76 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



the use of water at a time when it is now 

 almost everywhere allowed to run to the 

 sea. 



Where a country is underlaid by sheet 

 rock very near the surface, through which 

 the water can travel only in fissures, moist- 

 ure cannot be retained very long by any 

 means. But where the subsoil is porous 

 and retentive of moisture, or where the 

 top soil is very deep and of about the 

 right mixture of clay, sand and gravel, the 

 length of time it will hold moisture enough 

 for many crops is very great. 



Southern California ships annually 

 about fifteen hundred carloads of beans 

 that are raised without irrigation and gen- 

 erally without rain, and always without 

 rain that amounts to anything. The 

 grower aims to keep the seed out of the 

 ground until the last rain of the season is 

 over, so that he can start out with the 

 ground so cultivated that the winter weeds 

 and grass are killed. The beans will then 

 get ahead of the summer weeds and grass, 

 which are much later. Consequently the 

 entire crop is raised on the moisture 

 stored in the ground from the winter 

 rains and retained by good plowing and 

 pulverization of the top soil into a mulch. 

 Corn and many vegetables are raised in 

 the same way, while over one-half the en- 

 tire fruit crop of the State and probably 

 four-fifths of the deciduous fruit trees never 

 get a particle of water or rain after the 

 setting of the fruit. It is difficult to see 

 why this cannot be done anywhere else 

 where the depth of soil or porous subsoil 

 is great enough, as it is on the greater 

 part of what is called desert. If the win- 

 ter rainfall of twenty inches, of which 

 one-third runs off and is lost in direct 

 surface evaporation, will do it, it is cer- 

 tain that a foot or fourteen inches in 

 depth from a ditch will do the same thing 

 where the summer is not too not and dry. 

 And where it is so hot and dry as to need 

 more water, it will not need what it would 

 had the ground not been wet in winter. 

 And on the greater part of it the raising 

 of a fair crop of grain on ground thus 

 thoroughly wet should be an easy matter 

 without farther wetting, and enough for a 

 profitable crop of hay a certainty. 



The difference in California between the 

 amount of water needed in the summer 

 following a very wet winter and a very dry 

 one is enormous. And still more surpris- 

 ing is the way the water in the ground 



from an extremely wet one is carried 

 ahead to the second year. After the very 

 wet winter of 1883-4 when, on the greater 

 part of the lowlands, forty inches of rain 

 fell in four months, hardly anything 

 needed water until very late in the fall, 

 and then it was needed mainly by oranges 

 and lemons in full bearing. Almost every- 

 thing that matured its fruit by September 

 was fine without any irrigation. Crops 

 of corn equal to the best ever seen in the 

 prairie states were common all over the 

 uplands a hundred feet from any subter- 

 ranean water and leagues .beyond the in- 

 fluence of any coast fogs or moisture. 



The next winter was a very short rain- 

 fall with very bad distribution. Yet the 

 effects of the great wetting of the year 

 before were everywhere plain in the sum- 

 mer following this short rainfall. Crops 

 of grain, corn, beans and various other 

 things were raised everywhere on the up- 

 lands to an extent that would have been 

 utterly impossible on the amount of rain 

 of that second winter. 



Probably two feet of water entered the 

 ground that wet winter. There are few 

 irrigation systems that are worth anything 

 that cannot in addition to the summer 

 supply furnish at some time of the year 

 this quantity of water to consumers. If 

 in a state having a wet winter season like 

 California, the rainy period is generally 

 long enough to put more water than that 

 amount into the ground; if on a desert 

 like the Colorado where the high water 

 comes during the irrigating season the 

 winter is long enough, and there is then 

 water enough in the river to fill the ground 

 quite we'll. There are exceptions, as on 

 the Rio Grande, where I have seen the 

 winter-flow insufficient to wet much ter- 

 ritory. But I have seen times there in 

 the spring when a vast amountof water went 

 to waste that could have been employed 

 somewhere in tilling up the subsoil. As a 

 rule there is at some time plenty of water 

 under any system that could be had with- 

 out extra charge and in addition to the 

 regular water-right, as it costs nothing to 

 carry it in aqueducts already built. But 

 so far as I have seen, the fault lies not 

 with the companies, but with the consum- 

 ers, who will not use the water but prefer 

 to take their chances on there being plenty 

 in the dry season. 



If water cannot be stored above ground 

 the next best place is in the ground, and 



