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ing in Colorado and California being illustrations of this, and a number of colleges 
are now considering the establishment of courses in rural engineering with farm 
mechanics as the leading feature, and there is much interest in the development of 
these courses as independent lines of work. Among these are the colleges of agricul- 
ture in Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and North Dakota. In each case this 
work has been inaugurated as a branch of instruction in agronomy. While this may 
answer as a beginning, the importance of the allied branches of rural engineering 
taken together entitles it to be made an independent department of instruction, hav- 
ing equal rank with agronomy or animal industry as they have been established in a 
number of institutions. The scheme outlined in the fifth report of the committee on 
methods of teaching agriculture, and published in Circular 45 of the Office of Experi- 
ment Stations, brings together in a logical way the scattered instruction which bears 
on this branch of agriculture and furnishes a systematic and well-rounded course. 
Such departments are needed to furnish opportunities for specialization by students 
who wish to prepare themselves for leadership along these lines of work, and would 
furnish a field for experimentation and systematic training for farmers in the sub- 
jects which to-day constitute the most important factors in the expenses and profits 
of American agriculture. 
The same policy should be followed in the organization of the work of the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture. This Department is now doing important and useful work in a 
number of branches of rural engineering, but its influence on the development of the 
country and the effectiveness of the investigators would be greatly promoted if all of 
these related lines of work were gathered together in one division, instead of being 
made simply incidents of the work of several bureaus organized to do other things, as 
is now the case. It is believed that the importance of these subjects warrants the 
adoption of this plan at an early date. One of the reasons for believing this is the 
consideration given to these subjects in other countries where their importance is far 
less than with us. The bureau of hydraulic agriculture is one of the leading bureaus 
of the agricultural department of France. It includes only drainage and irrigation. 
The relative importance of these subjects in France and this country is shown by the 
fact that France has only 400,000 acres of irrigated land, while we have nearly 
8,000,000 acres irrigated, and the work is still in its infancy. In France irrigation is 
not a necessity — only an aid to agriculture. In two-fifths of the United States it is a 
necessity for civilized life. Furthermore, the conditions which have been created in 
this country by the character of our irrigation development give to the irrigation 
investigations of the Department of Agriculture a significance and importance not 
possessed by similar work in any other country in the world. 
Over 8,000,000 acres of sagebrush desert land has been reclaimed by the unaided 
efforts of farmers, without any assistance from either the Federal Government or 
the States, in such a manner as to produce good crops. This task is one of the great- 
est achievements of the agricultural classes of this or any other continent. It has 
involved an amount of experimenting and a waste of money in failures and partial 
failures which is inconceivable to those not practically familiar with western condi- 
tions. This task, however, has not been completed. Some of the most difficult 
problems yet remain to be solved. Some of the things which remain to be done are 
to determine the amount of water which each farmer should receive, and to provide 
for an equitable distribution of the waters of streams. The uncertainty regarding 
rights to water is one of the grievous evils which confront western farmers. It is 
believed that if these rights were so well established and protected that each farmer 
could know certainly that in times of scarcity he would receive his proper share the 
value of each one of these 8,000,000 acres would be increased on an average at least 
$5, or an aggregate of $40,000,000 in all. But this is only one feature of the gain. 
Such a change will put an end to litigation and to the enormous expenditure of time 
and money which it involves. 
The watering of 8,000,000 acres of land involves the handling of an enormous 
quantity of water each year. If this water could be transferred from the streams to 
the field with the same system and skill that is exercised in the operation of some 
of our railroads, or that is shown in the distribution of water in some of the best 
districts of Italy and France, the gain in the saving of water and in the increased 
production of crops would be something enormous. At present in many parte of 
the West there is either a very defective system or no system at all, and a com- 
petent investigator has estimated that we are losing each year at least $10,000,000 
on account of the faulty distribution of appropriated waters. These figures arc sutli- 
cient to show the necessity for a systematic study of these questions by the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture and to show also why, with the increase in the cultivated area 
which 18 each year going on, the necessity for these investigations and their import- 
ance to the whole country is destined to increase. 
