IRRIGATION, POLITICS, AND SECTIONALISM 77 



pertaining to the farmer's craft ; the bringing 

 of scientific and up-to-date methods to bear 

 on the raising of every crop, and especially 

 the fruit-crop ; the extermination of insect 

 pests and noxious weeds ; the keeping of 

 careful notes and records ; the improvement 

 of his stock all these things, and many 

 others besides, are the inevitable duties of 

 the intelligent and progressive ranchero in a 

 section where climate and soil do so much, as 

 well as in sections where they do compara- 

 tively little. One of the worst features in 

 farming in this valley at present, notably in 

 1 wet ' seasons, is the tendency to sit back 

 and let the river do everything. Constant 

 cultivation is not valued at its true worth, 

 except by the few ; and when a drought 

 comes, it is still but these few who understand 

 that between cultivating and not cultivating 

 their orchards, and that to a fine tilth, lies 

 the difference betwixt life and death. 



The Mexican system of irrigation is simple, 

 but, though primitive, it is devoid of the 

 primitive advantages of autocracy and the 

 ' Against this law there is no appeal.' The 

 law of the Mexican ditch is the law of the 



