THE IRRIGA TION A GE. 315 



temperature. And the larger head means not only more work out of 

 the water, but less work and worry out of the man who handles it. 



-There is one type of reservoir not yet in general use, but which 

 most people seem very much afraid of. If water cannot be stored 

 above ground, the next best place is in the ground. How many 

 thousands of inches went into the sea a year ago with a short year 

 staring us in the facer 1 How much public wealth was thus thrown 

 away for fear it might rain and people thus have a little labor for 

 nothing. And this is done after it is certain that we cannot have 

 enough rain to keep the subsoil as wet as it should be. How strange 

 it is that it takes people so long to learn that if you try to cultivate 

 by irrigation a thin sheet of soil on top of an ash heap, that the dry 

 ash heap will sap it upward. There is capillary attraction that na 

 mulch can break up and in trying to keep it wet you are throwing 

 away good summer water that is needed elsewhere. 



"But suppose it should rainy Well, suppose it should. Many of 

 you remember the great wet winter of 1883-4, when the ground was 

 for weeks like a duck's back, when all the streams ran all summer 

 and fall to the ocean, when springs broke out and ran a year or more 

 on dry hillsides, and tule patches and willow groves started on the 

 late dry slopes. Do you remember any harm that was done by it to- 

 any thing that was on ground where it should have beeny Do you 

 remember any injury to the orange crop of that year or the nexty 

 Did it hurt the deciduous trees or the fruit except the old-style 

 orchards in swales and in low ground y But do you not remember the 

 effect of the water in the ground that was carried through to the next 

 year'r Do you not remember how the next year was short in rainfall, 

 with a very bad distribution, yet that the effect of the great wetting 

 was plain on corn and other summer crops, as well as on trees 

 eighteen months afterward y If you do not remember find some one 

 who was there. It is time we stopped wasting wealth for fear of a 

 little unnecessary work, at a time, too, when there is plenty of time 

 to work. Had the water that during the last six winters has run 

 away from the lower end of the ditches been forced into the ground 

 by rates so low as to induce people to use it, we should see a much 

 brighter green on most of the crops than we shall see this year, even 

 where there is a trifling short asre of summer water." 



