28 IRRIGATION INVESTIGATIONS IN CALIFORNIA. 



and small yield of wheat where irrig-ation is not practiced, leaves no question 

 as to what is to be the ultimate use of these rivers. These are not isolated 

 or exceptional examples. Several others equally significant came under my 

 personal notice, while one crop of citrus fruits brought the surprising sum 

 of Si, 800 an acre. 



DIVERSIFIED EABMING UNDER IRRIGATION. 



One of the needs of northern California is more diversified farmino-. 

 Rotation of crops is one of the most effective means of preserving the fer- 

 tility of the soil. This result is now secured in fruit growing by the use 

 of fertilizers, but there is a limit to the profitable extension of the acreage 

 devoted to fruits. There is, however, no limit to the profitable extension of 

 agriculture, which makes each home largely self-supporting, where each 

 farmer grows nearly everything he consumes, where his farm supplies him 

 with his poultry, butter, eggs, and meat, where he gi'ows his own hay and 

 has his own pasture and his own orchard and garden. Every acre seeded to 

 alfalfa is a double gain to the State. It stoj^s the impoverishment of the soil 

 and is another step toward making the State wholly independent of the out- 

 side world. More than this, it replaces unprofitable cultivation with a kind 

 which pays. How well it pays was shown by numerous reported yields 

 of 11 tons of alfalfa hay per acre, worth S5 per ton. 



The report of Professor Soul^ states that water rates in the San Joaquin 

 Valley range from S2 to S6 per acre where these rates are fixed by sujjer- 

 visors, and are being contested. This, on a duty of 5 acres to the inch, 

 would mean a value of SIO to $25 per inch. Wasted water is therefore 

 wasted, wealth. The loss to the State in productive capacity can scarcely 

 be measured, but the following comparisons with other irrigated countries 

 will show something of its character. 



Within a radius of 5 miles in the Sacramento Valley I saw every product 

 of the temperate and semitropical zones which I could call to mind. Apples 

 and oranges grew side b}' side, as did oak and almond trees. There were 

 olives from the South and cherries from the North. A date palm seemed 

 equally at home with an alfalfa meadow ; figs and tokay grapes Avere aj^par- 

 ently as much in their element as the fields of wheat and barley or the rows 

 of Indian com, some of the stalks of which measured 15 feet in height. All 

 of these things could have been grown on a single acre, and doubtless have 

 been. It is a sinful waste of opportunities to continue using thousands of 

 acres of this land to grow wheat, which steadily impoverishes the soil and 

 robs the pockets of its owners. The in-igable lands of California ai-e no 



