Drainage Principles and Applications I. [antikvár]

PREFACE The International Institute for Land Reelamatlori and Improvement was founded in Wageningen in 1956 and charged with the task of collecting and disseminating knowledge in the fields mentioned in its name. During its first few years of existence, the Institute received a steadily increasing stream of visitors from abroad, who asked a wide variety of questions about matters of agro-hydrology in which the Dutch are known to have considerable experience: problems of waterlogging and the process of draining off excess water, it 's.oon became clear that the guidance and training of these individual visitors took up a. disproportionate amount of the Institute's time, and this fact forced us to consider.'how - aside from our publication programme - we could best satisfy the vigorous interest that was being shown. And so the idea was born to organize a course that could systematically handle the subject of 'land drainage', and the basic knowledge relevant to it. Initial-plans were drawn up in 1960. A Board, consisting of representatives from allied Dutch institutions, was appointed to supervise the scientific and practical programming. Prof. Dr. F. Hellinga served as the first Chairman of this Board. To handle the administrative, financial, and social matters connected with the course, cooperation was sought - and obtained - from the International Agricultural Centre at Wageningen. In 1962 the first 'International Course on Land Drainage' was launched. Its language was English; it lasted three months; its participants numbered twenty-five. What was originally regarded as an incidental event - one that might be repeated at some future date if need be - proved a 'hit' that demanded repetition, and the course became an annual event. The tenth course in 1971 brought the total number of partici-