Appendices 379 



"Fruit raising, vine growing, and small farming in Cali- 

 fornia will depend for their success in a very great measure 

 upon the artificial application of water. These applications 

 have proven profitable, and will continue to be so under favour- 

 able conditions without irrigation, but they are far more 

 profitable with it. Every orchardist and vineyardist ought 

 also to be a gardener, and, in order to diversify the products 

 of the land, irrigation must be resorted to. Clover, berries, 

 gardens, orchards, and vineyards should be found on the 

 same holdings, and should occupy the attention of the cultiva- 

 tor of the soil in their various seasons. This diversity would 

 in a measure equalise the demand for labour throughout the 

 year and greatly improve the labour conditions. Irrigation 

 will enable the orchardist and vineyardist to supply his table 

 with poultry, eggs, milk, butter, vegetables, and fruits, and 

 thus confer upon his holdings its first and paramount duty of 

 affording him a complete subsistence. The problem of living 

 having been solved, the question of profit would become more 

 certain and happily less important. 



*' The ancient methods of irrigation will be superseded by 

 modern and more economic methods. This revolution will be 

 referable to the cheapening of mechanical power and the 

 increased efficiency of pumping machinery. Under the old 

 method a main canal carrying water at an elevation to lay a 

 certain district under irrigation was necessary. Its construc- 

 tion and maintenance were costly, while the application of 

 water to lateral ditches was also costly and unsatisfactory. A 

 gravity supply of water can be passed over a surface where 

 the decline is constant. There are no lands sufficiently level 

 to make more than 60 per cent of their surfaces subject to 

 irrigation from any point of elevation in their vicinity. 



" There are seasons in which the excess of precipitation 

 makes drainage a problem difficult of solution. In such 

 seasons, a costly water system constructed after the old plan 

 of canals with lateral farm ditches is uneconomic as well as 

 useless. The money invested in it earns nothing in such 

 seasons, and as a rule in the country in the northerly portions 

 of the State the level areas have more to fear from excessive 

 precipitation than from drought. 



