Gary Froman, age 12, of Denton, Tex., for his question:
WHEN WAS IRRIGATION FIRST USED?
Irrigation is a way of making water available to parts of the land by artificial methods. We aren't sure when the first irrigation system was used, but it was most likely the one devised by the ancient Egyptians. Records show that more than 4,000 years ago, men bailer water out of the Nile River for use on their dry fields.
Irrigation was also practiced thousands of years ago in China, India, Babylonia and Assyria. The ancient Greeks also brought in water to fields where it was not available naturally.
The Romans were the first to devise a spectacular irrigation system in Italy that transported water over very wide distances.
The Muslims introduced irrigation systems in all of the countries near the Mediterranean Sea that they conquered. And the Moors, when they went into Spain, built a system of reservoirs and canals that are still being used today for irrigation of the land.
It has been estimated that more than half o= the Earth's land surface doesn't receive enough water in the form of rain or snow to make agriculture possible by ordinary methods.
In places where between 10 and 20 inches of rain fall each year, it is possible to do some farming. But if the rainfall is less than 1u inches, irrigation is an absolute necessity.
Early irrigation systems were very simple. At first water was taken out of rivers in buckets and poured over the ground or into witches that went out into the fields.
Man learned long ago how to build canals that connected to rivers. These could carry water far from where it was normally available. Some of the ancient canals were wide and deep enough to also carry large boats.
Modern irrigation systems include great dams and reservoirs, networks of canals, tunnels through mountains and pumping stations to go over mountains.
Sometimes irrigation water comes from lakes, ponds or even wells, and, in places where there is heavy rainfall during just part of the year, the water is kept in tanks or reservoirs. Rainwater tanks are especially widely used in India. The water most often used for irrigation, however, is river water.
Little was done to organize irrigation projects in the United States until the last part of the 1900s. Until that time, there was so much land that was naturally suited for farming that irrigation systems weren't needed.
The need for irrigation came about as settlers advanced into the West.
The Mormons who established homes and farms near the Great Salt Lake in 1847 were pioneers in setting up an American irrigation system.
Before the 20th Century started, irrigation systems were working in Utah, California, Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Nevada. Most of the land was irrigated by ditches built by individuals, associations or private companies. State and federal agencies didn't provide help.
The Federal Reclamation Act of 1902 finally provided assistance for irrigation works construction.