(Witness: True.) The CHAIRMAN. And that is determined by the physical necessities of the land? Doctor TRUE. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. And all in addition to that ought to be allowed to go down below, to the proprietor below. Doctor TRUE. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. How do you ascertain the number of inches of water that a man is legally entitled to on that basis? You have to wait, of course, until the irrigation system is constructed-that is, I assume you do, or do you not? Doctor TRUE. We have to wait until that is constructed. In some instances a maximum limit is fixed, and the use may not exceed that. The CHAIRMAN. Can you briefly state the course pursued by you in ascertaining that fact? Doctor TRUE. We will go into a certain region and select as nearly as we can a typical tract of land. Then we will prepare that land properly, determine its moisture content, and measure carefully the amounts of water which are delivered to that land during a certain period. Then we grow crops on that land and determine the yield, and on that basis, by knowing just how much water was put on there and what the result is, we are able to calculate how much water is required to grow that crop. If that was done just for a single season and for one crop, it would not be sufficient; so of course we have to carry that work on for a number of seasons, and with different crops, so as to be able to determine what would be the amount required in a system of mixed farming under general conditions. The CHAIRMAN. There is no scientific method, then, for ascertaining the amount of water? That is simply a matter of experimentation? Doctor TRUE. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. That is, a continuation of a sufficient number of experiments to enable you to generalize accurately? Doctor TRUE. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. And if the crop increases with additional water you continue another experiment with more water until you finally reach the maximum of increase; or if your crop increases with the reduction of water you continue the reduction until you reach the maximum of increase in your crop? Doctor TRUE. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. How many experiments do you ordinarily have to make before you are able to reach an accurate conclusion? Of course no conclusion you would come to under those circumstances would be scientifically accurate? Doctor TRUE. We think that in from three to five years we can determine ordinarily with sufficient accuracy for practice. The CHAIRMAN. These investigations are almost entirely for the benefit of the people who own the lands? Doctor TRUE. They are for the benefit of the agriculture of the region. The CHAIRMAN. Yes; operating through the individuals who own the territory affected. Doctor TRUE. Yes. (Witness: True.) The CHAIRMAN. How generally have you covered the arid territory with your irrigation experiments? Doctor TRUE. We have done some work in all the arid States. The CHAIRMAN. Is there any other experimentation going on? Do not private individuals conduct experiments of that same character? Doctor TRUE. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. For the purpose of ascertaining those facts? Doctor TRUE. To a certain extent, I believe. But in that branch of agriculture it is just as it is in all branches; the work of the ordinary individual is not carried on in a very thorough and systematic way. The CHAIRMAN. Has it been your experience that the parties interested that is, the real-estate owners and the parties owning and furnishing the water-accept the conclusions of your department as final? Doctor TRUE. Yes, sir; in a large measure that is true. The CHAIRMAN. That is the rule? Doctor TRUE. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. In case of failure so to accept, then the controversy, I suppose, is carried into the courts? Doctor TRUE. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. And then it is a question whether the Bureau or the parties affected have made the most reliable and effective experiments. It comes down to that, does it? Doctor TRUE. It might come down to that. The CHAIRMAN. As a matter of practical experience, are there such controversies in court in connection with the settlement of rights? Doctor TRUE. I do not now recall any such. There may be. The CHAIRMAN. Then, so far as your recollection would go, the work of your department is accepted as final? Doctor TRUE. Yes; as far as it goes, I think it is generally accepted. The CHAIRMAN. Have you ever known of its accuracy being attacked in court? Doctor TRUE. No, sir; I have never known any such cases. The CHAIRMAN. Do you conduct these experiments on your own initiative, or do you wait until some controversy arises between the parties interested, and then visit the locus through a representative of your Bureau for the purpose of ascertaining what the facts are? Doctor TRUE. We do not wait for controversies to arise. We make the investigation for the general benefit of agriculture, and that is done sometimes on our own initiative and sometimes at the request of communities or individuals in different regions. The CHAIRMAN. You have more requests from the irrigation companies, or from the property owners? Doctor TRUE. I do not know that there is any difference; sometimes one and sometimes the other. The CHAIRMAN. Is it the practice for parties engaged in large irrigation enterprises to call in your Department for the purpose of settling these questions? Doctor TRUE. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. And in that case do you go over the whole line of the improvement for the purpose of demonstrating the amount of water that can rightfully be used? (Witness: True.) Doctor TRUE. We would only make experimental tests on a very limited area. The CHAIRMAN. Yes; but would you cover tentative points along the whole line of the enterprise, so as to have a standard? Doctor TRUE. In some cases; yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Do those experiments involve relatively large or small expenses to your bureau? Doctor TRUE. Oh, a considerable expense-that is, at present rather more than half our appropriation is going into the irrigation workthat is, I mean the appropriation for irrigation and drainage. We had $74,200 for irrigation and drainage. The CHAIRMAN. That is all included in the $150,000? Mr. ZAPPONE. Yes; the $150,000 takes in all the appropriations for the Office of Experiment Stations under the control of Doctor True, except the $48.000 for insular stations. The CHAIRMAN. You had $74,000 for irrigation and drainage, and more than half of that went to irrigation? Doctor TRUE. More than half to irrigation. The drainage work, however, is growing, and in general this irrigation and drainage work, I may say, has met with such approval that the money has come very easily, so far as we are concerned. The CHAIRMAN. It does not cost these private individuals anything to get this investigation, and I do not see any reason why they should not want it. I suppose, as a matter of fact, this investigation is valuable to these people who are directly interested? Doctor TRUE. Yes; but the influence of the communities is reflected here in Congress, and it is in favor of increasing our work, so that last year we received in an appropriation about $10,000 more than the Secretary of Agriculture estimated when the estimates were made up. The CHAIRMAN. That would indicate that the people out in that section were anxious to have more Government money spent for their benefit. Doctor TRUE. Very likely. The CHAIRMAN. That is the quite obvious inference, is it not? Doctor TRUE. Yes, ir; but that is perhaps the only way by which you can get an adequate idea of whether the community wants that work done. The CHAIRMAN. Of course that is predicated on whether the work is valuable, and being valuable and not costing the people who are to profit there from anything, there does not seem to be any good reason why they should not want to increase the appropriation. Doctor TRUE. I may say that the people generally, and in many communities, have been quite generous in aiding these investigations themselves. That is, as a rule we do not have any expense for the land or the labor involved and the use of teams and things of that sort in many cases. The CHAIRMAN. That is, you get considerable valuable cooperation from parties directly interested? Doctor TRUE. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. There is no rule about that? Doctor TRUE. No rule. (Witness: True.) The CHAIRMAN. That depends simply on the sentiment of the particular community where you are? Doctor TRUE. Yes. As as rule we do not go unless they give us some encouragement. We try to make our money go as far as we can. The CHAIRMAN. And your purpose is to get as much aid from the locality as you can, to minimize the expense to the Government? Doctor TRUE. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. Do the agricultural experiment stations take any hand in this experimental work that you have just been describing? Doctor TRUE. Yes, sir. In some cases we have cooperated with them in such work, but as a rule they extend the work on beyond what we feel authorized to do. For example, if we go into a region to determine the duty of water, we do not consider it our business to make general experiments with a great variety of crops. The experiment station that cooperates with us may come there and extend those investigations, so that they will not only be irrigation investigations, but tests of different varieties of crops, and other matters of a more general character. The CHAIRMAN. Is it necessary to have the general variety in order to ascertain this result that you are looking for, or are the staple crops amply sufficient? Doctor TRUE. No, sir; we do not think it is desirable to go into detail in that respect. The CHAIRMAN. You take the staple crops, I suppose? Doctor TRUE. Yes; we take the staple crops. The CHAIRMAN. You speak of drainage. What is drainage-the converse of irrigation? Doctor TRUE. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. That is, instead of artificially transporting water for distribution, you are undertaking to artificially remove the water from the submerged lands? Doctor TRUE. Yes; and our drainage investigations were the outgrowth of our irrigation investigations, because in many sections of the West the people at the outset were so much interested in trying to get the water onto the land that they forgot that good agriculture requires that the water also should be conducted off the land, and serious results ensued from that practice. There are considerable areas in the irrigated districts of the United States which have been so swamped by putting water on and providing no way to get it off that serious evils have arisen. The CHAIRMAN. Then, is the drainage of which you speak and as to which you investigate a necessary corollary of the irrigation proposition? Doctor TRUE. No, sir; but it was to begin with. But owing to the success of irrigation projects in the West, both by the Government and under private auspices, great interest has been excited in this country in regard to the reclamation of land, so that it has occurred to many people that if it is a good thing to reclaim land by irrigation it is an equally good thing to reclaim it by drainage, and therefore they have set in motion a movement to have the matter of the drainage of lands generally investigated throughout the country, and they have called upon the Department to aid in that work. 23848-07-35 (Witness: True.) The CHAIRMAN. Does that mean taking large submerged or semisubmerged areas for the purpose of removing the water naturally standing thereon? Doctor TRUE. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. In relation to the drainage, so far as it may have been originally a corollary of irrigation, is there any occasion for artificial drainage where the land affected only receives the amount. that is necessary, which has been demonstrated by experimental work such as you have described? Doctor TRUE. Yes; because that water once put on will either stay there or run off. The CHAIRMAN. If there is a surplus on the ground, would it not look as though too much had been introduced? Doctor TRUE. That is likely to be so, but not necessarily. For example, in California, near the city of Fresno, which is in the great raisin region, they constructed an irrigation system, and in doing so they used as a part of that system a natural drainage basin, with the idea that they would not need drainage. They have gone on there for a number of years and have produced wonderful results, building up that great raisin industry and making the city of Fresno. But after a time it began to be discovered that the lack of drainage. was bringing up alkali salts, and more than that, raising the water table of that whole region. Originally the water table was a considerable number of feet below the surface; but in recent years, when people are irrigating generally, the water table may be within a foot or two of the surface, and the water may remain for considerable periods. Now, that water alone, if it brought up no injurious salts, would ruin the roots of the vines and orchard trees in that district, and considerable areas of land about Fresno have already been seriously injured and are no longer productive. In that district people had been brought up to think that what they wanted was irrigation, and that that would produce these beneficial results, and when the people who had the farms that were being ruined began to cry out, they were looked upon as disturbers of the peace and very little attention was paid to them, with the result that it was impracticable to secure the necessary State legislation for a drainage system or to put into effect any general system of drainage in the Fresno district. As difficulty increased our Department was called upon to determine the method of getting rid of the water, and so we went out there and made an investigation of the subject and determined in a general way the plan which they ought to adopt for a drainage system for that district. Encouraged by that and by us, they went to the State and got the necessary legislation; but they have not even yet gotten together on the proposition. The CHAIRMAN. What method did you suggest the discharge of this water into some lower level? Doctor TRUE. Yes; we showed them in a definite way how they might make a drainage plan for that area, so that they might drain out the water. The CHAIRMAN. That was simply an engineering proposition? Doctor TRUE. Yes; it was an engineering proposition. It involved, however, the study of certain special conditions. |