SECOND DISTRICT A.GEICULTUBAL ASSOCIATION. 445 



ure waned, and with it civilization and intellectual power; and so great 

 was the blow to civilization and agriculture that, excepting the wonderful 

 improvements and progress made in Spain by the Moors, both languished 

 until the sixteenth century — a period of nearly nine hundred years. 



This wonderful advance in the agriculture of Spain, introduced and car- 

 ried to such perfection by the Eastern invaders, is well worthy of consid- 

 eration, particularly at just this period of the history of the San Joaquin 

 Valley, agitated as a great portion of it is by the question of irrigation. 



The making of otherwise sterile lands produce immense amounts of 

 valuable agricultural products was perhaps carried to greater perfection 

 and success in Spain about eight hundred and fifty years ago than ever 

 before or since. It is a sad comment, but nevertheless true, that the 

 would be legislator of to-day for California, with her millions of acres of 

 soil sterile without artificial irrigation, and her numerous streams abun- 

 dantly supplied with water easily applied, knows less about what is best 

 to be done to make that application than did the people ruling Spain 

 nearly nine hundred years ago, when the whole world is said to have been 

 steeped in ignorance. By a system of canals, aqueducts, reservoirs, and 

 other necessary improvements, Spain, through her agricultural productions 

 alone, received more revenue than all Christian monarchs- combined. 

 These stupendous works for irrigation, which were at their greatest per- 

 fection during the tenth century, surpassed anything of the kind ever pro- 

 duced ; and their ruins are now, and have been for hundreds of years, a 

 standing shame and silent but mournful evidence of the want of intelli- 

 gence, of efteteness, degraded superstition, and ignorance of the people of 

 that country. More recently some effort has been made to revive irriga- 

 tion, but Spain is now, and undoubtedly will remain for very many years 

 to come, behind her splendor of nearly a thousand years ago. Yet we may 

 blush to say, but say truthfully, that California, in the matter of irriga- 

 tion, is not an iota in advance of Spain. Indeed, I believe it may be said 

 that we are behind that effete fifth-rate monarchy of Europe. 



To produce the greatest benefit we must have a broad, comprehensive 

 system of irrigation, that looks to the benefit of the irrigator to the exclu- 

 sion of the so called rights of riparian and appropriator ; a system con- 

 trolled by the Government, free to all, under the control of none, and 

 established and maintained by a revenue derived from those only whom 

 the system will benefit. 



The details of such a system must necessarily be somewhat extensive 

 and complex, subject of experiment and change; but the principles upon 

 which such a system is to be based, are, in my opinion, self-evident. 



Britain shared the fate of the rest of the world, and it cannot be said 

 that the branch of agriculture confined to the tilling of the soil existed to 

 a degree worthy of much consideration until the sixteenth century. In 

 fact, until that time all cultivation deserving to be called farming was con- 

 fined to the religious institutions. 



Finally, it may be said that agriculture outside of Spain, as I have 

 already mentioned, and some other localities, notably small portions of 

 Asia, never began to assume the importance it deserved until within the 

 last hundred years. And it has made more rapid strides within the last 

 fifty years, within the easy memory of the older persons of this assembly, 

 than it did in the fifteen hundred years preceding the nineteenth century; 

 and with its advance, it is hardly necessary that I should mention, civili- 

 zation and enlightenment has kept pace. So important has become this 

 industry that the agricultural productions of the world outvalue all other 

 productions and earnings many times over. 



