WATER DUTY IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 321 



more water than they require, because, if they do, those who come 

 after will not be able to procure a fair supply. 



There are probably exceptional places where the lower average of 

 rain-fall and porosity of the soil may combine to require a larger 

 allotment of water than we have assigned. Such places are about 

 Tulare Lake, on the west side of the great valley. There is no cul 

 tivation in these portions, and before the occasion may arise to irri 

 gate them, further information will probably be available to enable 

 the proper conclusion to be reached. 



As the population of the irrigated districts increases there will be 

 an increased demand for water, and it will probably result that the 

 allowance which is sufficient in this generation, may prove entirely 

 inadequate fifty years in the future. 



When the State makes the survey elsewhere recommended in this 

 report, we will learn both how much water and how much land there 

 is, and will be enabled to proportion the supply to be granted. 



It may then be a question, in seasons of scarcity, whether a 

 smaller supply of water will be given to the whole land, or a larger 

 supply to a portion of it. 



There is so much variety on this point, in the circumstances of 

 climate, soil and cultivation, and so much difference in the state 

 ments of different authorities, that we cannot derive from the ex 

 perience of other countries, any definite conclusions applicable to 

 our own; but as a matter of interest it will not be amiss to mention 

 the duty of water in other irrigating districts. 



In North India a cubic foot of water per second irrigates five acres 

 per day. 



Taking the interval of irrigation at forty days, we have the duty 

 of two hundred acres for one foot a second for cereals. 



In Granada a canal for the Genii irrigates, of wheat, barley and 

 vines, two hundred and forty acres per cubic foot. 



In Valencia, where it is very hot, wheat is watered four or five 

 times, giving about two hundred acres per foot. 



In Elche, where water is very scarce, a cubic foot goes as far as 

 to irrigate one thousand acres. &quot;Wheat here, in some years, scarcely 

 requires artificial watering. 



Bice-fields, in different parts of the world, vary from thirty to 

 sixty, and even eighty acres, to the cubic foot. 



In the heavy monsoons of India, ninety acres per foot are ir 

 rigated. In some of the huerias or gardens in Valencia, only from 

 thirteen to twenty acres per foot are irrigated. Here, however, there 

 are at least two crops a year, and a part is devoted to rice. 



The grants for six recent canals in Spain run from seventy acres 

 per foot to two hundred and sixty acres per foot. Assuming, then, 

 that a cubic foot per second will water two hundred acres of land, 

 we proceed to give some considerations in regard to the probable 

 cost of construction of the canals and their primary ditches. 



The secondary and tertiary ditches will, it is supposed, be made 

 by the cultivators. They can be made by the farmer in seasons of 

 leisure, and in the general case their cost will hardly be felt. The 

 case will be somewhat different with the cultivator who farms on a 

 large scale, and who is obliged to hire laborers. 

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