48 



THE IKKIGATION AGE. 



instruction offered to short-course students, or in agri- 

 cultural high schools, as farm mechanics. In most cases 

 where instruction of this nature is now carried on in 

 colleges, it has been inaugurated as a branch of instruc- 

 tion in agronomy. While this may answer as a begin- 

 ning, the importance of the allied branches of agricul- 

 tural engineering, taken together, entitles it to be made 

 an independent department of instruction, having equal 

 rank with agronomy, animal husbandry, dairying and 

 horticulture, as they have been established in a number 

 of institutions. 



The opportunities for professional agricultural en- 

 gineers are as numerous as in any of the leading pro- 

 fessions. With the advent of the large irrigation 

 developments of the West and the large drainage pro- 

 jects of the Mississippi valley, there will be need for 

 men who are trained in agriculture as well as engineer- 

 ing lines. A prominent British engineer who has for 

 years been connected with the administration works in 

 India, visited this country recently to study develop- 

 ments or methods of pumping and distributing water. 

 His conclusion was that what we lacked and must have 

 in the near future is men to administer the works now 

 built and the large works to be built by the Federal 

 Government. The construction of these works, he said, 

 can properly be carried out by graduates of the civil 

 engineering colleges, because they involve only civil 

 engineering problems, but their administration will 

 require men who know farming as well as engineering; 

 who, in addition to the usual equipment of the civil 

 engineer, have a knowledge of how water should be 

 applied to crops, and what regulations should govern 

 the relations of irrigators to each other. In the admin- 

 istration of streams or the distribution of water from 

 canals, our systems are much inferior to those of 

 European countries. 



There can be no question but that the best solution 

 of this problem will be greatly prompted by bringing 

 into this work a body of highly trained young men; 

 and it is both the duty and opportunity of our agricul- 

 tural colleges to give this training. Nor is the need of 

 such engineers limited to the United States. The 

 reclamation of arid lands and their irrigation is going 

 on today in all parts of the world in Africa, Australia, 

 India and the islands of the Pacific. Everywhere men 

 especially trained in this branch of the engineering 

 professign are eagerly sought for and have open to them 

 wide opportunities for usefulness and power. In every 

 irrigated country, drainage must sooner or later supple- 

 ment irrigation, while the drainage of irrigated lands 

 is already an important question in some of the States. 



It has been found that the vast areas of alkali lands 

 in the West can only be reclaimed by thorough under- 

 drainage. Drainage of alkali land and irrigation drain- 

 age are problems of decidedly different nature from 

 those which come before the drainage engineer of the 

 Middle West or the East, who is called upon to design 

 a system for the removal of excess of water from the 

 surface of the land. The modern drainage engineering 

 problems, therefore, involve knowledge of engineering, 

 soils and economics. Since large areas have to be dealt 

 with, district or community organization is a necessity, 

 and a common agreement of a large number of people 

 brought about. This can only be done by having the 

 engineering work in the hands of men capable of in- 

 spiring confidence in the accuracy of their estimates 



of cost and the reliability of their forecasts as to the 

 results. Men who understand soil conditions and the 

 best requirements for farm crops, and who at the same 

 time know how to plan a system of tile drains and open 

 ditches, or who can plan the distribution of the irriga- 

 tion water for a given district, will be very much in 

 demand. 



The telephone, rural delivery, the automobile and 

 the traction engine are revolutionizing the conditions of 

 farm life and bringing the city and country closer 

 together. How far they are destined to make the farmer 

 independent of the railroads can not now be foretold; 

 but one thing is certain, that ability to compete with it 

 in speed and safety means that mud and dust must be, 

 as far as possible, eliminated. The automobile which 

 travels thirty miles an hour requires a speedway of 

 different construction, composed of different materials 

 from that which served fairly well for the horse cart. 

 The good-roads movement is spreading rapidly, and in 

 many States are now established State Highway Com- 

 missions. There is need of men in this service who 

 have been trained in road construction and who under- 

 stand how to construct dirt as well as macadam roads, 

 and who know how to operate road machinery to the 

 best advantage. 



The Department of Agriculture has for a number 

 of years been carrying on investigations along some of 

 the lines of work included in Agricultural Engineering. 

 The Office of Public Eoad Inquiries has several special 

 agents in the field for the purpose of collecting and 

 disseminating useful information regarding roads and 

 road building. They are co-operating in the con- 

 struction of experimental roads and also with the State 

 Highway Commissions in places where the State-aid 

 plan is in vogue. The Division of Tests in the Bureau 

 of Chemistry is doing a useful work in testing different 

 road materials and in the study of clays for road mak- 

 ing. The school for road building, which serves as a 

 post-graduate course for engineering students, prepares 

 men for disseminating accurate knowledge on highway 

 construction. 



The irrigation and drainage investigations have 

 made comprehensive study of methods and cost of pre- 

 paring land for irrigation, the tools used in grading 

 land and building laterals, methods of measuring water, 

 the rate of rise of soil water during the irrigation 

 period, the use of cement and concrete instead of wood 

 in irrigation structures and a study of irrigation laws. 

 Co-operative experiments have been conducted with sev- 

 eral western States to study the duty of water and the 

 most economical and scientific ways of applying it to 

 crops. Also the effect of the time of irrigation and 

 the quantity of water on the quality and yield of crops. 

 Experiments are also conducted and measurements 

 taken on the many types of irrigation pumping plants, 

 as well as the motive power used in operatirig these 

 various pumps, all of which is of great practical im- 

 portance. 



The irrigation and drainage investigations have re- 

 cently been enlarged to include farm machinery and 

 farm building investigations. In these lines much use- 

 ful work may be accomplished. Experiments are under 

 way to learn the value of cement and concrete in farm 

 building construction. Plans are made to learn the 

 value of denaturized alcohol as a substitute for gasoline 

 in internal combustion engines. The usefulness of 



