IRRIGATION. 121 



and which convey the water to them. Each man s land must have a supply in order that it 

 be perfectly irrigated ; consequently, by a system of cooperation, one man has the use of the 

 canal so many hours on a certain day, and another man the length of time allotted him when 

 his turn comes, and so on. Prof. Chadbourne says, respecting their system of irrigation: 



&quot; Every man knows the time when he can turn the water on his land, and when it must 

 be turned off; and no matter whether it is midnight, or cock-crowing, or any other time, 

 when that moment comes, he must be ready to turn the water on his lanxj. And not only 

 that, but before that time comes, the ditches must be cleared out, and everything arranged, 

 so that, when the water is turned on, it will go where it is needed. There is no time to lose. 

 The whole system makes men wary and watchful, makes them look out beforehand. A man 

 knows, for instance, that to-night, at twelve o clock, he may turn the water on to his garden 

 for three hours, and that when it has run for three hours, his neighbor can turn it on to his 

 garden, and if he oversleeps, his garden must go dry; there is no help for him. Or if his 

 ditches are not prepared, so that the water can run along readily, his crops must suffer. You 

 see, the man must have everything in readiness, the ditches all arranged properly, and when 

 the time comes, he takes the water from the large canal, and it passes along through the 

 smaller canals in his grounds the length of time thafc is allowed him, and then the next man 

 takes it. It is so arranged that each man shall have enough for the particular crop that he 

 raises. Nothing but the most perfect cooperation, under a rigid system, could possibly con 

 trol that thing, among BO many people, and with so many interests.&quot; 



In California, artesian wells are largely used for irrigating purposes during the dry sea 

 son. Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, in a visit to the valley of Santa Clara, in that State, saw on 

 the premises of one gentleman, three artesian wells, varying from 320 to 340 feet, which gave 

 a constant flow of water. The strawberry grounds there, when irrigated, produce fruit dur 

 ing the entire year; the irrigation being accomplished by carrying the water along the head 

 lands in wooden flumes about eighteen inches square, stoppers being inserted opposite the 

 spaces between the rows of strawberry plants, so that the water can be turned on or shut off 

 at pleasure. These grounds were supplied with a mile and a half of such flumes. 



Dr. A. L. Kennedy gives the following statement relative to irrigation in California: 

 &quot; The lessons on the art of irrigation, taught by the experience of California, have a value far 

 beyond her boundaries, and should be carefully studied by the farmers in not a few of her 

 sister States. Having the lofty Sierra Nevada just inside her eastern line, and the ridge of 

 hills called the Coast Range, parallel with and near to the Pacific, most of her territory is 

 constituted of a vast interior valley. The northern half of this great hydrographic basin is 

 drained by the Sacramento; the southern by the San Joaquin, its lakes and branches. These 

 rivers mingle their waters in the bays tributary to that of San Francisco, and reach the 

 ocean through the Golden Gate. During the summer, drought prevails throughout the great 

 valley, and in its southern third, south of the Merced River, which receives the waters of the 

 Yosemite, crops, with rare exceptions, cannot be raised without irrigation. Passing south 

 erly over the low rim of the San Joaquin valley, another irrigated region is reached, watered 

 by the Los Angeles, the Santa Ana, and the San Gabriel Rivers. These rise in the spurs of 

 the Sierra Nevada, here called Sierra Madre and San Bernardino, and run westerly to the 

 sea, cutting through the Coast Range. Each of them may therefore be said to drain two val- 

 leys an upper and a lower one; the former lying between the Sierra Madre and the Coast 

 Range, the latter between the Coast Range and the Pacific. 



The number of acres under irrigation in these upper and lower valleys at the close of 

 1879 was 82,485; in the San Joaquin, 188,000; in that of the Sacramento, and in the foot 

 hills east of it and the San Joaquin, 22,400. As the streams in all these districts descend 

 from hills not very remote, the fall is sufficient to admit of the water being diverted from 

 them for irrigating purposes without resorting to the mechanical appliances for raising water 



