Show c Irrigation Old Irrigation is as old as the first farmer In ancient Egypt as now the water of the Nile was stored during the annual overflow o and dis dis- distributed distributed dis- dis distributed later through small ditches notes a writer in the Washington Post More than Hian 1000 years before Christ the Babylonians had a great irrigation system based on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers which enabled what is now a barren waste of sand to support a huge tion Palestine with a scanty rain rain- rainfall rainfall rainfall fall has always found irrigation necessary China has acres under irrigation and India 55 This is about double the area of irrigated land in the United States Japan Australia Italy I tal t a 1 y Spain southern France and Mexico also depend on irrigation for much of their foodstuffs and most of the western part of the United States would be worthless for farming without it |