THE IRR1 GA TIOX AGE. 13 



sense, no place surpasses "West Riverside. Few of those who know 

 the country best even suspect its existence. The tourist, loooking 

 always for something in sight of the railroad station, would not dream 

 there was such a place. And the people of West Riverside go on at- 

 tending to their orchards and alfalfa fields and don't care whether the 

 world knows them or not; the same as the people of Duarte, and 

 other rich sections lying a little off the lines of travel have done for 

 years. 



The land on the West side of the Santa Ana River at Riverside is 

 exactly the same as that which has worked such wonders on the South 

 side. But being three miles from the Santa Fe station at Riverside, 

 and some four miles from the Southern Pacific line west from Colton, 

 one is not compelled see it. Like Arlington, East Riverside and other 

 .parts of that wondrous section lying under the Riverside ditches, 

 West Riverside has a large area of frostless land which has stood the 

 severest test of the last seven years, and on these are now dozens of 

 orchards of orange and lemon that equal the best of auy other section. 

 All deciduous fruits, alfalfa, berries and all else do the same as at 

 Riverside and Arlington, and cannot do otherwise since the conditions 

 are exactly the same. 



The whole success is dependent on the same solid water right as 

 that of old Riverside. The canal drains the same vast reservoir of 

 gravel and coarse sand that is now, after six years of steady flow, 

 holding the old ditches up to the same water J line that has marked 

 their sides within the memory of man. It is almost incredible that 

 this unparalled drouth of six years- has 1 made absolutely no im- 

 pression upon this supply. The owner][of landi in Riverside can get 

 today any amount of water he wants and. at almost any hour he wants 

 it. West Riverside has 600 inches of water^out of the old Meeks & 

 Daley Ditch, which ran to the old Mexican, settlement of Agua Mansa. 

 About 1888, Riverside, to compromise this claim, which was a first 

 lien on the water of the Santa Ana River, cemented the whole ditch 

 and turned it over with the agreement]that it should have eight hun- 

 dred and twenty-five inches of water before, any went into the River- 

 side ditch, a perfectly safe arrangement, as time has shown. If River- 

 side is safe with this the other is better, for it cannot fail until the 

 three thousand inches or more of water that now go to Riverside have 

 failed. 



Of course many other places have gone ahead in the same manner, 

 but I have selected this as the most remarkable [because it is out of 

 the sight of all lines of travel and has been done with no blast of the 

 trumpet. Strict attention to business has done it and that business 

 has been strictly irrigation instead of townsites, ^ hotels, colleges, 

 waterpowers, factories, bays, or "natural advantages" of any kind. 

 It shows that irrigation is good enough and that all else can be trusted 



