366 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



AuTU8t 



United States government duplicated 

 dollar for dollar the amount sub- 

 scribed through the Water and Forest 

 Association. The reports of the first 

 year's work by these departments at- 

 tracted universal attention and met 

 with hearty approval. It was then the 

 opinion of the Association that the 

 state should continue this cooperative 

 work. A bill was introduced into the 

 legislature of the state of California, 

 and at the session held in January and 

 February, 1901, passed both houses, 

 making appropriations for this pur- 

 pose ; but, unfortunately, the bill was 

 vetoed by the then governor of the 

 state. The Water and Forest Asso- 

 ciation felt that the irrigation develop- 

 ment of the state was but arrested for 

 a while and laid its plans to secure in 

 the future from the state sufficient 

 money to again inaugurate the work. 



For two years a campaign of edu- 

 cation was carried on, and as a result 

 the legislature of the state of Califor- 

 nia, in 1903, passed a bill appropriat- 

 ing the sum of $60,000 to be expended 

 for cooperative work, as follows : To- 

 pographic maps, $20,000 ; surveying 

 reservoir sites and canal locations, 

 $15,000; forestry work, $15,000; best 

 method of distributing and using wa- 

 ter, $10,000, with the understanding 

 that the United States government 

 would duplicate, dollar for dollar, the 

 amounts appropriated by the state. 

 The United States government not 

 only did this, but spent more money 

 than did the state. The result of the 

 investigations conducted during the 

 years 1903 and 1904 were so satis- 

 factory that the legislature of the 

 state of California in 1905 made an 

 appropriation for the next two years 

 for the same purposes in the follow- 

 ing amounts : Topographic maps, $30,- 

 ooo ; gaging streams, surveying reser- 

 voir sites, determining underground 

 waters, $20,000; investigating eco- 

 nomic quality and purity of water, 

 $1,000; forestry, $10,000; best meth- 

 ods of using and distributing water, 

 $15,000. These appropriations were 

 contingent upon the expenditure of an 



equal amount by the United States 

 departments that were to make the in- 

 vestigatiqns. This shows a net in- 

 crease over the appropriations of the 

 preceding years of $16,000. 



During the past three years there 

 has been a marked increase in the ir- 

 rigation development in the great cen- 

 tral valley of California. Two dis- 

 tricts alone in the San Joaquin Valley 

 the Modesto and Turlock Districts 

 comprise about 250,000 acres of 

 land susceptible of irrigation, with 

 perfect water rights and good supply 

 of water. In the Sacramento Valley 

 other projects have been practically 

 completed that will enable the irriga- 

 tion of a large acreage. 



The handling of the water supply 

 and the irrigating of the lands of the 

 Sacramento Valley present such great 

 possibilities that the attention of the 

 officials of the U. S. Reclamation Ser- 

 vice have been attracted thereto, and 

 preliminary investigations are being 

 conducted whereby this service may 

 in the future undertake the work of 

 placing under ditch 2,000,000 acres of 

 as fertile land as can be found any- 

 where in the world. The investiga- 

 tions which are being conducted in the 

 Sacramento Valley are along broad 

 lines, which include a study of the 

 forest covering of the mountainous 

 portion of the entire basin, the explo- 

 ration for survey of all reservoir sites 

 and the establishment of gaging sta- 

 tions which will determine the avail- 

 able water supply for each of these 

 sites, and the mapping in five-foot 

 contours of the valley lands. 



As the result of the cooperation by 

 the state with the U. S. Departments, 

 the Geological Survey is doing more 

 investigation work in the state of 

 California than in any other one state, 

 and the same can be said of the work 

 of the Department of Agriculture, 

 through its Office of Experiment Sta- 

 tions. 



The Water and Forest Association 

 felt that no plan for irrigation devel- 

 opment would be complete unless the 

 natural reservoirs, consisting of the 



