Rice Irrigation 373 



When the tide falls, the gates on the inner ends of 

 the trunks automatically close and prevent the escape 

 of the water during any desired period, while the 

 dropping of the outer gates prevents the entrance of 

 any more water until they are again raised. To drain 

 the fields with an outgoing tide, it is only necessary 

 to lift the inner gates and the work goes forward to 

 completion without further attention, so that the 

 handling of the water both ways is extremely simple, 

 effective, and remarkably cheap. 



The irrigation of rice on higher lands more nearly 

 resembles the irrigation of meadows where flooding in 

 checks is resorted to, except that here the checks are 

 filled to a standard gauge with water, and then a slow 

 stream is kept moving into and out of them as long 

 as desired, the water usually entering at one corner 

 and leaving at the diagonally opposite corner. The 

 dividing ridges which form the checks have a height 

 of about two feet, and the rice fields are kept under 

 water until the heads are formed, when the water is 

 drawn off and let on again at short intervals until the 

 kernels are well formed, when the water is removed 

 and the fields allowed to become dry and the grain 

 mature, preparatory to harvesting. 



ORCHARD IRRIGATION 



In orchard irrigation, several methods of distribut- 

 ing water are practiced, but there is none followed 

 so generally and with so good results as the furrow 

 method, represented in Fig. 102, where the water is 



