14 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



second to 160 acres, or about an inch to 

 three acres, or nearly live acre feet. Sev- 

 eral thousand acres have been sold and 

 settled, and the work of the settlers is very 

 instructive as showing what human nature 

 will do when it has a good chance. They 

 have almost to a man selected good land. 

 There their wisdom generally stops. There 

 are a few places from which a stranger 

 might find something to imitate, but they 



are rare. 



TOO MUCH WATEK. 



The Land Company, desiring to accom- 

 modate all its customers, and having all 

 the time an excess of water, has put no re- 

 strictions upon consumers. The allowance 

 of a cubic foot to a quarter section is 

 already too great for anything but alfalfa, 

 and not really needed even for that, but the 

 rule has been to let all have all they want 

 and in heads of any size they want. The 

 result of this mistaken kindness can be 

 seen all over, in damaged orchards, and in 

 the few places where there is any hard pan 

 or stratum of fine material underlying top 

 soil, alkali is on the top soil to a ruinous 

 extent. Soil and climate, and all condi- 

 tions, show that as fine fruit can be grown 

 here as in any part of California, which 

 means in the world. Many places where 

 some care has been used prove that it is so, 

 the yield and quality both being beyond 

 criticism. But many more show suffering 

 trees that cannot bear good fruit, and that 

 before long will bear little or nothing, and 

 all because they have plenty of water. 

 Every one floods for everything. Where 

 the soil will carry small streams, and where 

 they would be cheaper, more healthful, and 

 in every way better, you see none of them 

 and no attempt to do anything but flood. 

 Imitating the work of the great farms, they 

 make the checks too deep, put more water 

 in them than is needed and keep it there 

 too long. 



The only cultivation is scratching the 

 head to see how work with the plow and 

 cultivator can be dodged. The effort has 

 been very successful. I hate to say there 

 is not a well cultivated orchard in the 

 county. Therefore I will not say so, but 

 that is my only reason. Even the flowers 

 around the hojuse are planted in checks of 

 all shapes and sizes that are never broken, 

 the ground being as hard as the floor of a 

 brick yard. There are some orange trees 

 near Bakersfield that are good enough to 



"show that a fine orange could be grown 

 there. But no one seems to know that 

 they are treated in the exact method in 

 vogue twenty years before, two hundred 

 miles south of them, and that never failed 

 to produce a dry, insipid, sour, spongy, 

 thick-skinned orange to- wit, incessant 

 flooding with no cultivation. A gentleman 

 who has been there over twenty years, 

 told me that scores of men had bankrupted 

 themselves and had to leave in three years, 

 by the excessive use of water. Some do 

 it because they think they are getting 

 ahead of the company, although it is by its 

 favor that they are able to do so. Others 

 do it because they imitate these others. 

 Some do it because they think water 

 cheaper than work, a principle that is 

 sometimes a very good slave but always a 

 very bad master. Still others do it be- 

 cause they think turning on water is all 

 there is of farming by irrigation. Some 

 do it because they don't think at all, and 

 some because,having the water turned on, 

 it is too much like work to go to the gate 

 to shut it off, California being full of 

 people who came here to play and not to 

 work. 



But wherever the water has been used 

 with any care you may see prosperity at 

 once, in spite of the want of cultivation. 

 Cultivation would make it still better but 

 even without it it is plain that flooding 

 pays. Good orchards and fine alfalfa 

 patches may be seen in all directions, 

 plenty enough to prove that intelligent 

 handling of the water is all that is needed 

 to make this the largest garden of Cali- 

 fornia. The misuse of the water has 

 proved that not more than one hundredth 

 of one per cent of the land can be alkalied 

 and the way the alfalfa stand, the inces- 

 sant tramping of the big bands of cattle, 

 especially on the large ranches where they 

 are never taken off of it, shows a vitality 

 and toughness that in many other places 

 it does not have. 



FARTHER NORTH IN THE VALLEY. 



Going farther north on the San Joaquin 

 we soon reach the fertile fields of Tulare 

 county. Here, even on the larger farms, 

 we find the checks like those of the 

 smaller places in Kern county, very much 

 smaller and more shallow than those of 

 the immense places above described. 

 Most of them are square or rectangular, 

 though many of them are conformed some- 



