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OFFICIAL REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



mountains and arable lands reservoirs, let us look at the other side of 

 the case — that of retaining the moisture; and I regret to say that the 

 experiments are not so complete and numerous as they should be, as 

 they have only been fairly begun. 



In the first place, let me call attention to the fact that capillary 

 action in soil is in every direction from a given point. Water spreads 

 out sidewise as well as upwards and downwards by this action. Soil 

 that was thoroughly irrigated was taken, and the amount of water 

 determined at 26.12 per cent. Some of this soil was put in beakers, 

 filling them about half full, and placed in the laboratory. On the fol- 

 lowing day, 66 per cent of the moisture had dried out. Tin cans with- 

 out either bottoms or tops were pressed down into the soil and the soil 

 taken from the sides of the cans so that a slide could be passed under 

 them, thus cutting off connection with the earth beneath. It was found 

 that about the same amount of water had disappeared from these cans as 

 had disappeared from the beakers. Where these cans had been pressed 

 some inches below the surface of the ground and the soil raked or culti- 

 vated above them, there was practically little loss of moisture. Con- 

 clusions from these facts are very obvious: that in order to make 

 reservoirs of our mountains and arable lands it is necessary to keep 

 them in such a condition that they will readily absorb water and retain 

 it, and this result can be brought about only by keeping them covered 

 with the product of growth, or in other words, with forests, as these 

 forests and their products make a covering or mulch for retaining 

 moisture. And the same reasoning pertains to our cultivated lands: 

 that in order to retain the moisture we must keep them well cultivated- 

 It is a pity that there is no uniform unit of measure upon the metric 

 system for stating a definite amount of water. 



We are at present compelled to use the arbitrary and oftentimes puz- 

 zling term of acre foot or inch, second foot, weir inch, and miner's inch. 

 An acre foot of water is the amount of water that will cover an acre of 

 ground one foot in depth. A second foot is a cubic foot of water per 

 second. A miner's inch of water is the amount of water that will flow 

 through an inch square hole in an inch board under a pressure of four 

 inches in twenty-four hours; such an amount of water has been deter- 

 mined legally to be 12,960 gallons. 



I would venture to suggest that the miner's inch, having been legally 

 established to be a definite amount of water, be used as the universal 

 unit of measure in irrigation matters, and the following table, based 

 upon the French decimal or metric system, be used in conjunction 

 therewith; the Greek prefixes being used to denote the multiples and 

 the Latin prefixes the fractional parts of the unit: 



