188 IRRIGATION INVESTIGATIONS IN CALIFORNIA. 



hog raising would all be profitable industries. The possibilities of this section for 

 dairying have been amply demonstrated by the farmers in the vicinit3' of Woodland 

 and Yolo. The long season that it is possible to keep stock on green feed in this 

 climate when water can be supplied for the irrigation of the pastures makes the 

 conditions here peculiarly favorable for this and all kindred industries. The only 

 drawback is the lack of water for pasture and for forage crops. 



If the histoiy of this "chosen valley" was different from others we might look 

 for the cause of all this dismal failure in the character of the people who have been 

 engaged in these enterprises, but the managers and promoters of these failing ditch 

 enterprises were not weaklings. Their quality is approved by their success in other 

 lines before and since. Their fault was a too great faith in a system which was 

 only lack of system, whose pretended regulation gave onlj' fancied security at first to 

 later add to their embarrassment. Everywhere, all over California, wherever there 

 has been enterprise enough to attempt to use the water, the story is the same. The 

 energy and capital of water users and appropriators are consumed in litigation. 

 The cause is not in the people who seek to utilize the water, but in the law regulating 

 the appropriation and use of water. 



There is now shipped out of Yolo County annually 50,000 to 80,000 tons of 

 wheat. If the water wasted in Cache Creek were conserved, and as it comes down to 

 water the fields used in manufacturing this wheat into flour, one-third of this tonnage 

 might be left behind to be used in the production of pork and mutton and beef and 

 dairy products. California is shipping to-daj' from Chicago and Omaha and Kansas 

 Citj' bacon and lard that she can produce within her own borders as cheaph' as they 

 can be placed on the market of the great corn-producing States. The supply of 

 poultry- and eggs and butter and cheese which is now shipped into California across 

 half the continent could be profitabl}' furnished by the home production. She can 

 supply her own people and still have surplus for export in her Pacific trade. There 

 ought to be in Yolo County 50,000 acres in alfalfa instead of 5,000, and stock enough 

 to consume it. 



We have here a country of marvelous possibilities, a soil rich in all the elements 

 of plant growth, with surface smooth and easy of tillage, a climate whose summer 

 heat and winter cold are tempered by the breezes of the Pacific, so equable that here 

 all the choicest products of the temperate zone and of the subtropics are grown alike 

 in perfection. Here flourish side bj- side the apple, the peach, the pear, the plum, 

 the apricot, and grape, along with the orange, the lemon, the lime, and the fig. Here 

 the oak and the pine, there the palm and the pepper tree. The roses bloom winter 

 and summer. The orange carries its fruit through the winter, the oleander is a tree 

 and the heliotrope a hardj' shrub. 



As if to crown her good gifts to this favored country, during the season of 

 harvest and fruitage nature sends a cloudless sky. The grain, ripe for the sickle, 

 may stand uninjured for months waiting the tmsy harvester. The warmth and light 

 develop rich juices and exquisite coloring of flower and fruit and a wealth of bloom 

 and perfume unknown in the Eastern climate. Without rain, the curing of forage is 

 attended with none of the uncertainty and anxiety that attends this work in countries 

 where the rain may come at all seasons. The advantage of the clear skj' is especially 

 seen in the preparation of dried fruits. The California dried fruits — the peaches and 



