364 HEARINGS BEFORE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE. 
Gulf coast, in farming districts, where a little study and advice and 
preparation of plans will serve to bring under cultivation lands that 
are now absolutely worthless, and that if they were reclaimed would 
be just as valuable as the arable lands. The people who own them are 
willing to undertake the expense if they can be assured beforehand, 
if they can feel confident, that the measures they are paula will be 
successful and the lands productive. The people are ready to occupy 
them to-day, and there is a field there for the extension of the country 
that we ought to aid in bringing into cultivation. So that in our esti- 
mate this year we have provided an increase in the amount of appro- 
priation that will be used for salaries and traveling expenses and in 
other ways for drainage. It is just double what it was last year, and 
we have employed two men in the State of Washington. 
Mr. Buruzson. Is that character of work intended to be embraced 
under this expression, ‘‘agricultural engineering,” that you have 
embodied in the estimate? 
Mr. Mrap. Yes. 
Mr. Henry. Have you anything to add to the very interesting 
explanation you gave us last year in regard to the lands that had been 
injured by overirrigation, the alkali lands of Utah and other sections? 
What progress have you made in that particular? Have you any- 
thing more to add? 
‘Mr. Map. Yes, I will just give some concrete illustrations. 
In the Yakima Valley is a considerable area of land under ditches. 
When they began to irrigate the ground the water was 60 feet below 
the surface. Last spring the surface of the ground was covered. The 
water had reached the surface. Now, some of that land was devoted 
to hop culture, and it sold from $150 to $200 an acre. The people 
who went there went to an arid region, and when they found - they 
were living over a swamp, it was an entirely new proposition to them 
to know how to go about changing those conditions. To have adopted 
the methods of drainage that are employed in the east would have 
subjected them to very great and needless expense, because they 
would probably put down drains a certain distance apart, just as they 
did in the east, and made an underdrainage. It would have carried 
off the water, but would have made great expense. We made a plan 
that involved just a single intercepting ditch. Our expert went there 
and studied that country, determined where the water was coming 
from, what ditches were leaking, measured the ditches to find out the 
ones that leaked, finally located the direction from which the seepage 
water was coming, and laid out an intercepting ditch without any 
underdrainage, and they formed themselves into a community enter- 
prise and built it. 
Mr. Brooxs. And that was successful, was it? 
Mr. Map. Yes, sir. We have done the same thing for the Gray 
Bull Valley in Wyoming. There the work has not been carried out, 
but it will be carried out and will be a success. This work is having 
an influence on other communities. 
Mr. Burieson. How much saving did that result in to those people? 
Mr. Mean. There were about 12,000 acres in the Yakima Valley, 
and J suppose it would be a conservative estimate to say it was worth 
$120,000. The land would be practically valueless without it. We 
saved certainly $10 an acre on those 12,000 acres. 
