54 



DIVISION OF WATER RESOURCES 



CHAPTER VII 



ANNUAL CROPS 



Grain. 



The crop survey for 1929 made by the State Engineer's office showed 

 102.000 acres of grain in the three upper San Joaquin Valley counties. 

 This was divided between Tulare County with 10,089 acres, Kings 

 County with 53;310 acres, and Kern County with 38,805 acres. There 

 is some dry-farmed grain, but from the standpoint of the present study 

 the industry is of chief imjiortance in the Tulare Lake area, where all 

 of the grain is irrigated. There is some grain irrigated from pumping 

 on the west side in Fresno County, but otherwise, outside of the Tulare 

 Lake area, grain is irrigated in the upper San Joaquin Valley only 

 where water is available under gravity ditches, or from relatively low 

 pumping lifts, or where the grain is grown incidentally with other crops 

 and is irrigated only to fill in the pumjung load and only the cost of 

 power is charged to the grain. So far as grain is concerned, the 

 present inquiry has therefore been confined to the Tulare Lake area. 

 In this report the grain referred to is chiefly wheat and barley. 



Grain growing in the Tulare Lake Basin is conducted on large 

 acreages. Cost-of -production data gathered for the report were obtained 

 for approximately 18,000 acres, in holdings varying from 304 to 

 6,950 acres. In some cases the figures represent the growers' general 

 experience, rather than the costs for a particular year. 



The data are not equally complete, but the substance of the material 

 obtained, as far as it can be tabulated, is given in Table 32. General 

 cost-of-production figures that could not be included in the tabulation 

 were obtained from several prominent growers and these were con- 

 sidered in arriving at the conclusions given. No attempt has been made 

 to treat wheat and barley separately. 



TABLE 32 



COST PER ACRE OF PRODUCING AND HARVESTING GRAIN ON SEVEN 

 TRACTS IN TULARE LAKE BASIN 



The lolal cost of jjroductiou Jiml iiarvesting for numbers 5 and 10 

 included an item (tf $8.63 an acre for harvest costs estimated at the 

 same rate as u umber 6, for wliich tlierc were good cost iigures available. 

 The average tola! cost of jiroductiou, using all ranches for which figures 

 are included, wa.s $19. IS .-m acr(\ lOIimination o1" those for which 



