A TYPE OF IRRIGATION INVESTMENT. 



245 



joins with the old American and European investors 

 in the enterprise, represents some of the most sub- 

 stantial and successful men in that great city. Surely 

 there could be no better guarantee than an enter- 

 prise sadly mismanaged and over-manipulated in 

 the past will hereafter realize the highest possibilities 

 of sound business sagacity applied to extraordinary 

 opportunities. The Bear Valley system stands to-day 

 and will stand in the future, as it was popularly be- 

 lieved to have stood in the past, the true type of Ameri- 

 can irrigation enterprise at its best. It delivers more 

 valuable water to more valuable land than any other 

 system on the continent. Its works are the product 

 of the finest engineering ability that money can com- 

 mand. Its lands are in the very heart of that por- 

 tion of Arid America where the cultivation of the 

 soil brings the largest return, and where the assur- 

 ance of high and rapid development in the making of 

 communities is the most certain. The future of the 

 new company seems very bright indeed, and we are 

 pleased to believe that it carries with it the assur- 

 ance of prosperity to irrigation investment in general. 

 No severer tests can ever be applied than those 

 which irrigation has successfully passed in this in- 

 stance. The triumphant result should be reassuring 

 to all who are pushing irrigation development and to 

 all who have invested in this class of securities. It is 

 this aspect of the matter which chiefly interests the 

 readers of THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



WHAT IT MEANS TO SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. 



The announcement of the settlement of Bear Valley 

 affairs will be received with immense satisfaction in 

 Southern California. In the districts immediately 

 interested this satisfaction will amount to joy. To 

 lose an investment is a misfortune, but to lose a water 

 supply where land is valueless and existence impos- 

 sible without it is a calamity. One need not have the 

 gift of prophecy to predict great things for the locali- 

 ties under the Bear Valley system in the early future. 

 Alessandro, Moreno and Ferris cannot escape a won- 

 derful impulse of development. There is no place in 

 the West where those twin forces, irrigation and 

 electricity, will work more surprising results than in 

 this immediate vicinity. The people of these com- 



munities have suffered much from delay and uncer- 

 tainty. We believe they are about to be rewarded 

 with a degree of prosperity never realized before in 

 Southern California, and best of all, this prosperity 

 will rest upon things that are substantial and endur- 

 ing. 



AS TO MR. JAMES GARDNER CLARK. 



So far as the writer has learned there is but one 

 party to the recent negotiations who expresses dis- 

 satisfaction with the outcome. This person is Mr. 

 James Gardner Clark of New Haven, Conn., who has 

 already been referred to as having been engaged at 

 one time to represent the foreign interest. Mr. Clark 

 happened to be in England at the time the company 

 became embarrassed. He had been somewhat famil- 

 iar with its affairs from the beginning, being related 

 by marriage to its original promoter. Mr. Clark has 

 stated that "it is a remarkable psychological fact " 

 that he was engaged by the English parties after an 

 acquaintance of only twenty minutes. As soon as his 

 English friends became better acquainted with him 

 they decided to get along without his services. Mr. 

 Clark has not stated to what realm of facts this latter 

 event belongs, but it does not appear to have any- 

 thing to do with psychology. These remarks are 

 rendered pertinent by the fact that Mr. Clark has an- 

 nounced his intention of going to England to defeat 

 the plan of reorganization. He has stated in letters 

 to parties in London that the reorganization is wholly 

 in the interest of stockholders in the old development 

 company, an element to whom Mr. Clark (when in 

 England) is violently opposed. In the meantime Mr. 

 Clark (when in Redlands and New Haven) assures 

 this same element that he is their guide, philosopher 

 and friend. We are informed that his correspond- 

 ence on both sides of the question is in existence. 

 Certainly there are sufficient witnesses to his verbal 

 expressions. He is therefore in a position to truth- 

 fully tell the English that he is opposed to the Amer- 

 ican stockholders, and with equal truth to tell the 

 Americans that he is opposed to the English. In 

 view of these facts there is little reason to fear that 

 Mr. James Gardner Clark will be taken seriously by 

 the European public. 



