168 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



vation this is made to do the largest amount 

 of duty and makes the whole an instructive 

 study, though not a good model for one 

 who wants money first and beauty after- 

 ward. 



BETWEEN THE EXTREMES. 



Between these two extremes there is a 

 wide range of cases quite as useless as 

 guides. On the one hand we have the 

 man with a windmill and some wonderful 

 spring or artesian well who is trying to 

 spread the scanty supply over as large an 

 area as possible. He always has "All 

 the water I want." If he has some dry 

 land to sell outside he is sure to have more 

 than he wants, and discourses very learn- 

 edly on the evils of too much water. He 

 will lie most grandly about the profits he 

 makes, or if he admits there is no profit in 

 it it is the fault of the market, of the rail- 

 roads, or the middlemen, or anything but 

 want of water. On the other hand we 

 have the man who has to pay so much a 

 year for his water any how and is trying to 

 get his money's worth, with a dozen of the 

 other varieties of human nature that the 

 ownership of land under a ditch develops, 

 the principal one of which is to want all 

 you can get and a good deal more, and to 

 run it over the ground if it won't go in, so 

 as to be sure you have got so much ahead 

 of the other fellow who claims a right to 

 some of it. Then charge this waste up 

 against the duty of water and depreciate 

 your section by making capital believe that 

 hundred-dollar-an- acre water is indispens- 

 able to success on land that won't bring 

 seventy five dollars after the water is 

 brought to it. 



IMPORTANCE OF SUBSOIL. 



From what I have said about winter ir- 

 rigation, the soaking of the ground by 

 long and heavy winter rains and the influ- 

 ence of such soaking on the crops even 

 eighteen months ahead on lands having a 

 very deep and spongy subsoil, it must be 

 plain that the duty of water will depend 

 very greatly on the nature of the subsoil 

 and the condition of moisture in which it 

 is kept. A dry and uncultivated piece of 

 ground will take out the moisture from an 

 irrigated piece adjoining it with surprising 

 rapidity for several feet past the line of 

 junction. A dry subsoil will act in the 

 same way. If two feet of soil are wet by 

 a flooding, but below that the soil is dry, 



that dry portion will take away the moist- 

 ure faster than will the air above. The 

 rapidity and extent of this process will de- 

 pend upon the depth, texture and dryness 

 of the subsoil, but it will in any case be 

 rapid enough. This difference is plainly 

 seen now in Southern California. It is 

 now passing through the summer after one 

 of the dryest winters on record. Two 

 years ago it was about as dry. But then 

 good crops of grain were raised all over 

 the greater part of the uplands, while 

 fair corn, planted after the rain was over 

 and never irrigated, was a common wight, 

 though the winter rain had been less than 

 half the average. Now with the same con- 

 ditions of preceding winter, nothing of the 

 sort is possible. The difference is that 

 the winter two years ago had been pre- 

 ceded by a long series of good winters, 

 none of which were very short, and several 

 heavily above the average. These filled 

 up the subsoil and kept it filled. This last 

 winter was preceded by one a little below 

 the average and that by the dry one above 

 mentioned, so that the subsoil on the up- 

 lands is almost as dry as on the desert. 

 Were it not for the great mountains that 

 have so much more rain and snow than the 

 lowlands, this part of California would be 

 in a very bad condition this year. As it is, 

 those who let the winter water run to the 

 sea, because they thought the planting of 

 trees had "changed the electrical condi- 

 tions," so that this section would be an 

 exception to all the world in having no 

 droughts, will find before the summer is 

 out that their trees will need much more 

 water than they have ever done before. 

 The same thing occurred in 1883, which 

 was the third of three seasons, the first 

 two of which were scarcely up to the aver- 

 age, with a distribution that put little wa- 

 ter into the subsoil, while 1883, the last of 

 the series, was much below the average. 



There seems no exception to this rule, 

 even along those portions of the seacoast 

 where there is considerable fog at night 

 and the day is never very hot. Moisture 

 in the air undoubtedly effects vegetation, 

 as is plainly seen in the east by the un- 

 twisting of the leaves of suffering corn in 

 a rising storm before the rain actually 

 reaches it. Putting water on the leaves 

 has somewhat of the same effect. But 

 these are more in the nature of stimulants 

 or rather like the smell of whiskey to a 



