State Agricultural Society. 201 



other countries, where irrigation has commanded and received careful 

 consideration from the most distinguished engineers. 



It may also be remarked, that thorough irrigation will require more 

 water here than in any of the large irrigating countries, except Egypt, 

 for the rainfall is much greater there than with us. 



In the irrigated portions of Italy the average annual rainfall is about 

 thirty-eight inches, in India over thirty, and in some localities above 

 fort}'; while our average annual rainfall is less than twenty-three inches, 

 and in the San Joaquin Valley it will not exceed ten. 



SIZE OP FARMS. 



No fact is more clearly demonstrated than that small farms and good 

 tillage are better for a country than large farms and inferior tillage; 

 nor is any truth better established than that any cultivation is an im- 

 provement over pasturage. 



To succeed in irrigation, much personal attention is necessary. This 

 personal attention will be given by proprietors of the soil only. Where 

 land is cheap and money plenty, as in California, all may be proprietors. 



No man who has intelligence enough to farm well will rent land when 

 he can work his own; therefore, little fear need be entertained that the 

 ownership of the irrigating canals will carry with it the ownership of 

 the land. This may occur in isolated instances, but it can never in Cali- 

 fornia rise to the importance of a danger. He who is a large land owner 

 this year, will be poor next year. Fortunes come and go with the sea- 

 sons. One generation acquires wealth by toil and frugality. The next 

 generation of the same family scatters it. The large grants of land in 

 California have retarded our prosperity, chiefly because these grants 

 have been used for grazing purposes, and have not been taxed up to the 

 proportionate value of small farms. Once irrigate the country, and the 

 lands in large traets under one ownership will, as a rule, be confined to 

 remote or mountainous districts, while gardens and orchards will be 

 found on every one hundred acres of land in all the valleys of the State, 

 population will increase, wealth will be more evenly distributed, villages 

 will appear every few miles, a thousand pleasant homes will dot the 

 State where now there are but scores. Clumps of trees, orchards, and 

 vineyards will give variety and beauty to every landscape, and peace, 

 comfort, and security to the millions of tillers and occupants of the soil. 



We have just started on the second quarter of a century of our his- 

 tory, at the end of which I might in fancy measure our progress: our 

 population quadrupled, our valleys the gardens as they are now the 

 granaries of the world, our commerce teeming with wealth, and noisy 

 with labor. 



I might mark out through the great plains of the State, long lines 

 of canals, whose banks are clothed in verdure and lined with trees, 

 with broad roadways upon either side, and a thousand channels, or 

 arms, reaching out into the land like arteries through the human sys- 

 tem. I might fancy our low hills and rolling lands covered with vines, 

 which would then alone furnish an annual income of forty millions of 

 dollars. 



I might wander through our orange and lemon groves that would 

 everywhere adorn our valleys, and perfume the air with the rich aroma 

 of their flowers. I might visit our institutions of learning, and find 



*t>' 



26— («*"*) 



