THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



203 



THE ORLAND PROJECT. 



The Orland Project, the smallest undertaken by 

 the United States Keclamation Service, is unquestion- 

 ably the one fraught with the greatest possibilities, for 

 the area to be irrigated (about 15,000 acres), is a part 

 of that great Central Valley of California, the Valley 

 of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin Rivers, which 

 presents, as has been pointed out by an engineer high 

 in the Government Service, the greatest possibilities for 

 development through irrigation "to be found in arid 





an admirable reservoir site, it was neither the lack of 

 water, nor the impossibility of storing it that limited 

 the size of the project, but simply a question of the 

 amount of money that could be spared at this time 

 for the purpose. 



In November, 1906, Mr. Hitchcock, then Secre- 

 tary of the Interior, apportioned $650,000 for this 

 project upon certain conditions, one of which was 

 that the land should be bonded to be sold and held in 

 farms of forty acres or less. In December, 1907, Sec- 

 retary Garfield announced that the conditions had been 



A Summer Scene on Stony Creek, Orland Project, California. 



America, if not in the world." Here is the possibil- 

 ity for the installation of a system for the irrigation 

 of nine million acres, and at the same time relieve one 

 million acres from the danger of overflow. 



The importance then of the Orland Project is not 

 to be measured alone by the benefits to be brought to 

 the acres irrigated by it, great though they will be; 

 but its chief value will rather be as a positive demon- 

 stration to the landowners of the Valley of the un- 

 paralleled advantages of the Government system, and 

 with that end in view it is planned to make the Or- 

 land Project the model irrigation system, or rather, the 

 Orland Unit was selected because it has all the essential 

 elements of such a model system. 



This is by no means an untried section, for a 

 small acreage has long been irrigated from private 

 ditches, and the community has already established a 

 reputation for the finest of alfalfa hay, the best of 

 almonds and the sweetest of oranges. Owing, however, 

 to the small flow of the creek during the irrigating sea- 

 son, but a small acreage has been devoted to these 

 products. 



Stony Creek, whose waters are to be used, rises 

 in the Coast Range Mountains, far south of Orland, 

 and while all other streams flow south or southeast this 

 is forced sixty miles to the north before it breaks 

 through the last of the ranges of hills which parallel the 

 mountains. During this long journey "uphill" it is 

 continually gathering the water which drains from 

 the eastern mountain slope until it becomes an actual 

 river, ten times larger than many a stream accorded 

 the dignity of being so called. The photograph re- 

 produced herewith shows a summer scene on Stony 

 Creek. As every range of hills broken through offers 



satisfactorily fulfilled and the appropriation made per- 

 manent. Since then all preliminary work has been done 

 and the engineer states that all is ready to vigorously 

 prosecute the actual construction as soon as all danger 

 of high water is past for this season. 



The area to be irrigated lies about the thriving 

 town of Orland in northern Glenn County, on the west 



Map of Orland, Stony Creek and Reservoirs, Orland Project, California. 



side of the valley, about eighty miles north of Sacra- 

 mento. Stony Creek furnishes sufficient water for the 

 spring and early summer. The water to supplement 

 this flow will be stored in a pretty little valley known 

 as East Park about thirtv miles south and twenty miles 

 west of Orland, as shown in the map herewith. 



