48 



TWENTY-EIGHTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



offset all that could be made out of the water in other ways during the 

 good years. On the other hand, for man}^ low-grade crops the reverse 

 of this policy might be better in many places. 



All such waste is intelligent waste and rarely amounts to over 20 per 

 cent, while in Southern California it is generally far less. Ignorant 

 waste is quite another item, and outside of Southern California runs 

 from 50 per cent to several hundred. This also has many forms; such 

 as using more water as a substitute for the cultivator when the ground 

 begins to bake, an old Indian trick to which the average white man 

 fondly clings as long as he possibly can; ignoring the difference between 

 products, and giving grapes as much water as oranges or watering onions 

 like strawberries; and a score of others, like neglecting to grade the 

 ground, trying to force water in wrong directions, etc. 



A good sample of ignorant waste may be seen near Albuquerque, 

 where a resident engineer a few years ago estimated the duty of water 

 at a cubic foot a second, or fifty California miner's inches to eighteen 

 acres. This would be about an inch and a half a day of rain measure 

 or acre-inches, or nearly forty-five inches a month. Those who have 

 seen forty-five inches of rain fall in six months on a soil much looser 

 than the fine sediment of the Rio Grande bottoms can understand the 

 impossibility of putting more than one tenth of this amount into the 

 ground, for six successive months. Seven inches a month in most parts 

 of the East and prairie States make a wet summer, and probably not 

 over four inches enter the ground in most places having a clay subsoil, 

 like much of the prairie. If we could have six inches a month in 

 Southern California we would have trouble to get it all in the ground, 

 even in summer and even if we could have it to order. And the propor- 

 tion of it that would go in would on most all soils suffice for good crops 

 of anything we raise here. One half of it would suffice for more than 

 half of our products, and two thirds would be enough for almost any- 

 thing but old orange trees in full bearing and alfalfa on some gravelly 

 soils. 



This is assuming that the season is started with the ground full of 

 water, as it would be in the East from the melting snows and winter 

 rains. But this is a very violent assumption, even for Southern Cali- 

 fornia. For of all forms of waste to which man seems hopelessly wedded, 

 letting all the water of winter run to the sea and starting the irrigating 

 season on a dry subsoil is the most universal. It is a relic of barbarism 

 that, strange to say, yet survives in Southern California, where water 

 brings the highest price in the world; for while many have learned a 

 lesson in the last few years of short rainfall, there are still many who 

 have not. 



This equivalent of six inches of rain or less accords with the practice 

 of our best irrigators. Remembering that so many inches or feet of 



