State Agricultural Society. 309 



A GENERAL RULE. 



There ought to be an established allotment, which may vary in differ- 

 ent districts. The cultivators who come first ought not to be allowed 

 to appropriate more water than they require; because, if they do, those 

 who come after will not be able to procure a fair supply. 



There are probably exceptional places where the lower average of 

 rainfall and porosity of the soil may combine to require a larger allot- 

 ment of water than we have assigned. Such places are about Tulare 

 Lake, on the west side of the valley. There is no cultivation in these 

 portions, and before the occasion may arise to irrigate them, further in- 

 formation will probably be available to enable a proper conclusion to be 

 reached. As the population of the irrigated districts increases, there 

 will be an increased demand for water, and it will probably result that 

 the allowance which is sufficient in this generation may prove entirely 

 inadequate fifty years in the future. When the State makes the survey 

 elsewhere recommeuded in this report, we will learn both how much 

 water and how much land there is, and will be enabled to proportion 

 the supply to be granted. It may then be a question, in seasons of 

 scarcity, whether a smaller supply of water will be given to the whole 

 land or a larger supply to a portion of it. 



IRRIGATION IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 



There is so much variety on this point in the circumstances of climate, 

 soil, and cultivation, and so much difference in the statements of differ- 

 ent authorities, that we cannot derive from the experience of other coun- 

 tries any definite conclusions applicable to our own; but as a matter of 

 interest it will not be amiss to mention the duty of water in other irri- 

 gating districts. In North India a cubic foot of water per second irri- 

 gates five acres per day. Taking the interval of irrigation at forty days, 

 we have the duty of two hundred acres for one foot a second for cereals. 

 In Granada, a canal from the Geuil irrigates— of wheat, barley, and 

 vines — two hundred and forty acres per cubic foot. In Valencia, where 

 it is very hot, wheat is watered four or five times, giving about two hun- 

 dred acres per foot. In Blche, where water is very scarce, a cubic foot 

 goes as far as to irrigate one thousand acres. Wheat here, in some years, 

 scarcely requires artificial watering. Eice fields in different parts of the 

 world vary from thirty to sixty and even eighty acres to the cubic foot. 

 In the heavj r monsoons of India ninety acres per foot are irrigated, in 

 some of the huertas or gardens in Valencia, only from thirteen to twenty 

 acres per foot are irrigated. Here, however, there are at least 



TWO CROPS A YEAR, 



And a part is devoted to rice. The grants for six recent canals in Spain, 

 run from seventy acres per foot to two hundred and sixty acres per foot. 

 Assuming then that a cubic foot per second will water two hundred 

 acres of land, we proceed to give some considerations in regard to the 

 probable cost of construction of the canals and their primary ditches. 

 The secondary and tertiary ditches will, it is supposed, be made by the 

 cultivators. They can be made by the farmer in seasons of leisure, and 

 in the general case their cost will hardly be felt. The case will be some- 

 what different with the cultivator who farms on a large scale, and who 



