IRRIGATION. 123 



The gates through which the water passes from the canal into the ditches are so constructed 

 as to allow each shareholder his due proportion. Again, large landed proprietors have con- 

 structed canals, erected buildings, planted orchards, and leased the farms to tenants, the lat 

 ter having rent and water free, the owner receiving one-fourth of the crops. The leases run 

 for five years, and if the land requires cleaning the tenant has all he can make the first year. 

 At the expiration of the lease he has the privilege of purchasing in installments at an agreed 

 price. 



Methods of applying water to crops vary. A simple one is, to surround the fields with 

 ditches, which are kept full of water; another is to run numerous furrows, called carriers, 

 with the plow, these by percolation to distribute the water to crops growing between them on 

 narrow &quot;lands.&quot; The flooding of the fields is sometimes effected by ditches, which follow 

 the higher ground. From these the waters flow in a thin sheet over the surface, but tihe 

 uniform application of the water is difficult. If there be inequalities in the surface it collects 

 in the low spots. If the soil or subsoil be unequally retentive, some portions will be too dry, 

 others surcharged. The favorite plan is to divide the land by flat embankments or levees, 

 into a series of temporary ponds, the size of which is larger as the surface is more level. In 

 laying out the ground, contour lines are run, each level being taken eight to twelve inches 

 below the next preceding, and as far apart horizontally as the slope of the land will allow. 

 Along the contour lines are thrown up flat embankments eighteen inches high, and from 

 fifteen to twenty feet broad at the base. Over these, farm machines can be driven in any 

 direction, crops grow on them, and the long lines of gentle swells, winding, it may be, and 

 more or less parallel, are no deformity. Each space between these embankments is called a 

 check; the levees are therefore check-levees, and the system the check-levee system. Trunks 

 with gates are laid from check to check through the levees, and the water from canal or lat 

 eral is first let into the highest check until it covers it, reaching nearly to the top of its lower 

 levee, and but slightly higher than the base of the upper. The water is allowed to stand 

 until sufficiently absorbed, when what remains is let into the check next below; this, through 

 its own connection with a lateral, is filled, and the process is repeated throughout the series. 

 James D. Schuyler, assistant State engineer, to whose able report we are mainly indebted for 

 our facts, gives the cost per acre of check-levees on one-foot contours with about twenty feet 

 base, as follows: Earthworks, $1.64; water or drainage gates, $0.51; total, $2.15; average 

 cost of lateral canals, including necessary regulators and side-gates to supply the lands, $4 

 per acre making the total cost of preparing ground $6.15 per acre. 



In the counties of San Bernardino and Los Angeles, the orchards and vineyards are irri 

 gated by ridging the land into small compartments by means of the plow. The water is first 

 admitted into the highest compartment and retained until the ground is sufficiently soaked. 

 The ridge between it and the compartment below is then broken down and the water 

 admitted, and so on though the series. The supply of water is obtained in the upper valleys 

 of San Gabriel, Santa Ana, and Los Angeles directly from streams, although the country is 

 well adapted to the construction of storage reservoirs, but in the lower valleys, near the sea, 

 artesian wells are the source of supply. These three valleys constitute what is called the 

 Artesian Well Belt, a strip of land about 40 miles long, and from 2 to 12 wide, lying between 

 the Coast Range and the Pacific. There are about 600 wells in this belt, the general depth 

 being from 150 to 200 feet, and the yield 0.2 to 0.3 cubic feet per second. Some of the wells 

 irrigate from 100 to 200 acres each, but a well which will irrigate 40 acres is considered a 

 very good one. As land without water is worth little or nothing, and as the annual yield of 

 an irrigated vineyard is considered worth $250 per acre when the grapes are grown for 

 wine, and much more when they are grown for raisins, the value of a good well assumes large 

 proportions. Great as are the profits from irrigated vineyards, they are exceeded by those 

 of irrigated orange orchards, each tree of which, when in full bearing, should yield from 



