Backwards March. 329 



spur, a distance of six hundred and eighty feet, a trench about six feet in 

 width was digged down to hard-pan. Hard-pan, in this region, means a 

 kind of tough, putty-hke clay whiich resists the pick and shovel as shoe- 

 maker's wax resists a knife. It is totally impervious to water. In the 

 middle of the canon, where it is crossed by the ditch, the depth to hard-pan 

 is about fifty feet. On either hand, toward the mountain spurs, the depth 

 is less and less up to the surface at each end. In this deep trench a stone 

 wall laid in hydraulic cement is reared to the surface, and above the stone 

 wall, in what may be called a dry mill-pond, are digged two enormous wells. 

 They reminded me of that tremendous reservoir shown us in the Blowers 

 estate at Woodland. Into these wells are dropped two twenty-inch pipes, 

 and great pumps are attached capable of lifting eighteen million gallons of 

 water per day. The water is thus carried from the bottom over the wall 

 and is distributed by conduits to the plain below. The land owned by the 

 company covers an area of twenty thousand acres. It is divided into lots of 

 forty acres each. On two sides of each lot are laid six-inch pipes full of 

 water from the works. From these pipes smaller lines are extended across 

 the land until all is supplied. The company guarantees the purchaser to 

 furnish to each acre a maximum of fifty-four thousand gallons of water per 

 day. This enterprise is a specimen of the work which the Californians in 

 many parts of this State are doing in the way of making up for the disad- 

 vantages under which they are placed by nature. After all, I do not know 

 that the irregular and frequently deluge-like rain-storms, which pour out 

 their floods in unseasonable seasons upon the fields and pastures and 

 orchards in the States east of the Mississippi, are an unmixed blessing. Per- 

 haps, if man could manage the whole business himself he would satisfy him- 

 self better in the distribution of his water supply, and especially of his 

 showers. 



Before we begin our ascent of the mountain range which divides us 

 from Antelope valley and the Mojave desert, it only remains to refer to that 

 part of our company who, on the return from the south, made their way down 

 to Santa Barbara. They came back from that excursion with not a little 

 praise on their tongues as to what they had seen and enjoyed at the ocean 

 side. I gathered from authentic sources that two facts belonging to the 

 Santa Barbarians were worthy of special note. The first is of much interest 

 to horticulturists. I think it is conceded that Santa Barbara has a climate 

 more nearly tropical than that of any other town in the State. She can 

 produce bananas and similar varieties of fruit with very little apprehension 

 of injury from frost. At the Riverside exposition some fine products of 

 this kind were shown in perfection ; and they were from the low, warm 

 country about Santa Barbara. The other fact is the circumstance that this 

 city is the residence of Hon. EUwood Cooper, president of the California 

 State Board of Horticulture. Mr. Cooper had been from the start one of the 

 most active promoters of the enterprise which resulted in our going to Cal- 

 ifornia and holding our sessions at San Jos^ and Riverside. His reputation 



