312 RURAL CALIFORNIA 



and that deciduous fruit-trees, grape-vines and ten- 

 der plants like corn, beans, squashes and melons would 

 make satisfactory summer growth with the moisture 

 from winter rains which was conserved in the soil 

 by tillage, they concluded that irrigation was not 

 required for either winter or summer growth where 

 the annual rainfall was about twenty inches. This 

 amount of rain or more was usually received in the 

 region of San Francisco and in the valleys north- 

 ward, also on the riverside lands of the Stockton 

 and Sacramento districts where the chief part of 

 the early agriculture was practiced. Some settlers 

 who had hastened to provide themselves with irri- 

 gation works in imitation of the padres abandoned 

 them. From this experience there arose and widely 

 prevailed three misconceptions, viz., that the need for 

 irrigation depended entirely on the amount of rain- 

 fall; that products grown by rainfall were better 

 than those raised by irrigation; that irrigation was 

 an unnatural proceeding and, therefore, deplorable 

 even if not actually impious. 



These three misconceptions influenced settlement 

 for some time and delayed development of those vast 

 areas of interior plains and mesas from which the 

 greatest volumes of distinctively Californian prod- 

 ucts are now secured. It is, therefore, pertinent to 

 outline the truer conceptions of relations of rainfall 

 to irrigation which gained ascendancy about 1870 

 and led to the wide improvement of lands by irri- 

 gation which began about that time. The following 

 seem to be warranted conclusions. 



