WATER APPROPRIATION FROM KINGS RIVER. 315 



carefully made, but is left to the good judgment of a canal superintendent, who gen- 

 erally manages to give irrigators all they want in times of abundant flow, and who 

 stands them oflf as best he can when water is scarce. In the second place, there is 

 very little call for water measurement in a district like the Mussel Slough country, 

 where irrigation progresses without application of the water to the surface of the 

 soil. Crops may be benefited as much, or even more, bj' the water sinking from 

 ditches in adjacent tracts as by that brought to the land under cultivation; the same 

 is true of some districts near Fresno, where ground water has risen so near the sur- 

 face as to make the application of water to the surface unnecessary. The system of 

 apportioning water has led to the adoption of methods of regulation by means of 

 gates with water flowing through submerged orifices, or others with a clear overfall, 

 giving the irrigator reasonable assurance of fair treatment. Such measurement is, 

 however, only intended to be relative. When a number of irrigators receive water 

 through a common private ditch they arrange among themselves how it shall be 

 apportioned as to time and quantity. 



Very often the owners of adjoining tracts of land enter jointh- upon the construc- 

 tion of laterals from some main canal, and the affairs of these laterals are managed in 

 a manner very similar to those of independent canals. The Enterprise Canal was 

 originally of this type. It was constructed as a branch of the Fresno and Kings 

 River Canal, but is now considered a branch of Fresno Canal. Others are the Hern- 

 don Canal, Hansen Ditch, Central Colony Canal, Washington Colony Canal, Briggs 

 Canal, Malaga Extension Ditch, Garfield Ditch, McCall Ditch, Highland Ditch, 

 Bethel Ditch, Kirby Ditch, Wristen Ditch, Iowa Ditch, Harlan and Stevens Ditch, 

 Caruthers Dit<;h, Wildflower Ditch, Webber Ditch, and others. 



The methods of irrigation as practiced in the various districts served with Kings 

 River water are fairlj' well adapted to local requirements. Physical conditions, char- 

 acter of soils, the originally extremely dry condition of the plain lands, as well as the 

 subdivision of land into very small holdings, were the prime factors which determined 

 the methods of appl3-ing water to land on the plains or uplands upon both sides of 

 Kings River. The ease with which an elevation of the ground water could be con- 

 trolled in the delta region, particularly toward the south, in the so-called Mussel Slough 

 country, very naturally led to the adoption of a method of irrigation in that region 

 which has remained peculiar to itself. Irrigation is here accomplished by leading 

 water into small irrigating ditches, generally 100 to 200 yards apart, in which it is 

 allowed to flow sluggishly until enough water has found its way through the surface 

 and into the subsoils to saturate them with water and bring the ground water plane 

 to within a few feet of the surface soil. When moisture is thus brought within reach 

 of the roots of grain, alfalfa, trees, or vines, irrigation is complete for the season. 

 This occurs at the time when the available supply from the river is about exhausted. 

 Due to evaporation from the surface of the soils, the consumption of moisture bj- 

 plant life, and the sinking of the soil water into deeper porous strata, the surface of 

 the ground water falls lower and lower, until at the beginning of the next irrigating 

 season it is from 6 to 12 feet below the ground's surface. Under this sj'stem 

 of irrigation the movement of moisture throughout the great body of the surface 

 soil is upward. The water which thus moves from below to the surface brings with 

 it more or less of alkaline salts, which, when water evaporates at the surface of the 



