Irrigation in California. 289 



deprecates the introduction of irrigation into the United States, 

 or says that on this account it should be surrounded by great 

 safeguards. He cited instances in Europe, as in the valley of the 

 Po, where the tendency of irrigation had been to wipe out small 

 land holdings, and bring the lands into the hands of a few of the 

 nobility. He cited but one country where the reverse had been 

 the rule, which was in the south and east of Spain, and pointed 

 out the reason, as he conceived it, that in south and south- 

 eastern Spain the ownership of the water went with the land 

 and was inseparable from it, under ancient Moorish rights. It is 

 a fact, that where the ownership of water goes with the land, it 

 prevents centering of land ownership into few hands, after that 

 ownership is once divided among many persons, in irrigated 

 regions. But Mr. Marsh overlooked one thing in predicting harm 

 in our country ; that is, that it will be many years before we will 

 get such a surplus of poor as to bring about the result he feared. 

 In California, the effect of irrigation has not been to center the 

 land in the hands of a few. On the contrary, the tendency has 

 been just the other way. When irrigation was introduced it 

 became possible for small land holders to live. In Fresno county, 

 there are many people making a living for a family, each on 20 

 acres of irrigated land, and the country is divided into 20 and 

 40-acre tracts and owned in that way. In San Bernardino the 

 same state of things prevails. Before irrigation, these lands were 

 owned in large tracts, and it was not an uncommon thing for one 

 owner to have 10,000 to 20,000 acres of land. So that the rule 

 in California, which is the effect of irrigation, is to divide land 

 holdings into small tracts, and in this respect, also, irrigation is a 

 blessing to the country. It enables large owners to cut up their 

 lands and sell out to the many. Land values have advanced from 

 11.25 in this great valley to $50, |150 and even S250 per acre, 

 simply by attaching to the land the right to take or use water, 

 paying in addition an annual rental : in the southern portion of 

 the State, they have advanced from $5 and |10 to $500 and even 

 $1000 an acre, where the land has the right to water ; and many 

 calculations have been made and examples cited by intelligent and 

 prominent people, to show that good orange land or good raisin- 

 grape land with sufficient water supply is well worth $1000 an 

 acre. Water rights run up proportionately in value. A little 

 stream flowing an inch of water^— an amount that will flow through 

 an inch square opening under four inches of pressure — in the 



