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this district is retentive of moisture and resists droughts, as does the land along the Brazos and Colorado river bottoms, located mainly within this area. The region to the south and southeast of Austin, although having the same mean annual precipitation, has not been included in this division, because the rapidly increasing temperature toward the Gulf, as well as the different character of the soil, renders irrigation somewhat more essential and its development is more nearly comparable to that of the arid region to the west.

In this central portion of Texas, where crops are raised successfully each year, irrigation is not felt to be a necessity except by truck farmers and nursery men, and many of these have introduced it in a somewhat experimental. way. The results, however, demonstrate its value, and this method of cultivating the soil is being extended. Water, is usually obtained from a well or small storage reservoir, and pumped by means of a windmill, or occasionally by a small steam engine.

The most easterly of the irrigation works in this section are those at Mexia, near the head of Navasota River, a tributary of the Brazos, and near Bryan, on Brazos River, at the State Agricultural and Mechanical College. At this latter point storm waters are impounded in a reservoir formed by building an earthen dam 10 feet in height and 100 feet long across a small draw. This covers about 1 acre, and from it so far about 7 acres have been regularly irrigated, the crops watered being garden truck and alfalfa. In addition to the storm waters, the reservoir is so situated as to receive the waste water from the college ice factory and from the natatorium when necessary, but as this water, coming from an artesian well, carries in solution considerable mineral matter, it is not allowed to enter the reservoir to any considerable extent.

At Mexia, in Limestone County, J. W. Stubenrauch has been very successful in the use of a small irrigation plant for fruits and vegetables. This consists of a darn across a ravine, catching the storm waters and forming a tank covering about an acre of ground. From this the water is lifted to a height of 25 feet by an 8-foot windmill into an earthen reservoir 50 feet long and 100 feet wide. This reservoir is now being enlarged to have double the present capacity. The total cost of the system was $300, including 700 feet of piping; 7 acres have been irrigated, but it is estimated that 15 acres could be watered. Mr. Stubenrauch is also putting in another system with a reservoir covering an acre of ground, the dam having a height of 5 feet above the outlet pipe, for filling which he will use a 12-foot wheel. This he expects will enable him to irrigate 30 acres at one time. He states that the total cost, including 600 feet of 2½-inch pipe for discharging the water into the reservoir, was $485. He pumps from a storage tank made by damming a big ravine.

In the northern end of this district-that is, north of the Colorado