As dry-farming increases their numbers will also increase.
When neither canals, nor springs, nor flood waters are available for
the supply of water, it is yet possible to obtain a limited supply
by so arranging the roof gutters on the farm buildings that all the
water that falls on the roofs is conducted through the spouts into
carefully protected cisterns or reservoirs. A house thirty by thirty
feet, the roof of which is so constructed that all that water that
falls upon it is carried into a cistern will yield annually under a
a rainfall of fifteen inches a maximum amount of water equivalent to
about 8800 gallons. Allowing for the unavoidable waste due to
evaporation, this will yield enough to supply a household and some
live stock with the necessary water. In extreme cases this has been
found to be a very satisfactory practice, though it is the one to be
resorted to only in case no other method is available.
It is indispensable that some reservoir be provided to hold the
surface water that may be obtained until the time it may be needed.
The water coming constantly from a spring in summer should be
applied to crops only at certain definite seasons of the year.
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