234 



THE IRBIGATION AGE. 



ment of Southern California where lands once value- 

 less, now irrigated, sell with producing orchards for 

 $2,000 an acre. The reason for inactivity in Northern 

 California is primarily the lack of irrigation caused by 

 the climate conditions being such that profitable crops 

 could be raised without irrigation. In Southern Cali- 

 fornia the w^ter is all utilized at a high price and the 

 land is all under intensive cultivation. In the Sacra- 

 mento-San Joaquin the water is abundant and much of 

 the land is not irrigated. The great activity in future 

 development must come to these valleys. At present in 



affairs has been changing. The wheat fields no longer 

 bring in profitable returns, and the men who have in- 

 sisted on planting their lands to grain continuously for 

 fifty years have lost their holdings or are heavily in 

 debt. Prom necessity these large tracts are being sub- 

 divided into twenty and forty acre lots where irrigation 

 is possible. Fruits, alfalfa, and sugar beet crops on 

 these small farms bring an adequate income for even 

 luxurious living, and, at the same time, are productive 

 of ideal community life by bringing families into close 

 proximity. Many colonies are forming where high class 



GOVERNORS OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN STATES WHO ARE INTERESTED IN THE COMING NATIONAL IRRIGATION 



CONGRESS AND WILL APPOINT DELEGATES TO IT. 



JOHNSON, 

 Minnesota. 



HANLY, 

 Indiana. 



HARRIS, 

 Ohio. 



WARNER, 



Michigan. 



CRAWFORD, 

 South Dakota. 



HUGHES, 

 New York. 



DAVIDSON, 

 Wisconsin. 



CUMMINS, 

 Iowa. 



DENEEN, 

 Illinois. 



STUART. 

 Pennsylvania. 



the Sacramento valley about 75,000 acres are irrigated 

 out of a possible area of over 2,000,000 acres, and ap- 

 proximately in the San Joaquin 641,000 acres are irri- 

 gated out of a possible area of 4,000,000 acres. 



In California existing laws have not been definite, 

 causing many disputes and deterring investors from 

 undertaking irrigating projects. Also farmers with 

 large holdings have been able to make fair incomes in 

 raising wheat and barley without irrigation. The man 

 who tilled his own fields was not held in high esteem, 

 even tenants on the vast estates being "gentlemen 

 farmers." But within the past few years this state of 



families who cultivate their own fields enjoy life in its 

 fullness. 



In 1900 the United States Geological Survey began 

 operations to establish a complete irrigation system to 

 include the entire Sacramento valley. In this valley 

 there are two extreme conditions to meet the flood and 

 the drought. In the spring-time the heavy rains and 

 the melting snow of the mountains send out enormous 

 quantities of water, and as the fall of the upper streams 

 is very great, in places as much as sixty to one hundred 

 feel to the mile, and as the channel toward the mouth 

 of the river has a fall of but three inches to the mile, 



