seldom a season when the rainfall in any part of 

 humid United States is so abundant and so evenly 

 distributed that one or more irrigations would not 

 materially increase the yield. The almost universal 

 watering of lawns and gardens from the hydrant 

 is irrigation on a small and expensive scale, yet 

 this usually pays. 



The question, however, is not whether any 

 benefit would be derived from irrigation, but 

 whether the benefit is commensurate with the cost, 

 and whether nearly as good results could not be 

 secured, and much more cheaply, by better methods 

 of tilling the soil to husband rainfall. Irrigation 

 in a humid climate may easily become a cloak for 

 shiftless tillage. Undoubtedly there are many cases 



