THE RAISIN INDUSTRY. 183 



land. We stop at the newly-built house of Mr. Canne, a gentleman of 

 middle age with a large family, and hearty and pleasing, as is so char- 

 acteristic of the Dutch. His house is large, very comfortable and airy, 

 with large verandas overlooking the country far and wide. Inside 

 everything is cosy and neat, with lots of mementoes from quaint old 

 Holland, with colored china on the walls and odd tables and odder 

 bric-a-brac, family heirlooms from generations back. The old grand- 

 ma, with her eighty-one years, has come along with the younger folks, 

 happy as they, and, as they, meeting bravely and with confidence new 

 times and experiences in the new country which they have chosen as 

 their home. Our wishes for good luck are not needed ; it is sure to 

 come when such people are settled upon such land, and when every- 

 body enjoys everybody else's good- will. The land which is now being 

 broken is to be planted to olives, almonds, oranges, peaches and vines, 

 a very good selection indeed, and one which cannot fail to prove 

 profitable. The deep red soil on the mesa will grow almost anything, 

 and with proper care and management this colony must in the near 

 future become one of the most attractive and prosperous in the State. 



The Rotterdam Colony is bounded on one side by the now famous 

 and often described Crocker and Huffman reservoir. Those who 

 believe that a reservoir in the foothills is not the proper thing should 

 come and take a look at this one, and be convinced that it is. The 

 location is a most favorable one, being ninety feet above the town of 

 Merced, and elevated sufficiently to irrigate the whole of the level 

 surrounding district, containing two hundred and sixty thousand acres. 

 The water covers now about six hundred and forty acres which were 

 formerly a real and natural valley, across the mouth of which the dam 

 checking the water was thrown. The average depth of water is about 

 thirty feet, while in some places it is fifty odd feet deep. The statistics 

 of this reservoir and dam have been given often enough, but more or 

 less correctly. The dam checking the water is four thousand feet 

 long, two hundred and seventy-five feet wide at the base, twenty feet 

 on the top and sixty feet high in the center. It took four hundred 

 mules and two hundred and fifty men-two years to build it. The reser- 

 voir and canal tapping Merced river cost together two million dollars 

 to build, and the work was constructed in such a substantial and 

 scientifically correct manner, that it will be likely to last for ages. 

 There is no other irrigation system in the State that is as well planned 

 and carried out. This can and must be said to the honor of the con- 

 structors. The canal which taps the river is twenty-seven miles long, 

 from sixty to seventy feet wide on the bottom, one hundred feet on the 

 top, and has fall enough to carry four thousand cubic feet of water per 

 second. 



We have already remarked that the country between the dam and 

 the city of Merced is a magnificent and level body of land, all emi- 

 nently suited for irrigation. From the water tower in the reservoir, we 

 overlook all this land, now in its spring dress a very beautiful sight 

 indeed. The vast sheet of water, like a placid lake, in which the 

 Sierra Nevada reflects its snowy peaks, the prairie extending far and 

 wide, divided between luxuriant grainfields and unbroken lands now 



