State Agricultural Society. 199 



IRRIGATION IN CALIFORNIA. 



It is an admitted fact, proven by the experience of twenty-four years, 

 that the average annual rainfall in California will not, more than one 

 year in two, mature a crop on one half of the arable land of the State. 

 During the ten years from eighteen hundred and sixty-two to eighteen 

 hundred and seventy-two, the annual rainfall in San Joaquin Valley and 

 in Los Angeles averaged less than ten inches. 



In some years, in these localities, only from three to five inches fell, 

 and in no event can the rainfall be depended upon except for the months 

 of December, January, February, and March. 



The remaining eight months of the year, though not all rainless, can- 

 not be safely relied upon. 



Indeed, it is estimated that there are at least ten million acres of valley 

 land in this State that cannot be successfully cultivated without irriga- 

 tion. Most of these lands are now assessed at from one to five dollars 

 per acre, while with irrigation the lowest probable assessed value would 

 be fifty dollars per acre. In such a country, and with such a climate as 

 California, water in canals for the purpose of irrigation and cheap trans- 

 portation would seem a manifest necessity; but the pertinent inquiry 

 presents itself — 



HAVE WE THE WATER SUPPLY? 



If we are destitute or short of this needed supply, all our hopes fall 

 to the ground. 



The Tulare Lake, in the southern portion of the San Joaquin Valley, 

 covers an area of nearly seven hundred square miles, or about four hun- 

 dred and fifty thousand acres, and is one hundred square miles larger 

 than the bays of San Francisco and San Pablo. It has an elevation of 

 two hundred feet above sea level; is two hundred miles from tide water, 

 with not a hill or rough j)iece of ground on the west side of the San 

 Joaquin Valley, from it to the Suisun Bay. The irrigatable land of that 

 valley, on the west side of the river, which water from this source will 

 reach, is about four hundred thousand acres, not an acre of which can 

 be depended upon for a crop. 



Kings Eiver, the San Joaquin, Kern Eiver, the Sacramento, Clear 

 Lake, Silver Lake, the Blue Lakes, and Lake Tahoe, make the supply 

 of water for irrigation purposes more than ample for all future time. 



With canals of the dimensions needed, the produce of the two great 

 California valleys can be floated down to tide water at an expense of not 

 exceeding two dollars per ton; and if water is sold at one dollar and 

 fifty cents to one dollar and seventy-five cents per acre per annum, the 

 profit will be handsome to the companies, while to the farmer it will be 

 a perpetual guarantee of good crops. 



Nothing within the range of human ingenuity will go so far toward 

 relieving this State of the great land monopolies. Cotton fields will be 

 seen everywhere in the great stretch of country reaching the whole 

 length of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys. Indeed, every 

 variety of production, which our soil and climate are capable of, will be 

 raised there. 



Under irrigation one hundred and sixty acres of land will be an inde- 

 pendence to any man. Happy the home of the farmer, when the meas- 

 ureless pasture lands of California are cut up into small farms, and by 

 irrigation rendered c'apable for man's use. 



