286 CALIFORNIA DESERT TRAILS 



where ditches of red, muddy water led off, branch- 

 ing, dividing, and subdividing into a veritable maze. 

 As I sat under a eucalyptus to eat lunch, while 

 Kaweah ripped away at juicy Bermuda grass, it 

 seemed a miracle when I recalled the wanderings 

 of the past weeks. 



And indeed it is a miracle, the transforming, 

 within a dozen years, of a tract of strict desert into a 

 farming region of the highest fertility. The materials 

 for the miracle were here, of course, from immemo- 

 rial times — an alluvial plain and, contiguous to it, 

 a great silt-laden river. Lower Egypt offers an exact 

 analogy, and early Western explorers noted and 

 reported the possibilities, which in fact are patent 

 enough. It remained for speculators to undertake 

 the work which Government might properly have 

 shouldered, and for the public to grasp the idea that 

 the word "desert" need not signify worthless for 

 agriculture, so long as water, the lack of which is at 

 the root of the condition, can be applied. 



I shall have little to say, however, of economic 

 matters, which are outside my purpose and also 

 very largely outside my knowledge. I could compile a 

 chapter of sensational facts and figures easily enough, 

 but we Californians are not bashful about trumpet- 

 ing our triumphs, and I feel that the sincerest con- 

 tribution I can make will be by injecting, not a dis- 

 cordant, but a gently moderating tone into the blast. 

 In a word, the Imperial Valley has been and is the 

 scene of a remarkable agricultural success ; but let it 

 be realized that there are special drawbacks, in the 

 nature of the case, and that it is not the business of 



