WATER DEVELOPMENT. 



ADDRESS BEFORE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 

 OF REDLANDS, CALIFORNIA. 



By T. S. VAN DYKE. 



Tn the severest drouth know in her history Southern California 

 has made her grvatest advance. And in this the ureatest step has 

 been the absolute proof of her independence of the tourist and land- 

 buyer. 



Wo can now afford to proslaim from the houso top unpleasant 

 truths that we once kept for sub cellar confidence. It is really our 

 duty to drag them into full lig it of day and sea how wa can overcome 

 them with the great resources at our command. 



Foremost among these is the fact that tin rasarvoir system, as 

 we understood it six years ago is a dismal failure as a system on which 

 to rely in the dry belts for valuable crops. Although there never was 

 any reason to believe that our large reservoirs would fill every year 

 it was generally believed that they would, and the few who knew 

 better were hoote 1 at as pessimists and cranks. 



Bat the rdsarvoir system as it should ba is not a f .lilura, though 

 its success involves the recognition of two principles which have long 

 been kuown to a few and which will ba disputel by none who investi- 

 gate. 



First. To bring a reliable supply of water on land high enough 

 above frost for ihecertain raising of good oranges an I lemons costs a 

 great deal of money. 



Second. That the combination waen well cirriel on" is well 

 worth it. 



One great cause of trouble has bean that the builder, of raser- 

 voirs di 1 not properly estimate the cost of water, or if ,they did that 

 the laud owners thought that they were trying to rob them because 

 they themselves would not estimate the cost. The basis for doing it 

 is very simple and shouLI be applied to reservoirs of every kind. 



As an inch of water runs in twenty, four hour seventeen hundred 

 and twenty eight cubic feet or sixty four cubic yard~, to store a con, 

 tinuous inch for two hundred days will take about thirteen thousand 

 cubic yards of space back of the dam. 



If the cost of this space is one cent a cubic yard, or about one- 

 tenth the cost of ordinary excavation, the storage costs 113 an inch 

 to s art with. If the dam costs j a cubic yard, then at the rate of 

 one cent a yard for space back of it f >r storage, one yard in the dam 



