State Agricultural Society. 433 



water per second. This nearly horizontal grade soon brings the canal 

 through the " hog wallow " ridge and out upon the upper edge of the 

 general plain. It follows the main course of this edge, cutting through 

 two other ridges of "hog wallow," which make down upon the plains, 

 in its course to the Cottonwood. Where cutting for the canal has to 

 be done, the method of doing the work is the same as that pursued for 

 railway cutting. The bottom is plowed up and the loose earth scooped 

 up the shelving sides with horse-scrapers. In the " hog wallow" a hard- 

 pan is encountered which is blasted, and adds materially to the cost of 

 the work. When the bottom of the canal comes out upon the surface 

 of the general plain, the banks are formed by scraping up the earth 

 material from the outside. Plow furrows are run along outside the base 

 of the proposed bank, and the loosened earth scooped up into long ridges 

 by scrapers. These ridges are afterward carefully trimmed and dressed 

 smoothly and constitute the banks of the canal. They are made as 

 smooth and even as the flower-beds of a city garden, or the terraces of 

 the Capitol grounds. Their outside slope is one foot vertical to one and 

 one half foot horizontal. From the other dimensions already given, it 

 will be seen that a cross section of these banks is as follows: top, four 

 and a half feet; bottom, thirty-two and a half feet; height, eight feet; 

 cross section, one hundred and forty-eight square feet; cubic yards of 

 earth to be moved for each one hundred feet of canal (two banks), one 

 thousand and ninety-six. Contract price for this kind of work in ordi- 

 nary ground, say fifteen cents per yard; cost of canal in this good sort 

 of ground, one hundred and sixty-four dollars and forty cents per one 

 hundred feet, or say eight thousand six hundred and eighty dollars and 

 thirty-two cents per mile. When the canal is cut to a depth of four feet, 

 instead of being built wholly above ground, the amount of earth to be 

 moved for each one hundred feet of length, is four hundred and fourteen 

 yards — costing, at the above price, sa.y three thousand four hundred and 

 twenty dollars per mile. The length of canal constructed to Cotton- 

 wood Creek is four miles; projected extension to the San Joaquin, nine 

 miles more, or say thirteen miles. 



Water is delivered from the canal into the main distributing ditches 

 by an arrangement of gates and fluming or boxing. The bank of the 

 canal is rounded or curved to approach the gates. The main distribut- 

 ing ditches are ten feet wide at the bottom; slope of bank inside, one 

 foot vertical to two feet horizontal; width on top, two feet; height, two 

 feet; number of cubic yards of earth to each one hundred feet of bank, 

 twenty; cost to construct, at fifteen cents per yard for each one hundred 

 feet of ditch (two banks), six dollars; cost per mile, say three hundred 

 and sixteen dollars and eighty cents. The work upon these main dis- 

 tributing ditches is done in the same way as upon the canal; lying 

 almost wholly on the surface of the ground, there is little or no cutting 

 and the banks are constructed by plowing outside their line, scraping up 

 the plowed soil to form the bank, and then dressing and trimming. 

 These main distributing ditches have a grade which depends on the 

 ground, the maximum rate being thirty-three inches to the mile; this 

 should give a rate of flow of nearly one and one half miles per hour, and 

 discharge for each ditch forty-five cubic feet of water per second. 



The amount of discharge above noted for the canal (three hundred 

 and sixty cubic feet per second) will be adequate to give from three to 

 four inches in depth every forty days during the season, to an area of 



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