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1945 - Irrigation Requirements Of California Crops, Bulletin No. 51

Miscellaneous Documents and Reports

This 1945 report addresses the issue of water being the limiting factor in the expansion of irrigated areas. The increasing cost of new projects not only approached the capital values that newly irrigated lands might profitably support but in many cases exceeded them and other benefits were evaluated to justify construction. Conservation of existing water supplies was therefore of the first importance in the economy of the irrigated west. Savings in irrigation seldom exist where water was plentiful but where it was scarce conserving methods were the rule, wasteful practices were avoided, and water was carefully applied. It was axiomatic …