HEARINGS BEFORE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE. 355 
seepage water—the question of drainage—a matter of great moment 
in certain sections. 
So that we are studying the question of how to handle those canals, 
carrying on experiments to determine whether or not the canals can 
be treated in such a way as to stop the excessive losses. 
The Cuarrman. Are these canals mostly owned by companies? 
Mr. Mrap. The greater part of the canals in California are coop- 
erative canals, owned by the farmers. We are not carrying on any 
investigation under company canals. 
The Cuarrman. Under what? 
Mr. Mrap. Under company canals. The principal study of seep- 
age, in which we have made a report since I last appeared before 
the committee, embraced a district of 25 square miles, where, when 
the water was turned in the canal last spring, it rose at the rate of half 
an inch, and it was 6 feet below the surface before water was turned 
in. That left an ample soil surplus for trees and plants to grow in. 
By the 1st of June it had risen to within 2 feet of the surface in certain 
sections of the country, and was smothering out the roots of all kinds 
of plants, certainly all kinds of trees. There they must supplement 
their irrigation system by a drainage system, and indeed just such 
measurements and experiments as we are carrying on to enable those 
people to plan a drainage system that will be of the right kind. They 
realize it and they are waiting for the results of our work. We have 
been requested to publish, and have published, as a circular the results 
of last year’s measurements in advance of our ordinary reports for the 
benefit of those people. 
Mr. Scorr. Would it not be cheaper and better to construct canals 
which will not leak than to build leaky canals and then have to put in 
an expensive system of drainage afterwards? 
Mr. Meap. We do not know whether it is within the limits of rea- 
sonable cost to construct canals that will not leak. What we are 
endeavoring to ascertain for those people is what is the kind of coating 
that will make those canals nonleakable. That is one of the things 
that is being studied all over the world at the present time, not only 
here but elsewhere. I will say that this summer I saw where an invest- 
ment of nearly a million dollars had been made in cementing canals 
that had proved failures, and now they are doing what we are doing in 
advance of that sort of improvement in California. They are making 
experiments with other kinds of coating material. 
The Cuarrman. What was the cause? Was it failure of the cement? 
Mr. Meap. Freezing. 
Mr. Burteson. You mean the cement would crack? 
Mr. Mmap. Yes. Not freezing alone. It froze in the winter, and 
then in the summer time whenever the canal was empty the intense 
heat of the sun would dry it out so quickly that it would be dry on 
one side and wet on the other, and would crack. It was filled full of 
cracks. 
The CHarrman. That cement was badly made, was it not? 
Mr. Lorimer. How thick was it coated? 
Mr. Meap. Just as thin as they could make it, probably between a 
quarter of an inch and half an inch. 
Mr. Lorimer. That would crack anywhere. 
Mr. Brooks. Where was that experiment? Where did that failure 
occur ? 
