228 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



of about fifteen feet to the mile though 

 looking level as a floor. No finer soil 

 for all around purposes is to be found 

 in America; but twenty years ago it 

 was the most hopeless of all deserts, 

 for the average rainfall was a trifle over 

 four inches, the Coast range on the west 

 and the continuation of the lofty Sierra 

 Nevada to a junction with the Coast range 

 on the south, cutting off most of the 

 winter rains. 



The same stroke that would turn the 

 waters of the river upon this arid land 

 would reclaim all the swamp which was 

 the richest soil imaginable. But it was 

 a job no state would undertake, and it 

 was absurd to expect private capital to 

 build canals in such a country and wait 

 for settlers. The few jaundiced hog-and- 

 hominy settlers that lived by fiddling and 

 fighting along the river and claimed all 

 its waters could not even handle the river 

 so as to take out enough for themselves. 



Messrs. Haggin, Carr and Tevis had 

 the desert land act passed, it is said, so 

 that that they could grab this land. If so 

 they deserve the thanks of California, for 

 it has added a rich county that would 

 otherwise have raised little but scenery, 

 dust and malaria. They spent some 

 twelve millions of dollars in building canals 

 of which there are now twenty-seven. 

 The diversion of the water brought on the 

 great riparian suit with Miller & Lux, 

 who were very wealthy and were attempt- 

 ing to drain out the swamp below so as to 

 take that under the swamp and overflowed 

 land reclamation act. It is said that 

 litigation cost each party nearly a million 

 of dollars. The total cost to both parties 

 could not have been far short of that. 

 The outcome was a compromise by which 

 Buena Vista Lake, a shallow lake cover- 

 ing over a township, was turned into a 

 reservoir. By this the entire flood flow of 

 the river is stopped, the canals taking all 

 the ordinary flow. It now covers twenty- 

 seven square miles to an average depth of 

 ten feet, making a store of water which 

 hardly shows the great draught for Miller 

 & Lux's immense farms below. Thus was 

 added to the state more water than was 

 then held by all its other reservoirs com- 

 bined. As I hunted ducks over these 

 immense properties last winter I remarked 

 to a friend that there were two sides to 

 the monopoly question. ' 



Miller & Lux have under this water 



over one hundred thousand acres mostly 

 reclaimed swamp of which over twenty 

 thousand are now in a solid block of 

 alfalfa. The Kern County Land Com- 

 pany, composed of Tevis, Haggin and 

 Co., have under the ditches on the dry 

 side some four hundred thousand acres 

 with one patch of about thirty-five thou- 

 sand acres of alfalfa. 



The difference between this reclaimed 

 swamp and the land that was once desert 

 must be kept in mind on account of the 

 different ways of irrigating hereafter men- 

 tioned. On the reclaimed swamp, which is 

 a black muck of tule roots running into 

 peat in many places, the level of the 

 water below is from eight to ten feet. On 

 most of the upland reclaimed by the 

 ditches it is from sixty to almost as much 

 more as you wish. 



The method of preparing the land is 

 the same in both cases. The slope is so 

 nearly uniform that on the greater part 

 there is no leveling. Where it dips into 

 swales or old dry slough beds it is 

 terraced roughly with scrapers to very 

 nearly a level, the shape and size of the 

 terraces varying continually with the con- 

 tour and dip of the land. No rule is fol- 

 lowed except the uniform method of 

 having one check enough below another 

 to permit the rapid emptying of the upper 

 one into the lower one if the water is to go 

 there at all. They vary from half or 

 quarter of an acre up to five acres or even 

 more, and though they look like a set of 

 plats running through all shapes from the 

 crescent to a square they are really 

 terraces. 



LAYING OUT THE CHECKS. 



On the land having a very even slope 

 the checks are almost invariably made on 

 contour lines laid out with an engineer's 

 level. Starting at the upper side of the 

 field the level is swept around and stakes 

 set every few yards on a line about a foot 

 below the instrument. If the slope is 

 uniform the line of stakes will be a cres- 

 cent and will vary from this in all manner 

 of wavy curves according to the change 

 from a regular slope. The level is then 

 moved down to the line of stakes and an- 

 other line of stakes set below that, care 

 being taken not to leave ends or horns on 

 the crescents in which the depth of water 

 could be too slight. Rather than do this 

 the shape is changed and a square or 



