IBEIGATION PROBLEMS OF HONEY LAKE BA8IN. 93 



east of the county seat. This is Johnstonville, more commonly known by the 

 euphonious name of "Toadtown." Here a number of early settlers made their 

 homes, planting fields and orchards, and becoming thoroughly prosperous through 

 years of patient industry. Practically all are riparian proprietors, and much of their 

 land is irrigated by natural overflow and seepage. Although the volume of the 

 stream varies considerably from year to year, in accordance with the snowfall in the 

 mountains, there is seldom any serious shortage at this point, except for late irriga- 

 tion. Here is a group of farmers whose interests in the water supply are common 

 and who therefore stand together when any controversy arises. Although each has 

 his separate system of distributaries, they nevertheless work in cooperation in main- 

 taining common dams and headgates and regulating the supply during the season. 



Immediately adjacent to Johnstonville and extending 4 or 5 miles east is the 

 neighborhood known as Buggytown.^ This includes but a small group of settlers, 

 whose chief canal is known as the Batchelder & Adams, taking water from the river 

 at a point where it sometimes, though rarely, interferes to a slight extent with the 

 Johnstonville farmers. The situation of the Buggytown people is such that they 

 must divert most of their supplj^ from the stream and lead it upon their lands through 

 canals, since they are able to irrigate onlj^ a portion of their lower lands from the 

 natural ovei^flow. 



In the delta of Susan River, bordering the western and northwestern sides of 

 Honey Lake, is the large Tule district, which has been rather conspicuously 

 identified with t^e more important litigation in the valley. The dependence for 

 irrigation in this locality is practically all upon the overflow, which is spread out 

 upon the land by a system of crude dams and levees, and made useful in the 

 production of wild hay. The total tonnage of this product is large, and therefore 

 very important to the farmer of the neighborhood, but the j'ield per acre is slight 

 compared with that of the alfalfa fields — probably not more than 1 ton of wild hay 

 per acre upon the average. Through the elaborate network of sloughs and natural 

 canals, in the midst of which the Tule homes and farms have been developed, 

 considerablj' more than three-quarters of the vast quantity of water which goes to 

 the making of Honey Lake finds its way to that sink in the heart of the basin. 

 During the winter and spring large portions of the Tule district are under water and 

 look like a part of the lake itself. Under these circumstances the farmers have no 

 need of diverting and applying the water In' the common irrigation methods. 

 Nature has done the work for them — in a most slovenly and wasteful way, it is 

 true — and they have but to throw up slight levees, with small dams in the depres- 

 sions, in order to hold the water back until the soil is well saturated. In this 

 manner thej' have had the b,enefit of all the flood waters which have made Honey 

 Lake a body covering .64,000 acres of surface. It was inevitable that when, in the 

 natural course of events, these flood waters should be needed for diversion upon the 

 large areas of fertile sagebrush lands Ij'ing above the stream, the Tule district would 

 be seriousl}' affected. Either they must adapt their methods to changed conditions, 

 applying the water supply more economicalh' and scientifically, perhaps abandoning 

 the wild-haj' crop to a considerable extent and engaging in the production of alfalfa 



' One of the early settlers possessed a buggy at a time when such luxuries were somewhat rare; 

 hence the name which has been accepted for the neighborhood. 



