signs of fatigue. Thus the waters are constantly irrigating every year a large proportion of new land, and the consumption of water is correspondingly great. A serious loss of water and fertility is produced by any method of irrigation which employs more water than is just sufficient to saturate the soil. Whatever water runs off from a field carries with it great quantities of mud and fine silt, together with the most precious elements of fertility. These elements are the soluble alkaline salts and organic manner which are readily taken up by the water, and once removed are not speedily restored. A field which is so irrigated that a large surplus of water is continually running from the tail ditches during the flow will rapidly deteriorate in fertility. But a field which receives water which is allowed to stand until it has soaked into the earth, without any surplus passing into the tail ditches, will increase in fertility. These irrigating waters bring with them a sufficiency of plant food to compensate, and more too, for the drain upon the soil caused by the harvest; but they will carry off more than they bring if they are permitted to run over the field and escape from it, instead of being caught and held until they are absorbed. It is not always practicable to attain this exact distribution of water, and many cases occur where great expense and labor might be required to arrange the ditches and fields in this manner. Ordinarily, it is cheaper to throw away old land and take up new than to improve the system of irrigation, and there are many fields in the valley of the Sevier which have been abandoned because the fertility of the soil has been washed out by a reckless method of irrigation. Connected with this is another source of waste, arising from very unequal requirements of contiguous areas, in consequence of which many lands, especially old ones, are liable to be excessively watered. When a community farms a large number of small fields, using water from the same canals, it is usually impossible so to regulate the distribution of the privilege that each field will receive the exact amount it needs. Some fields can remain unwatered much longer than others, and the tendency always is to get as much water as possible--each farmer fearing a deficiency of water and wasting its surplus. Experience on the part of the watermasters and a more and more settled habit in the lands themselves gradually diminish this source of loss and create economy. Far better results, therefore, may ordinarily be anticipated in old lands than in new. Better results, also, are found where circumstances render difficult or impracticable the abandonment of old fields for new, and this is ordinarily in those portions where the water is nearly or quite sufficient for all the irrigable land, and where all the irrigable land is taken up.