State Agricultural Society. 197 



the most marvelous, twenty-five tons of this Marcite grass hay are cut 

 from a single acre of land in one year. And near Milan, according to 

 Captain Baird Smith, forty five to fifty tons are sometimes taken from 

 an acre in a single year, and from thirty-five acres of land, fifty dairy 

 cows are kept the year round. This statement is also indorsed by M. 

 Breaschi, who is a recognized authority on Italian irrigation. Of course, 

 this laud is highly manured and well cultivated. 



Such lands are usually watered one day in seven. The surface is 

 made of a uniform slope or a perfect level. 



In India, two crops are planted in the year. Cotton, sugar-cane, and 

 indigo in Summer, and wheat, barley, and vegetables in Winter. 



On the Nile in Egypt, two and three crops a year are raised. In 

 Utah, at Great Salt Lake, where all grain is irrigated, but one crop is 

 produced. This is due to the rigor of their Winter climate. In this 

 State, two crops can be raised in any of the valleys, if the land is well 

 cultivated; one of wheat or barley, and one of corn, potatoes, vege- 

 tables, hay, or cotton. 



COST OP LEVELING LANDS FOR IRRIGATION. 



In many parts of Italy it costs as high as two hundred dollars to 

 three hundred dollars an acre to prejjare the land for irrigation, al- 

 though generally not so much. In one instance, in Piedmont, it cost, in 

 our money, to prepare six hundred and forty acres of land for irriga- 

 tion, two hundred thousand dollars. 



It will be found, when irrigation becomes one of the leading pursuits 

 of our State, that lands we had supposed required but little leveling 

 will dem; n I a vast deal of labor to bring them to a perfect plane, and 

 this must bj taken into account of cost of irrigation. 



As a rule, however, California is better situated in this respect than 

 any other country. 



Our valleys are not rolling land, but vast plains, with regular and 

 graduated slopes, that tip toward the principal watercourses so gently 

 that they seem a perfect level. They appear as if they had been made 

 plastic, then rolled off for these uses. Indeed, the greater portion of 

 the San Joaquin Valley, and part of the Sacramento Valley, will require 

 little or no leveling. 



THE MAGNITUDE OP SOME OF THE IRRIGATING CANALS. 



The eastern Jumna Canal, in India, for thirty or forty miles, runs 

 between embankments of the most massive proportions, and is elevated 

 above the surrounding country from six to twelve feet. 



This canal, as far back as eighteen hundred and fifty, had over five 

 hundred miles of side channel, and irrigated one hundred and sixty 

 thousand acres of land. Since then its capacity has been largely in- 

 creased. 



The great Ganges Canal, as before stated, is one hundred and seventy 

 feet wide, and ten feet deep. In eighteen hundred and sixty-nine, it 

 irrigated one million seventy-eight thousand acres, while two years 

 before, the same canal only irrigated five hundred and forty-four thou- 

 sand acres; showing the most satisfactory increase. At this time it 

 will irrigate one and a half millions acres of land. 



The Soane Canal of India, recently constructed, is one hundred and 

 eighty feet wide at the base, and has an average depth of nine feet of 



