194 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



These small daily drains on the small farmer of small income are what 

 sap his resources and keep him poor; he loses the opportunity of utilizing 

 his waste time; his small children are without occupation; he has no 

 incentive to adorn his home when he sees no utility in it; he grows to be an 

 animated machine, and his work is drudgery, and the end of the year finds 

 neither himself nor his family any nearer to comfort and competence. Let 

 the small farmer who grows only wheat, oats, and barley consider the idle 

 time he has on his hands, and he will be astonished. There is nothing 

 attractive or interesting in growing wheat; the entire art can be acquired 

 in a season or two; the land itself gradually loses its value; there is nothing 

 to inspire one with a pride in his calling; his golden grain disappears with 

 the harvest, and leaves only the depleted soil, with no value added. On the 

 contrary, diversified farming calls out the best intelligence we possess, and 

 invites to a knowledge of practical agricultural chemistry; of entomology 

 and kindred studies; interesting occupation is offered ; constant employment 

 is furnished; all the members of the family can take part; ornamental 

 gardening comes naturally with cultivation of trees; a love of home and its 

 belongings is engendered; each year some fresh object of interest springs 

 up; an attachment is formed for these objects, whether trees, stock, or 

 vines, and the farmer soon finds his place peopled with valuable adjuncts 

 to the farm and the little world he has created around him. He goes to 

 town when obliged to, but hastens back, no longer allured by the compan- 

 ionship of the idle and dissolute; his attachment for and pride in his call- 

 ing deepens with the years as they pass, and he becomes a positive factor 

 in the civilizing and ennobling influences of his occupation rightly followed. 

 These contrasts of life are everywhere presented in this State. Pass from 

 the great wheat ranches of Colusa and Butte to the great diversified farm- 

 ing operations of General Bidwell of Chico, or Mr. Cone, in Tehama County. 

 The transformation is as sudden and striking as from the desert to the oasis. 

 Pass from the wheat region of the great San Joaquin to the mixed farming 

 of San Jose, and you pass from agricultural darkness to agricultural light; 

 from a land of apparent desolation to one of plenty. 



THE PUMP FOR IRRIGATION. 



Travel from Red Bluff along the west bank of the Sacramento River to 

 the town of Colusa, a distance of sixty miles; then cross and return to Red 

 Bluff. Here is an empire. Peopled and cultivated as reason and experi- 

 ence now teach it should be, and we should find a population greater than 

 now exists in all three of the counties you would traverse; as it is, destitute of 

 homes except at wide intervals; farmed, as it is in many cases, by absentee 

 owners from their offices in San Francisco, or by telephone from offices in 

 neighboring towns; farmed often solely as the mine is worked, we have pre- 

 sented many of the evils which to-day are shaking thrones in other countries. 

 You would be astonished, Mr. President, if I were to hold up to your view a 

 map of this rich strip of country through which the noble Sacramento 

 courses, and show you how few homes that are worthy the name are dotted 

 over it. It is perfectly demonstrable that with modern improved pumps 

 the water of that great river can be spread over much of this land more 

 cheaply than the average cost of water by ditches in this State. If great 

 bodies of water can be pumped out of flooded districts with profit, how 

 much more profitably can it be pumped onto the land as needed. In South- 

 ern California a plant of $300,000 is not unusual to irrigate 5,000 acres of 

 land. At Riverside, even $500,000 are spent for this area, which is $100 

 per acre. I believe that a plant costing one fifth that sum can be placed 



