California Agriculturist and Live Stock Journal. 



nigatiou. 



Proposed Legislation in Favor of an 

 Irrigation System. 



w 



5 E are glad to observe that public atten- 

 tion is called to the question of a gen- 

 eral system of irrigation iu this State. 

 The subject is new to most people, 

 and its very importance to a large por- 

 tion of the State requires that it should re- 

 ceive a most searching examination, It is 

 certain to come before the Legislature at its 

 approaching session, and we believe it to bo of 

 paramount impoi-tance. We by no means 

 expect to see any well-perfected and desira- 

 able system devised in a moment, and it would 

 be contrary to all our experience in legislative 

 matters if some plans should not be present- 

 ed which will be full of loopholes for all sorts 

 of jobbing and rascality. Indeed, we are not 

 disfDosed to deny that in the present state of 

 morals and jiolitics it will be a very dililcult 

 matter to pass a law on this or any other sub- 

 ject, iu which private or corporate interest 

 will not in some underhand way be made to 

 override those of the iiublic. We do not 

 doubt that irrigation will be made a hobby by 

 designing men that have no higher or better 

 purpose than to plunder the people. If the 

 fact should be otherwise, it will be an isolated, 

 case without a parallel in all our past legisla- 

 tive history. But even this danger, evident 

 to every one who kuowns what influences 

 determine legislation, should neither cause us 

 to delay nor to abandon the attempt to secure 

 such wise and just legislative aid as will give 

 to the farmers of the State an efl'eetive and 

 general system of irrigation. Necessity 

 prompts the attempt, and thousands will re- 

 joice if it prove successful. The Santa Rosa 

 Doiiocrat thinks that no final legislative action 

 should be taken until the session after the 

 next. It may prove impracticable to do any- 

 thing even as early as that. The interests in- 

 volved are so great, the exi^cnsi' so vast, and 

 the facts required to be Ueflnuciy ascertained 

 so numerous, that it may take many years to 

 devise a safe and practical system, and carry 

 it into full execution. The histor.y of the 

 immense irrigation works in India will con- 

 vince any man that the magnitude of the task 

 and the diflSculty of the engineer problems to 

 be solved, are not to be rashly encountered. 

 Scarcely any works of human hands, in an- 

 cient or modern times, can rival in cost and 

 difficulty the irrigation canals that have been 

 already constructed, and the works which 

 California needs would require to be on a 

 scale no less stupendous. It ean scarcely be 

 expected that such a system ean be \mt fu full 

 operation before the end of the present cen- 

 tury. But knowing all this, we nevertheless 

 desire to see a beginning made. In some por- 

 tions of the State the work will be simple and 

 not inordinately expensive. We know facts 

 enough already to make an intelligent be"in- 

 ning in the San Joaquin valley. 



There are 13,000,000 acres of irrigable land 

 in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys 

 and their dependencies. Of this a single 

 corporation (the California Canal & Irrigali'ou 

 Company) once proposed to irri.gate 9, GOO, 000 

 acres, or about 1.5, OCO squ.are liiiles. We do 

 not advise any stretching of State perogatives 

 or violation of the Constitution, nor "do we 

 think that intelligent advocates of irrigation 

 desire any such thing. If we understand 

 what they seek, it is simply to have the lands 

 districted where irrigation is needed, to have 

 power granted to the laiul holders, to elect 

 Commissioners to act for them as an associa- 

 tion, and to issue the bonds of such associa- 

 tion, to provide for the construction of the 

 necessary works. The land owners, to bo 

 liable to taxation to pay these bonds, and the 

 right to use the watrr. to be free to all tax- 

 payers without further assessment or pay- 

 ment. It seems to us that there need bo no 



delay of two or more year? in conferring such 

 rights and privileges as these. The land 

 owners only ask to tax themselves for their 

 own benefits, and to pledge their credit for the 

 means of increasing the value of their lands 

 and the annual jirofit arising from their culti- 

 vation. If there is no constitutional objec- 

 tion, we w'ould certainly desire to see so much 

 done without delay. It would at least serve 

 as a beginning and give the resident of the 

 districts subject to drouth some reason to 

 hope for better times. Irrigation is a matter 

 of State importance, second to none other, 

 and prompt action alone will keep the region 

 west from the San Joaquin from being de- 

 populated. Many have been .absolutely com- 

 pelled to abandon the conntrj' within a few 

 weeks, and many more will follow them ere 

 long if there is nothing done for the promo- 

 tion of irrigation. We think the Legislature 

 may safely authorize a beginniug of the work 

 as proposed, leaving it for the future to deter- 

 mine what further legislation may be neces- 

 sary. — IS. F. Chyoidde. 



*.*.* 



The Sacramento Record has this to 



say 

 about irrigable lands in Sacramento county : 

 If the owners of the uplands in Sacramento 

 county, east of this city and lying between 

 the American and Cosumnes rivers, would 

 confer this power upon the State, and expend 

 say $10 per acre, (or $5 per acre might an- 

 swer) in an irrigation i^cheme, that entire 

 district would soon be blooii^iug like a rose, 

 and all the people on it might become wealthy 

 for then ten or twenty acres would produce as 

 much as one hundred acres produces now. 

 And the increased crops would pay in two 

 years the entire cost of the scheme. 



|J0VJ5«^* 



THE HORSE DISEASE. 



The Same Natuke as the Epizootic, but of 

 Less Intensity —East, West and in Cau- 



FOENIA. 



An annoying epidemical disease, resembling 

 the epizootic in all its sj'mptoms, is spreading 

 rapidly among the horses of this city. Three 

 weeks ago a Tribune reporter visited the dif- 

 ferent street railway stables to learn if this 

 disease, then prevailing in Bufialo, had reach- 

 ed New York in its march eastward. At that 

 time no trace of it had been discovered. It 

 was asserted on all sides that horses were 

 more free from disease of all kinds than they 

 had been since the remarkable attack of ejn- 

 zootic almost three years ago. In June the 

 horsas of the Eighth and Ninth Avenue rail- 

 ways were suBering from inflammation of the 

 bowels and pleurisy, brought on by sudden 

 weather changes. Persons who have made 

 horse disease a study, and who are familiar 

 with the epizootic, say that the prevailing 

 distemper is of the same nature, and difl'ers 

 only iu its intensity. The horses are taken 

 with a running at the nose, accompanied with 

 a hacking cough and a sore-throat, but seem 

 to lose none ot their vitality, and maintain a 

 good appetite. Thus far about 200 hundred 

 horses irom this cause have been unfit for 

 work at a time, while at least 12,000 have been 

 attacked. Most of those, however, have been 

 worked as usual, and no aggravation of the 

 disease is expected unless the weather should 

 suddenly become wet and cold. 



A Tribime reporter called at many railroad 

 and hotel stables yesterday, and learned that 

 the favorable chaugo in the we'ither since the 

 rains last week and Sunday had greatly miti- 

 gated the disease. Friday night, September 

 loth, was exceedingly cold, ami on the Satur- 

 day a few horses in the northern and eastern 

 part of the city were taken with the disease. 

 On Thursday, September KUh, said the sur- 

 geon of the Third avenue stable, the disease 

 iu that ipiarler of the city became widely 

 prevalent. The horses were taken suddenly 



with violent coughing and slight running at 

 the nose. The doctors pronounced it epizoo- 

 tic at once. The horses, however, showed no 

 running at the eyes, which looked as bright 

 as usual. By Saturday two-thirds of the horses 

 in the stable were coughing more or less. The 

 Third Avenue Company has at present 1,781 

 horses at the Seventieth street stables. Not 

 an animal had been unfit for work. Nothing 

 was done except to blanket those most aflJict- 

 ed and protect them from drafts. The surge- 

 on said that ordinary colds usually prevailed 

 among the horses from the beginning of the 

 Autumn equinoxical storms to November 10. 

 He thought the rain of Sunday had increased 

 the malady, but from the appearance of the 

 horses, he believed that three days of fine 

 weather would drive away all appearance of 

 epizootic symptoms. He had received intelli- 

 gence from Philadelphia, where the horses 

 seemed to be very much afiected by the dis- 

 ease, notably in North Eleventh street. 



Mr. Tracy, of the Park boarding stables, 

 said he became alarmed on Friday at the ap- 

 pearanca of the disease among his horses, 

 and took some pains to inform himself about 

 its spread through the city. In traveling to 

 the City Hall by the Third avenue line, he saw 

 very few horses that were not more or less 

 affected, and some of them were coughing 

 violently. He regarded the disease as epi- 

 demic, and, at the authority of Drs. Lientard, 

 Castanach and Nostrid, pronunced it a mild 

 form of epizootic. On Friday last the dis- 

 ease had not appeared. in the Chrystie street 

 stables. On the Saturday following nearly 

 horse in these stables were taken with cough- 

 ing and sore-throat. All horses in the neigh- 

 borhood 01 Central Park, both in pubhc and 

 private stables, are aflected. It is obvious, 

 from the way the disease has spread over the 

 city, that there is an infection in the air. The 

 epidemic is thought by many to have proceed- 

 ed from western cities. Mr. Tracy, as soon 

 as his horses were taken, closely blanketed 

 them, and fed hot mash with a little vinegar 

 sprinkled in the feed. His horses were im- 

 proving very rapidly. 



The Superintendent of the Broadway rail- 

 way stables said out of 1,200 horses about 

 900 had had the disease since last Thursday. 

 He considered the distemper epidemic, but 

 feared no serious consequences from it. He 

 said the horses began coughing the moment 

 they left the stable for the open air, and 

 thought that horses iu private stables, which 

 were usually weighed Aoviii \\ith blankets, 

 were the greatest sufl'erers from the disease. 

 The change from a warm stable and heavy 

 blankets to the open air was apt to induce the 

 worst symptoms of epizootic. Two or three 

 horses "have been seen afiected to an extent 

 suggestive of the epizootic days of 1873. The 

 disease has appeared in all of the stables on 

 the avenues. — A'eio Yurk Tribune. 



The same disease has also appeared in the 



Western States. 



The Cincinnati Commercial of a later date, 

 in speaking of the disease says: "It is mild- 

 er in form than the disease which prevailed 

 in the Fall and Winter of 1872, and less seri- 

 ous m its consequences. It appeared first 

 about three weeks ago, and many of the 

 horses at that time afiected are now over it. 

 The disease is mainly confined to the lungs 

 and broVichical tubes.' There is none of the 

 disgusting running at the nose that made the 

 disease of 1872 so disagreeable to handle. 

 The present disease is about the equivalent of 

 bronchitis in the human subject. They are 

 attacked with a cough, the pulse is quickened 

 some fever supervenes and the disease gradu- 

 ally dies n-vay, without dropsy or other un- 

 pleasant sequehv. 



Horses on this coast are also aflected in 

 many localities. A gentleman iu Oakland 

 who owns a fast horse, is down with this disor- 

 der says that a little exercise causes great )iain 

 iu the lungs, which are inflamed, and that vio- 

 lent exercise would cause dangerous conges- 



