The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1899-08-06
METHODS OF IRRIGATION.
SYSTEMS IN EGYPT, INDIA AND
THE FAR EAST.
Thousands Of Acres Virtually Wa
tered by Hand in Different
Countries.

While irrigation has become a great
success in many sections Of the West,
the question is so broad and compre-
hensive and there is so much to learn
about it in it's different aspects under
various conditions that when men en-
bark in large irrigation enterprises
without full knowledge of the SUBJ
ject they frequently do not attain en-
tire success.
Primitive man did not at first COM
mence to irrigate great valleys and
plains. He began with a small patch
of ground and little stream of water,
or well from which the water was
laboriously drawn. Then he learned
later to broaden his operations and to
work in communities until he was
finally able to handle great projects.
There are thousands of cases of indi-
vidual Irrigation in this country and
some of them are extremely satisfac-
tory, where men, by employing the
forces of nature through the medium
of windmills, irrigate small farms.
Taken separately these are insignia
cant as compared with the great irri-.
cation systems, yet they are complete
and effective in themselves, and a COM
rarison of them with the primitive
methods which have been employed for
centuries and are still in use by people
in other lands, may not be uninterest-
ing.
The early history of irrigation in
Egypt and India is replete with lessons,
showing as 1T does the gradual develop
ment OF the art from the most primi-
tive, simple and laborious methods.
Without artificial watering, both of
these countries would to-day be largely
desert Cultivation in the tropics or
semi-tropics can rarely be conducted
over any large extent of country ex-
cept by artificial watering of at least
some portion of the crops. The rain
fall in some sections may be utterly
insufficient in any season to mature the,
crops. In parts of the Punjab in India
the rainfall averages from to 4
inches only, while in the entire basin
of the Nile, the rainfall is practically
nothing. Even in parts of the Eima-
layas, where the rainfall averages 50
and even 100 inches annually, it is so
unevenly distributed that crops in the
dry season must be matured by arti-
fetal irrigation.
CRUDE AND PICTURESQUE
METHODS.
Various methods have been employed
in centuries past to utilize water for
crop growing, and some of the crudest
are still in use. The Persian water
wheel is now found in various forms in
Egypt and India, consisting of a series
of earthen pots strung on an endless
rope and revolving on a wheel with
horizontal axis. The lower end of the
rope descends into the we'll or tank, fill
ing the pots as the wheel revolves and
as they rise and reach the top of the
wheel they tip over and empty them
selves into trough, then descending to
the water to be filled again These
wheels are generally actuated by bull
locks or sometimes by horses and
camels, and in Egypt both a camel and
a donkey are often harnessed together
in the truck. In some places where
there are many small canals with COM
paratively rapid slopes and high We
locities, these wheels or sakias, as they
are called in Egypt, are driven, usually
as undershot wheels, by the streams
themselves. In the Punjab it is not an
uncommon thing to see oxen lifting wa
ter by Persian wheels from depths of
oO to % feet for irrigation of spring
or summer crops. Another apparatus
which is extensively used in India for
the larger lifts is called the mote. Two
bullocks raise a leathern bag by means
of rope and pulley. When the bag
reaches the top of the lift the water is
released into a trough
AS SEEN IN NEW ENGLAND.
For lifts of 4 to 10 feet the shadouf
is extensively employed on the banks
of the Nile. This simply consists of
the old-fashioned pole and bucket
which can still be seen in many a New
England farmyard. The pole is pivoted
on an upright crotch and weighted at
the butt end with a stone, and the rope
and bucket are attached to the small
end. When the rope is pulled down and
the bucket filled, the pole nearly bal
ances itself, so that slight effort will
raise the bucket. Another crude but
ingenious contrivance for making short
lifts of from 2 to feet is the doom,
which is used along river banks. This
consists of a trough, usually half of a
small tree, which works on a fixed
pivot, one end being depressed into the
river and then raised above the hori-
zontal so that the water flows out of
the other end into a ditch or receptacle.
The means for raising the water are
the same as in the New England well,
by the use of a weighted pole. To
manage this, a platform is built out in
to the river, upon which the operator
stands, alternately submerging and
raising the trough.
These and other primitive irrigation
methods are still largely employed in
India and Egypt, for the reason that
while the work is laborious and would
be expensive if computed at day labor
for man or beast, in many cases the
cultivator employs only himself and his
bullocks when there is no other work on
hand. 1t was reported by an officer of
the British army that in 1860 there
We're 10000 masonry wells and 100000
temporary earthen ones in the tract Of
land lying between the Jumna and the
Gauges Rivers, from which l ,41O,OO0
acres of crops We're irrigated by lift,
and although this tract is now COM
manded by the Ganges Irrigation Ca
nal, many of these wells are yet used
to irrigate lands which have not been
connected with the canal.
During the investigation of the ex-
tent to which the arid lands of America
can be reclaimed by irrigation, atten-
l.