State Agricultural Society. 437 



on a plan to form any part of a general irrigation system, it does not in- 

 terfere with such an one, and illustrates what may be done by the co- 

 operation of a few neighbors in procuring present benefit for which they 

 might, by depending on the construction of the greater works, have to 

 wait for years. 



UPPER KING'S RIVER DITCHES. 



At Centerville, on King's .River, twenty miles above Kingston, two 

 small ditches have been partly constructed by the joint efforts of owners 

 of land at that point and owners of lands of the San Joaquin Valley 

 Land Association, lying between Centerville and the Town of Fresno, on 

 the railroad. The principal of these ditches utilizes, for a considerable 

 portion of its length, the channel of a small natural slough. The ditch 

 is some fourteen miles long, about eight feet wide, and runs over a foot 

 of water in depth. The amount of water supplied is, however, insuffi- 

 cient for the needs of the owners, outside of whom are a considerable 

 number of settlers whose needs are equally imperative, while the settle- 

 ment at Fresno, which is a growing one and will soon become an impor- 

 tant town like Merced or Modesto, requires a copious water supply. A 

 second small ditch running nearly parallel with that above described 

 has been constructed for several miles. The settlers who are now with- 

 out water propose combining with the citizens of Fresno Town and the 

 owners of the second ditch to increase its dimensions, to alter its course 

 so as to serve a greater area of country and to carry it into the town. 

 These ditches get their water from King's River by aid of a small dam. 

 Neither of these enterprises, however, even as projected, is adequate to 

 the needs of the irrigable land of superior quality l}'ing in this section, 

 a very large body of which is on the west side of the railroad, of which 

 the needs have not been considered or provided for a*t all. Nor could 

 these become main parts of a general irrigation S3'stem. The labor ex- 

 pended on their construction need not, however, be wholly lost; when- 

 ever a general system shall be constructed, it is probable that these 

 works could be utilized as distributing ditches. 



chapman's canal. 



Between the Alabama Settlement, which is supplied with water by Mr. 

 Friedlander's Fresno River Canal, heretofore described, and the San 

 Joaquin River, bordering on the latter, lies a considerable area of fine 

 irrigable land, owned principally by Lux, Miller, and Chapman. This is 

 west, and some fifteen miles distant, from the Fresno Canal. To irrigate 

 these lands a work known as Chapman's Canal, partly constructed last 

 year, is in progress. It takes the water from the San Joaquin River, on 

 the east bank, at a point twenty-five miles above Firebaugh's Ferry and 

 fifteen miles from the magnificent railroad bridge over that river. No 

 dam is used. The head-works consist of a flume thirty-five by thirty 

 feet, founded on two rows of sheet piling. The head-gates work ten 

 feet above the flume. The flume opens into a head basin of oval form, 

 forty feet in the lesser by one hundred and twenty feet in the greater 

 diameter. From this the canal, having a -width of twenty feet, to run 

 some three feet depth of water, proceeds northwardly, its course sur- 

 veyed to strike the Cowchilla River at the Montgomery (Chapman's) 

 ranch. Head-works such as those of this enterprise can be constructed 

 at a cost of five thousand dollars. The canal itself may cost perhaps 

 two thousand five hundred dollars per mile in average ground. 



