142 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



Plans were made for systematizing the work in 

 studying duty of water and means of lessening waste, 

 and methods of preparing land and applying water. 



The publication of a series of practical manuals 

 was decided upon, the following subjects being chosen : 



1. Manual of Irrigation Practice (revision of 0. 

 E. S. Bulletin, 145). 



IRRIGATION IN CALIFORNIA. 



BY A. J. WELLS. 



Butte County Irrigation Canal, Sacramento Valley. 



2. A Manual of Canal Management. 



3. A Manual of Water Measurement and Distri- 

 bution in Irrigation. 



4. Methods and Cost of Pumping Water for Irri- 

 gation. 



5. The Construction of Farmers' Reservoirs. 



6. The Irrigation of Sugar Beets. 



7. The Irrigation and Drainage of Rice fields 

 (Texas and Louisiana). 



8. Some Special Forms of Organizing Irrigation 

 Enterprises. 



9. The Terracing and Drainage of Hillsides. 



10. The Drainage of the Atlantic Coast Rice 

 Fields. 



Canyon of Pit River, where Storaee Reservoir Is Planned, 

 Sacramento Valley. 



11. Practical Information for the Settler in Irri- 

 gated Districts. 



Mr. C. E. Grunsky, consulting engineer of the 

 Reclamation Service, addressed the conference on the 

 importance of duty of water studies; Mr. Haywood 

 and Mr. Skinner, of the Bureau of Chemistry, spoke 

 on water analyses and methods of determining soil mois- 

 ture, and Mr. Zinthoe discussed the work on farm 

 machinery. Mr. C. T. Johnston, formerly assistant 

 chief of the office of Experiment Stations, now state 

 engineer of Wyoming, was also in attendance, and gave 

 many valuable suggestions as to the work. 



It is old as the Mission gardens of the padres ; it is 

 new as the failures of the bonanza ranches of the wheat 

 farmers. Every step of human progress is an evolu- 

 tion, and ideas and convictions had to be borne and make 

 their way in the face of conservatism and deep-rooted 

 prejudices before irrigation in this land of ruinless 

 summers could even be put on trial. The Franciscans who 

 left behind them the remains of irrigating ditches were 

 from Spain and Italy, and were familiar with the pro- 

 cess, while their successors as occupants of the land were 

 from humid countries, and had no thought of interfer- 

 ing with or supplanting the agency of the clouds. Be- 

 sides they found land cheap to be had by leagues rather 

 than acres, and there grew up two industries, stock rais- 

 ing and wheat farming, neither of which required the 

 irrigating ditch. For years the great wheat farmers 

 plowed and sowed, gathered fortunes at one harvest, 

 lighted the land at dusk by burning straw piles and 

 stubble fields, and only when that kind of farming be- 



Butte County Canal near Biggs, Sacramento Valley. 



came unprofitable was the way open for other ideas. 

 Happily the failure of the great wheat farm from the 

 methods employed, and from the low price of wheat, and 

 the disuse of large areas for grazing because the land 

 had become too valuable, came at a period when irri- 

 gation began to command interested attention, and to- 

 day great ranches are giving way to the small farmer, 

 and the shining lines of irrigating canals are seen in 

 many directions. It is the instinct of development, 

 which is always wise in the long run; it is the lesson 

 of experience which here has behind it generations of 

 failure. For even in humid countries the bane of the 

 farmer's life is the unequal distribution of the rainfall 

 and the consequent uncertainty of his crops. The 

 farmer is a hardworking agnostic He does not know 

 what the result of his season's work will be. His plant- 

 ing and sowing is a lottery in which faithful work 

 and practical sagacity are often defeated by the vagaries 

 of the weather. The real difficulty with agriculture is 

 the reliance upon chances. Who would make Bessemer 

 steel if the results were as much a matter of doubt 

 as the farmer's crops? We know the exact per cent of 

 carbon which must be burned out of iron to make perfect 

 steel; we know what amount of moisture is needed to 



