THE

HE immense scale on which water is handled in the great central valley of California is worthy of a special study because there is no other place in the United States, and probably not in the world, where water is so intelligently used in such vast quantities on so large an area. At the same time the methods cannot be recommended in all respects for the small farmer, though for extensive work with plenty of water at command they are hard to improve upon.

Kern River, draining the lofty country south of Mount Whitney, rolls out upon the great plains of Kern County over two

thousand cubic feet average flow for the dry season, or over one hundred thousand miner's inches. This is generally much increased when the snow is melting, making the summer supply very large and reliable. This with the winter flood-water once made about a quarter of a million acres of shallow lake and swamp covered with reeds and tule and willow bordered sloughs, exhaling all summer long a malaria almost as deadly as that of Panama. Bordering this on the east side of the valley were half a million acres of fine granite soil drifted in the course of ages from the hills and lying on a slope

of about fifteen feet to the mile though looking level as a floor. No finer soil for all around purposes is to be found in America; but twenty years ago it was the most hopeless of all deserts, for the average rainfall was a trifle over four inches, the Coast range on the west and the continuation of the lofty Sierra Nevada to a junction with the Coast range on the south, cutting off most of the winter rains.

The same stroke that would turn the waters of the river upon this arid land would reclaim all the swamp which was the richest soil imaginable. But it was a job no state would undertake, and it was absurd to expect private capital to build canals in such a country and wait for settlers. The few jaundiced hog-andhominy settlers that lived by fiddling and fighting along the river and claimed all its waters could not even handle the river so as to take out enough for themselves.

If so

Messrs. Haggin, Carr and Tevis had the desert land act passed, it is said, so that that they could grab this land. they deserve the thanks of California, for it has added a rich county that would otherwise have raised little but scenery, dust and malaria. They spent some twelve millions of dollars in building canals of which there are now twenty-seven. The diversion of the water brought on the great riparian suit with Miller & Lux, who were very wealthy and were attempting to drain out the swamp below so as to take that under the swamp and overflowed land reclamation act, It is said that litigation cost each party nearly a million of dollars. The total cost to both parties could not have been far short of that. The outcome was a compromise by which Buena Vista Lake, a shallow lake covering over a township, was turned into a reservoir. By this the entire flood flow of the river is stopped, the canals taking all the ordinary flow. It now covers twentyseven square miles to an average depth of ten feet, making a store of water which hardly shows the great draught for Miller & Lux's immense farms below. Thus was added to the state more water than was then held by all its other reservoirs combined. As I hunted ducks over these immense properties last winter I remarked to a friend that there were two sides to the monopoly question.

Miller & Lux have under this water

over one hundred thousand acres mostly reclaimed swamp of which over twenty thousand are now in a solid block of alfalfa. The Kern County Land Company, composed of Tevis, Haggin and Co., have under the ditches on the dry side some four hundred thousand acres with one patch of about thirty-five thousand acres of alfalfa.

The difference between this reclaimed swamp and the land that was once desert must be kept in mind on account of the different ways of irrigating hereafter mentioned. On the reclaimed swamp, which is a black muck of tule roots running into peat in many places, the level of the water below is from eight to ten feet. On most of the upland reclaimed by the ditches it is from sixty to almost as much more as you wish.

The method of preparing the land is the same in both cases. The slope is so nearly uniform that on the greater part there is no leveling. Where it dips into swales or old dry slough beds it is terraced roughly with scrapers to very nearly a level, the shape and size of the terraces varying continually with the contour and dip of the land. No rule is followed except the uniform method of having one check enough below another to permit the rapid emptying of the upper one into the lower one if the water is to go there at all. They vary from half or quarter of an acre up to five acres or even more, and though they look like a set of plats running through all shapes from the crescent to a square they are really terraces.

LAYING OUT THE CHECKS.

On the land having a very even slope the checks are almost invariably made on contour lines laid out with an engineer's level. Starting at the upper side of the field the level is swept around and stakes set every few yards on a line about a foot below the instrument. If the slope is uniform the line of stakes will be a crescent and will vary from this in all manner of wavy curves according to the change from a regular slope. The level is then moved down to the line of stakes and another line of stakes set below that, care being taken not to leave ends or horns on the crescents in which the depth of water could be too slight. Rather than do this the shape is changed and a square or

other figure thrown in between true contour lines.

As thus run, some of these check lines are nearly a mile long. The checks thus formed run from about twenty acres up to two hundred with an average as near as I could judge of about forty acres. Near Pozo, in Kern County, are several thousand acres laid out by the eye by a Chinaman who was an experienced irrigator. I saw it under water and it was well enough done, so well done that I am certain that with a carpenter's level fitted with rifle sights and a common tripod any one with sense enough to take the height of the instrument on a rod marked plainly into feet and tenths of a foot, and with enough arithmetic in his head to add or subtract the readings from the height of the instrument, could lay out any ground well enough for good flooding.

The embankments made on these lines vary in height from fifteen inches to twenty or even twenty-four inches, the average being nearly eighteen for the central part of a whole line so as to allow a foot of water behind it with no danger of its being breached by wind or defects. At the lowest point the water is often deeper than a foot and at the shallowest points much less, but the general aim is to have it every where as near a foot in depth as possible though it by no means follows that that amount of water will be run into it at every irrigation.

At the bottom these check lines are often as much as eighteen feet in width though twelve to fifteen feet are more common widths for the high parts. They are round upon the top with both sides on such a slope that any kind of machinery can be run over them and cut anything that grows upon them as well as if it were on the level. The alfalfa, grain, or whatever is in the field is planted upon them the same as in the bottom of the check and, as far as can be seen, grows as well.

At the lower part of some of the checks is a large gate in the embankment large enough to discharge the water quickly into the next check below. But in most cases the reliance is on cutting with a hoe. It is conceded by the superintendents that the gate is much the better and in the long run probably more economical, though more expensive at first.

These embankments are made with a

buck scraper or a Fresno scraper and are too large to make with a common plow in any case. With a movable moldboard about ten feet long a common plow may be used to make them if they are not too large. But this makes a heavy drag and for some of the largest checks takes ten horses in heavy soil. In place of the moldboard five or six revolving disks like those on the disk cultivator are set on an axle eight or ten feet long inclined according to the slope and the whole fitted to a well braced frame of a Stockton

Gang Plow. One of these was being tested the day I was there and I saw four horses do the work of eight with it in throwing up a ridge, the whole difference. being in the friction of the solid moldboard, the disks turning over instead of resisting. A slip scraper or any kind that bounces will be too slow to do such large work economically. Even the machine above described must have broad wheelbraces rolling against the face and bottom of the cut to relieve the extra friction, or more horse flesh will be needed at once. All this would be too expensive for a small farmer, but for flooding on a large scale it would pay any one to begin checking in that way.

It must be remembered that there is plenty of water here and some things are done that might be inexpedient elsewhere. If you are sure to have water to fill them it is best to have the checks high enough, provided your soil or crops will stand a considerable depth of water. But if you

have not the water or have it in heads too small then your high checking is useless expense. The depth of water you may put in a check will depend not only on the soil and the crop, but greatly on the length of time you hold the water in the check. This you should determine in advance by experiments on a small scale if your neighbors' places will not show what it will do. Under the hot sun of the San Joaquin summer, alfalfa will often scald in less than three hours, and if the irrigating water is very warm two hours are none too safe on some spots. Hence the water must be put in and let off quickly. But unless the soil is porous enough, too great a depth of water will puddle it and retard the soaking instead of hastening it, and if porous enough to be wet more quickly by greater depth of water then you must have a considerable

depth so as to leave water to run into the next check. For on this big scale laterals cost money and it is strict economy to make one check feed the next one for a pretty long series.

Checks thus made will last practically forever, the alfalfa or grain preventing their washing. They become in time as hard as any canal bank, and the only weak spot is the place where they are cut. This is purposely left weak to avoid the labor of cutting every time which is considerable where they are of full strength.

TURNING IN THE WATER.

When all is ready to turn in the water, eight or ten men, armed with hoes, take a line of checks, and a head of about thirty cubic feet a second or 1,500 miner's inches is turned into the upper one. If a large one, there is considerable waiting to do, but if a small one it is not long before it is time to cut the lower bank to let the water into the next one. In a small check one cut is generally enough, but in a long one, two or three, and even four cuts, may be necessary to empty it fast enough. These cuts are quite large and let a great volume of water through. Ten men can handle this head of water and irrigate 200 acres a day with it on an average. Generally seven can do it, unless there are a great many small checks to fill and empty. Where they are very large two or three men can do it, and there are places where one can do it. There a single man on the line of bank between two checks of 200 acres each reminds one of the old hymn

"Lo, on a narrow neck of land,

'Twixt two unbounded seas I stand."

I tried to get a picture of one of these, but it is too large for a common camera to bring out well.

At the rate of one man a day to twenty acres this is very cheap flooding, and it can hardly be done on the scale requisite for good orchard work, to be followed by cultivation. For the only safe way to do that well is to make the checks small and have the water shallow in them. For handling these with a head of two cubic feet to ten acres, two and generally three men are necessary for very good work. A piece of land so flat that ten acres can be managed by one man on a small scale is not likely to be well enough drained to be good orchard land.

Sometimes enough water is at once let

into the upper check to feed the whole line of which that is the first, and sometimes more water is allowed to run through it to add to the first instalment. This depends on what is in it and how it will stand the run of water; old alfalfa standing a good deal if there is no danger of scalding. The whole is so arranged that any surplus at the lower end has a waste ditch to receive it.

When these checks are emptied plenty of wet spots remain, with water an inch or two and often three or four inches deep. These are depressions which it was not thought worth while to fill by leveling off the tract. Probably the results would not, for low-grade crops, justify the expense where land is so plenty and water so cheap. But this will not do for the small farmer to imitate, and the effects of it can be quickly seen even in winter, when the sun is not hot enough to scald the plants or to bake the ground much. Of barley, wheat and young alfalfa about one-third of the stand is destroyed by a depression of about two inches, and about two-thirds by three or four inches. In some places where the water had been so deep that it was impossible to make an estimate, it was practically all destroyed. That is, if the whole field were in that shape it would be too thin to be worth cutting. Old alfalfa seemed uninjured. There was no grain old enough to show the effect on old grain, but it would not have been as bad as with the young grain, though anything but good. In hot weather the effect would have been much worse. It is due principally to the water standing too long and deep. On account of the pressure it would take the water that remained in the depression much longer to soak away than if that were all that had been put in there in the first place.

Smaller checks, and especially square or rectangular ones, for lands lying like these and bearing such crops, on so large a scale, would merely increase the cost without any corresponding advantage. The larger they can be made the greater area a given number of men can handle, and the only limitation on the size is the depth of water in them and the facilities for getting it quickly in and out again when it has done its work.

There seems no doubt that all this work is profitable. Miller and Lux are not offering any land for sale, yet they are

constantly increasing the area in crops and making new canals, and laterals by the league, that in most countries would be respectable canals. They have 200 men in constant employ, and have a thousand or more during most of the summer, with many more in harvest. The whole is in charge of Mr. Miller, who is one of the best business men of America. In forty years the firm has risen from poverty to the largest land owners and cattle owners on the coast, if not in the world, their present holdings being estimated at 200,000 head of cattle, with sheep beyond the knowledge of even themselves, and 2,000,000 acres of land. The business

has all been built up by Mr. Miller, whose principle has always been to make everything pay. It is therefore safe to assume that this handling of the water and land is profitable on a large scale, though it might ruin a small farmer. Even at the present low price of wheat, the superintendents say there is still a profit in it on this land, and there were some 8,000 acres already seeded when I was there, with more going in. On the lands of the Kern County Land

AS

Company 800 men are employed the year round, with an increase of thousands during haying and harvest. Though their land is for sale in small tracts, the gigantic scale on which they are farming the rest shows that the owners, who are also shrewd business men, know what they are about. They have also been at it long enough to find out, and are certainly not working eight or ten townships to make a show to sell out on. And the fact that thousands of acres of their lands are rented out to grain farmers whose long strings of teams and plows dotted the great plain for leagues, renters who are no tenderfeet at the business, makes it pretty safe to say that there is here a fair profit in raising wheat by irrigation, even at the present price. About the profits of the alfalfa, even at the low price of beef, there is no possible question, one acre carrying an animal the year round and in summer fattening five, while the constant trampling of the herds seems to have no effect upon the stand of alfalfa, which would be quickly injured if water were scarce or stingily used.

S THE IRRIGATION AGE is the representa

tive journal of the Union, especially of the West in the matter of Irrigation and Forestry and kindred subjects, I feel at liberty to speak through its columns of these things as they pertain to the commonwealth of North Dakota.

Water is of paramount importance in the economy of nature, especially in its operations in the production of grain, grasses, fruit and vegetables, and during the last few years this subject has received much attention throughout the world. This applies in a specific sense to the western portion of the Union and North Dakota has kept pace with the great advancement. Having been a resident of the State when a territory, until the present time, and having taken an active interest in its development, I can speak understandingly upon this point. The first public movement was made November 2, 1889, at the Irrigation and Forestry Convention Devil's Lake, Ramsey Co. From that day to this these two subjects have been con

at

stantly before the public. The agitation has been carried on through mass meetings, proper handling by the press, legislative discussions, and reports from this department. Thus a marked and healthy public sentiment has been developed favorable to these two great and most important factors. And the results, though not what the most sanguine might desire, are of a practical and beneficial nature.

The progress made is indicated by the encouragement given by the press in the discussion of the subjects, the favorable laws passed by our Legislative Assembly, and the approved work of this branch of the state service, and also in putting the theory into actual operation in the sinking of artesian wells for various purposes. Besides establishing and maintaining the office of state superintendent of Irrigation and Forestry, our code contains some of the best laws in relation to irrigation which can be found in the west; all clear, concise and fitted to the water and irrigation conditions of our state. Proper provisions