STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 191 



mental law. Let as have general and universal discussion in advance of 

 legislation and proposed amendments of our Constitution. We may thus 

 hope for sound and stable laws, and 1 fear not otherwise. 



As showing the value of water to land, I quote from a letter recently 

 received from L. M. Holt of Riverside : 



The water rights of Southern California were very satisfactory prior to the recent 

 Supreme Court decision. There was no monopoly here. As a rule the man who had irri- 

 gable land owned the right to use the water to irrigate the same, and to pay no tribute to 

 water company monopolies. The stock of the water companies was held by the owners 

 of the land to be irrigated, in proportion to the acreage of each. Hence the user of water 

 got his water at cost of delivery. 



There is a rush of people for the fruit lands and climate of our section. This rush is on 

 the increase, and values have advanced rapidly during the past year. All our industries 

 are on a healthy basis. The development of this section has been healthy and vigorous. 

 New water sources are being developed and utilized, and new lands are being brought 

 under cultivation. Irrigable land — first class for fruit— is bringing from $100 to $400 per 

 acre in its wild state, with good water right. In some cases these prices are even doubled. 

 Improved lands sell from $500 to $2,000 per acre, according to improvements, and the 

 improvements are confined to the trees and vines, and do not include expensive buildings. 

 Riverside has 6,000 acres now under water, and the company, by an expenditure of $200,000 

 in saving water, are getting ready to irrigate 6,000 acres more, while the Gage Canal, at an 

 expense of from $300,000 to $400,000, will irrigate another 5,000 or perhaps 6,000 acres addi- 

 tional. 



PRESENT POPULATION — IMMIGRATION. 



As bearing upon this question of increasing our population, I desire to 

 call attention to some published views of this same gentleman, whose arti- 

 cle in full I append to my remarks. He takes our census of 1880 of the 

 whole population, and also the school census for the same year, from which 

 he finds a population of 4.3 to each school child in the State. We have 

 had no general census since that time, but we have had a school census 

 as late as 1886, and by applying this average of 4.3 persons to each school 

 child, he makes a present population of 1,117,982 in the State. He next 

 applies this rule to the various counties, and gives the population in each 

 county in 1880 and 1886, with the gain and loss in each, and with the per- 

 centage of loss and gain. In thirty-five counties there has been a gain in 

 the past six years, and in seventeen counties there has been a loss. San 

 Bernardino County has gained 128 per cent, Los Angeles 116 per cent, San 

 Diego 102 per cent, Fresno 89 per cent, Santa Barbara 73 per cent, Tulare 

 66 per cent, San Luis Obispo 63 per cent, Ventura 60 per cent, making an 

 average of 87 per cent in these eight counties; while San Joaquin and 

 Colusa have gained but 9 per cent, Sacramento County but 3 per cent, 

 Tehama 25 per cent, Shasta 32 per cent, Yolo 19 per cent, Sutter 11 per 

 cent, and Butte and Yuba and Kern have lost rather than gained. Some 

 of the mountain counties devoted to agriculture have gained handsomely — 

 Modoc 45 per cent, and Lassen 27 per cent, but its neighbor, Plumas, with 

 some other mining counties, have gone behind and made a loss. Southern 

 California has chiefly been the gainer by our immigration, while the great 

 wheat-growing counties of the San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys have 

 made little progress. 



In the south there is irrigated agriculture, which largely accounts for the 

 difference. The leading industries of the south have gradually advanced, 

 while the leading industries of the wheat counties have declined. There 

 are conditions not mentioned which help to account for this disparity of 

 gain, but the fact stares us unpleasantly in the face that Northern and 

 Middle California needs some kind of medicine. With a soil and climate 

 that will produce most of the deciduous fruits without irrigation, and, 

 with it, anything that can be grown at Riverside or Los Angeles, there 



