A CREATION OF THE CALIFORNIA DISTRICT LAW. 



EDITORIAL STUDY OF THE TURLOCK-MODESTO WORKS. 



ON a certain morning late in October the author 

 of the District law of California and the editor 

 of the IRRIGATION AGE drove through the quiet 

 streets of Modesto, the capital of Stanislaus county, 

 Gal., just in time to see the sun rise over the Sierra 

 Nevada mountains. It was a typical autumn morn- 

 ing for that portion of the San Joaquin valley. The 

 air was clear and crisp and the undulating plains, that 

 stretched for indefinite distances to the north and 

 south, suggested a sea of brown, dotted only at far 

 intervals by green islands. These latter marked the 

 homes of farmers who eke out a poor existence on a 

 section each of as rich soil as the sun ever looked 

 upon. 



The lawyer and the journalist had just come from the 

 five days session of the International Irrigation Con- 

 gress, where they had been studying the famous Cali- 

 fornia statute, from an intellectual standpoint. They 

 had now set out to study it as a practical thing in the 

 precise locality whose necessities gave it birth. It 

 was from this district that C. C. Wright went to the 

 Legislature to fashion an idea into a law. It was 

 here that those twin revolutions the small farm vs.the 

 great farm, and public ownership of water vs. private 

 control first raised the voice of protest against con- 

 ditions which appeared to stand in the way of the 

 progress of civilization in the heart of this wonderful 

 valley. 



Coming, with senses sharpened from the recent de- 

 bates at Los Angeles to the birthplace of the District 

 system, these men entered with an enthusiasm that 

 seems not unnatural upon their journey up the 

 banks of the Tuolumne river to the works of the 

 Turlock and Modesto districts. They felt that here, 

 if anywhere, the operation of the law could be studied 

 with fairness both to those who have hoped so much 

 of it, and to the smaller but not less aggressive class 

 who have predicted its failure and final destruction. 

 II. TWO TYPICAL D1STBICTS. 



These two districts furnish a perfect illustration of 

 the application of the law as originally conceived. It 

 will be remembered that the Los Angeles platform 

 distinctly disclaimed the theory of some enthusi- 

 asts that the District law furnished the solution of all 

 the problems involved in irrigation development. Mr. 

 Wright made it equally plain in his speech, at the re- 

 cent congress, that the system can deal successfully 

 only with such lands as are held in private ownership. 

 It must be perfectly understood that this law is 

 aeapted to localities where irrigation is an after- 



thought rather than a condition of original settlement. 

 In the great virgin deserts of the arid region recourse 

 must be had to other systems, but in the numerous 

 localities which lie along the borders of humid 

 regions, near the Pacific Ocean, on the one side, and 

 the Misssissippi valley, on the other, the District 

 system is the most expedient. Those who believe the 

 day is coming when irrigation will be rapidly ex- 

 tended through the central and, possibly, the eastern 

 States will see in this California experiment some- 

 thing with far-reaching possibilities, for those older 

 States will encounter, when their time comes, the 

 same set of difficulties which faced the settlers of 

 the San Joaquin valley a few years ago. 



AN UNFORTUNATE RAINFALL. 



The locality of the Turlock and Modesto districts 

 has the misfortune to possess a fair rainfall. This 

 circumstance is responsible for the fact that men have 

 deluded themselves for years with the notion that ag- 

 riculture could be prosperous without irrigation. Year 

 after year they have learned ihe lesson that the richest 

 soil and the warmest sunshine can produce nothing, 

 except mortgages and poverty, without a sufficient 

 amount of moisture. In their struggle for a liveli- 

 hood they have reached out for more and more land, 

 hoping to make up in quantity what they lacked in 

 quality. As a result we see here a country where the 

 average farm consists of 640 acres, and where practi- 

 cally nothing is raised except wheat. When men cannot 

 get a comfortable living from a section of land planted 

 to one of the great staples, it is high time for reform. 

 The evils of the one-crop country have reached the 

 acute stage here. The farmer who receives, from the 

 sale of a single crop, money enough to purchase the 

 other necessities of life, can get along, although it is 

 a wretched and unphilosophic plan at best. But the 

 farmer who works under such conditions that he has 

 no wheat when the price is high, and can get no price 

 when he has plenty of wheat, is on the high road to 

 ruin. That is the situation in the wheat-belt of the 

 San Joaquin Valley, and it is much the same in the 

 grain belt of the middle West and the cotton-belt of 

 the South. 



AN INSTRUCTIVE COMPARISON. 



After years of disappointment the farmers living on 

 both banks of the Tuolumne river learned this hard 

 lesson. They compared their unhappy situation with 

 the prosperous condition of farmers living in localities 

 blessed with so little rain that nobody pretended to 



