316 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



Reclamation Notes 



ARIZONA 



Fred Bender, of Peoria, Arizona, makes the 

 statement that for 32 years after he arrived in Ari- 

 zona, not many changes of importance took place, 

 and it looked very much as though his section of 

 the country was doomed to remain' in its primitive 

 state indefinitely. In an interview with the corre- 

 spondent of a Kansas City paper, at which city he 

 was visiting and making purchases of pumps, etc., 

 he made the statement that in places where irriga- 

 tion is already in operation, alfalfa yields to the ex- 

 tent of $80 an acre and has very good sale, and 

 vegetable products and other crops raised also bring 

 in immense revenue. Mr. Bender thoroughly be- 

 lieves in Arizona's future. 



The warmest weather ever known to the 

 county's oldest inhabitants is told by the surveyors 

 in the Santa Maria country. The surveyors in that 

 territory have been compelled to stop work on ac- 

 count of the intense heat. 



Citizens of Sandy are sinking artesian wells to 

 the depth of 60 to 100 feet and have already found 

 ample supply of water for domestic purposes. 



A Mr. Patterson of the McNeal section has been 

 trying experiments on sweet potatoes and has found 

 them a most profitable crop. He planted first a 

 small tract of ground and learned that they did very 

 well. Last year he planted a tract of two acres and 

 cleared something over $250 per acre. This year 

 he has put in 40 acres to the same crop. He expects 

 to do very well with it. 



Luther Burbank, through his representative, 

 Walter S. Johnson, is looking for a site in Arizona 

 for a spineless cactus farm. According to Mr. 

 lohnson, the government has allowed the Burbank 

 company twelve sections of land for the enterprise, 

 which is to be sold to the Burbank company for 

 $1.50 per acre. The spineless cactus is a crop that 

 is beyond the experimental stage and good results 

 may be looked for from this venture. 



The Salt River was lower in June of this year 

 than it has been in many years and farmers under 

 the Roosevelt dam are beginning to realize the ad- 

 vantage of that great enterprise. 



CALIFORNIA 



An irrigation project north of Colusa which 

 will take care of more than 7,000 acres between 

 Cheney slough and the Sacramento river is to be 

 constructed when plans now being formed are put 

 into effect. 



The jury in the case of the San Joaquin and 

 King's River Canal and Irrigation company against 

 James J. Stevenson, a corporation, and others, 

 brought in a verdict recently at Merced in favor of 



Stevenson, after a trial lasting nine weeks and four 

 days. The plaintiff in this suit sought the right by 

 condemnation to 500 second feet of water from the 

 San Joaquin river, owned by riparian right by the 

 defendants. 



Last January A. B. Stevens of San Jacinto 

 bought 160 acres of unimproved land south of that 

 city for which he paid $12,000. He has recently sold 

 the property for $24,000, which represents a healthy 

 profit. 



Deeds were recently recorded showing a syn- 

 dicate of Chinese had recently purchased a large 

 interest in Venice Island, which is one of the most 

 fertile sections in the state. The island belongs to 

 the Venice Island Land Company and contains 

 3,432 acres, divided into fifteen camps. The prop- 

 erty is all reclaimed and is surrounded with levies 

 and has a system of irrigation. 



The James Fair ranch in Yolo county, on the 

 Sacramento river, shows one of the most remark- 

 able "stands" of alfalfa ever seen in California. 

 This is probably due to the fact that it has been sub- 

 irrigated. This year is the dryest in forty-eight 

 years, according to records, yet this crop has never 

 had a drop of surface irrigation. 



The demand for land in the country of the right 

 sort is exemplified in the success which has at- 

 tended the sale of a tract of land near the town of 

 Gait in the center of the Sacramento Valley. This 

 property was put on the market three months ago, 

 and from San Francisco alone numbers of buyers 

 have gone upon the land, home building has prog- 

 ressed favorably, and quite an extensive acreage in 

 the aggregate has been put into crops. 



An irrigation district is being formed which in- 

 cludes 50,000 acres of land lying between Honcut 

 and Palermo, Butte county. 



Claiming that the San Joaquin Light & Power 

 Company is asking them to pay too much for power, 

 a number of farmers near Turk and Heron on the 

 west side are said to be planning to organize a 

 power company of their own, bonded for $200,000, 

 and erect a plant at a cost of $180,000. It is said 

 that this plant will irrigate about 6,000 acres. 



Mayor Samson of La Mesa and a half a dozen 

 assistants began the work recently of securing sig- 

 natures of property owners and water consumers to 

 a petition asking the county supervisors to call an 

 election in the communities of La Mesa, Lemon 

 Grove, Spring Valley and Grossmont, to vote to 

 form an irrigation district. This is a new district 

 which is being formed to take the place of the La 

 Mesa, Lemon Grove, Spring Valley and La Mesa 

 Heights Irrigation District which was formed a 

 vear ago. There will be 15,000 acres in this district, 

 possibly 20,000. 



As it was a dozen years ago when the first 

 water crept into the main canals of the Imperial 



