IRRIGATION IN CALIFORNIA. 



THE SAN JOAQUIN AND TULARE PLAINS — NATURAL DRAINAGE SYSTEM — 

 VOLUME OF DRAINAGE — METEOROLOGY — SOILS OF THE GREAT PLAINS AND 

 THEIR SURFACES — A COMPREHENSIVE CANAL SYSTEM — PRACTICABLE 

 FEATURES — FARMERS' CANAL OF MERCED, FRESNO CANAL, CHAPMAN'S 

 CANAL, CENTERVILLE CANALS, PEOPLE'S CANAL, AND SAN JOAQUIN AND 

 KING'S RIVER CANAL COMPANY'S CANAL — IRRIGATION IN PRACTICE — A 

 REVIEW OF THE WHOLE FIELD. 



[WRITTEN FOR THK SACRAMENTO RECORD, BY A CIVIL ENGINEER COMMISSIONED BY 

 THE SACRAMENTO DAILY RECORD TO EXAMINE AND REPORT.] 



"My God! we're out of sight of land!" was the exclamation of the 

 new comer, clutching his companion's arm as they drove together across 

 the great plain that opens to the south beyond the San Joaquin River. 

 The hills that bound the horizon as the traveler moves up the valley, 

 had receded further and further on either hand, until he raised his eyes, 

 the hills had sunk from sight, and boundless plain extended to meet the 

 sk} 7 , and then broke from his lips the natural exclamation — "My God! 

 we're out of sight of land!" No other language serves, to my mind, to 

 express so vividly the vastness, the boundless extension of that empire 

 which mocks the inadequacy of nomenclature in its designation as the 

 San Joaquin Valley. Its extent is literally inconceivable. We may 

 state the area in thousands of square miles or in millions of acres, but 

 we have no conception of what is meant by those thousands of square 

 miles or millions of acres. Even upon seeing this area, traveling through 

 and across it, we fail to grasp the magnitude of the thing. It grows 

 upon one as the big trees grow. You see them first and rather wonder 

 that they do not look bigger; you see them again, and they do look big- 

 ger; again, and they swell and expand on your sight, and you grow to 

 appreciate their immensity. At last they come to transcend all the pre- 

 conceptions you had formed, and satiate the anticipation that had grown 

 of those conceptions. Unlike the trees, the San Joaquin and Tulare 

 plains, which stretch for leagues upon leagues, drained into the San 

 Joaquin liiver, at first view, not only equal but transcend the broadest 



