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fund could be used for the purpose of reclaiming such lands, and for the construction of storage reservoirs, canals, and tunnels; and thus induce the purchase by the farmer of lands upon which he would be guarantied the necessary water for irriga

tion.

Thus all the irrigable lands in the State would be in demand by actual settlers, and money would flow in as fast as it could be utilized, and the fund would be found ample to do the work required.

Should the General Government be unwilling to make a donation of money, but will make this donation of land, the end would be accomplished, no doubt, as readily and thoroughly as by any other means.

The State has but a small tax-roll compared with other States. This board was only organized May 9, 1889. The State has appropriated $100,000, so that this board could make a beginning. It is to the General Government that we most look for aid to carry on this great work. The title to most of the irrigable land in the State is in the Government, so that should the Government assist us it would at the same time benefit itself.

The fostering care of the General Government should be extended to all the States of the Union without distinction or discrimination. Nevada, as one of the integral parts of the Union, asks that this be done in its behalf now, at a time in its history when its needs are more pressing than at any period since its organization as a State. Its mines, which for many years were the envy of the world, have very materially fallen off in their production of gold and silver, and very many of the people engaged in that industry have departed to other fields. There now remains a population of probably 63,000. Of these the great majority are engaged in other pursuits than mining. The miner, having dug his treasures from the bowels of the mountains, had no further use for the country, and left behind him only the tiller of the soil, or, to speak more in the parlance of the great West, the rancher. This individual, with a persistence worthy of better success, has made productive every acre of arable land to be found along the water-courses of the State, or where, by small expenditure, land could be irrigated, he did so with much success, considering the capital invested and the opportunities presented. There being no more land available for farming in this way, if the area of producing laud is to be increased, it must be done by a system of irrigation fostered by the General Government.

Of what that system shall consist, or how it shall be established, perhaps others more versed in such problems than ourselves should determine; but it must be done, or the State, which has within its borders thousands of acres of productive land, must remain as it is, poor in wealth and sparse in population. Such being the condition of things, can the General Government refuse to render assistance, or will it allow one of its sovereign States to languish, when a very small moiety from its treasure-house would place it in a condition of permanent prosperity, and add to that State's capacity for increasing its wealth and supplying homes for a greater number of inhabitants? Surely the policy of this great Government is broad enough, is expansive enough in its conception of what is beneficial for the good of its whole people, not to allow the parsimony of the huckster to stand in the way of aiding and fostering one of its great commonwealths.

The General Government can help solve this problem by aiding this struggling people in a manner different from the aid given to the people of other States. Nevada has no harbors within its confines to be sea-walled or dredged, nor does it ask for expensive light-houses to light the commerce of the world to its custom-house doors, nor has it a river requiring improvement or the expenditure of money to make it navigable, save, indeed, the Colorado, which in other years may be deemed a stream of sufficient importance upon which the Government may expend labor.

Nevada is particularly an inland State, and, not being in condition geographically to ask the Government for aid to be applied as other and older States do, it does not seem presumptuous or extravagant to ask for aid and assistance for a system of irrigation which, when carried out faithfully, honestly, and conscientiously, will people its confines with American citizens, and will create homes for the progeny of American citizens in a land where only educated labor and a pride in American institutions are required to make the most prosperous and happy people on the face of the globe.

IRRIGATION AND RECLAMATION OF ARID LANDS.

THE PHYSICAL FEATURES OF CALIFORNIA.

53

The State is second only in area to Texas, being 620 miles in length north or south, with a width of 150 to 200 miles east and west, and a coast line of 900 miles in extent. It ranges in climate from the temperate to the semi-tropical and in altitude from 15,000 feet above sea-level at Mount Whitney to a depth below of over 320 feet upon the Colorado Desert. Its topographical features are all on a vast scale, imposing in appearance and often strikingly sublime in their beauty. Two great mountain ranges traverse the State from north to south. The Sierra Nevada has an average of 8,500 feet, while the coast range rises from 4,000 to 6,000 feet above the level of the sea. This vast range is, indeed, the cloud-gatherer of that region, and upon its summits and high peaks break and precipitate into rain and snow, the heavy burden of the moisture driven in from the Pacific by the trade-winds of that

ocean.

Between these two ranges lie trough-like the great axial valleys of the Sacramento and San Joaquin. On either flank rise the tumultuous upheaval of the foot-hill regions. Shasta at the north, with its 14,440 feet of snow-crowned peak; Whitney, with its vast bulk in the center, and Mount San Bernardino with its 11,000 feet of rugged heights; occupying the extreme southern point of the Sierras. The great mountains look down upon grand plains, varied in character, broad in extent, and fertile in capacity, when touched by the quickening waters. Their height above sea-level, from north to south, ranges from 556 feet at Redding to but 30 feet at Sacramento, and 282 feet at Bakersfield. This is the area which has made California foremost among the wheat producing States, and is now rapidly advancing her to the first ranks among fruit-growing and wine-making regions.

THE CLIMATE AND RAIN-FALL.

The conditions governing successful irrigation in California are as varied as its topography and climate. The Sierra Nevada will show on its summits an annual precipitation of from 35 to 90 inches, or even more. The entire coast region with its numerous sunny valleys have for almost their whole extent, a rain-fall precipitated on its western slopes that is nearly sufficient for every purpose of farming and horticulture. But the eastern side of the same range south of San Francisco Bay is almost deprived of moisture. The mountain summits break the cloud-tides as they flow inward from over the ocean and compel them to discharge their moisture before it can reach the western limits of the San Joaquin plains. The 25 to 35 inches of rain-fall on the coast range, and the 40 to 90 inches on the upper Sierra, diminish rapidly until it falls from 22 inches at the head of the Sacramento Valley to less than 8 inches in the southern part of the San Joaquin. Below that it descends to less than 3 inches, while in San Diego County on its coast and eastern mountain slopes it will range again from 6 to 40 inches.

It is in this great diversity that the needs of California and the means of supplying them are both found. Storage in the mountains and good engineering in the way of distribution will add enormously to the irrigable area of this wonderful State. Every system of water usage and distribution can be found therein; its practices illustrate the primitive wastefulness common to early irrigation, and the remarkable economy in the use of water which intensive farming and horticulture have already produced in the extreme southern portions of the State. Nowhere

else in the world, except Madeira, portions of China, and Central Asia, has the "duty of water" been so thoroughly extended. As a consequence the price of land, the cost of water, and the security of crops have all grown in a steadily increasing ratio. Within twenty years land, which the owner protested against being taxed at 75 cents per acre, has been sold and is now selling at from $500 to $1,500 per acre. On the tract referred to more people are supported per acre and in greater comfort than elsewhere in the world.

The areas of fruit producing lands on which this occurs are small in extent at present, though they are quite numerous. These areas may be greatly increased by proper systems of water storage. They may be largely added to by the restoration and conservation of the underground supplies so steadily fed by the neighboring mountain drainage. It is difficult to make anything like a close approximation of the reclaimable area of California. With the water "in sight," certainly 12,000,000 acres will be a low estimate. Water storage on a grand scale, such as the conditions warrant, will insure the reclamation of at least 20,000,000 acres. A large proportion of whatever area may be reclaimed will necessarily be devoted to the raising of products possessing a high market value. Its fruits are among the best in the world. It bids fair to become the successful rival of the oldest winegrowing and wine-making lands; its nectarine, prune, grape, and orange are already found in the markets of the world. The olive, fig, lemon, date, and other semi-tropical fruits are fast becoming of great commercial importance. Nearly all these products are the direct results of irrigation. They are all benefited by it when wisely directed.

The enormous addition to the wealth of the State and to the commercial prosperity of the whole country, which is the direct result of the high culture produced by irrigation, warrants a close attention to the united appeal of the people of California for such a survey of the public lands remaining therein and of the State's capacity for water storage as will insure to them that accurate knowledge which enterprise and investment require in the conduct of great affairs.

A careful tabulation of the assessment valuations in some of the counties of the State illustrates very forcibly the great increase of wealth produced by the practice of irrigation. It must be borne in mind that the figures given are not over 50 per cent. of the real values.

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Orange County was not formed in 1879. It was then part of Los Angeles County. The ratio esti mated for increase is on one part in 1879 to four parts in 1889.

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$4,281, 969

$2,468, 642
1,871, 850
2, 312, 590
1, 295, 048
6, 305, 090
5,774, 860
2, 115, 173
1,596, 015
23, 739, 268

4,315, 461
3,879, 887
1, 849, 641
6,926, 218
10, 118, 060
2, 309, 441
2,716, 465

36, 397, 142

$1,813, 327
2, 443, 611
1,567, 297
554, 593
621, 128
4,343, 200
194, 268

1, 120, 450

12, 657, 874

The bay counties of San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin,
San Mateo, Sonoma, and Napa, present the following comparisons:

Valuation in 1879, a total of
Valuation in 1889, a total of

Making an increase of..

$333, 146, 966
449,992, 603

116, 841, 637

These counties are partly affected by irrigation, to the direct extent
at least of one-tenth part of the valuation given.

The remaining fourteen counties, of which nine are coast counties,
show the following results:

Valuation in 1879....

Valuation in 1889.

85, 283, 941

Thus it will be seen that from 1879 to 1889 the taxable valuation in-
creased from $577,949,250 to $1,092,598,297 an addition of $514,649,047.
Of this increase nearly one-half, or $248,405,414, was made in thirteen
counties, or one-fourth of the State, and is almost wholly due to irriga
tion. It may be fairly estimated that to the increase of irrigation in
California and the rise in land values, etc., as a consequence, is due at
least $350,000,000 of the total taxable increase in valuation. That will
be a marketable increase of $700,000,000.

California, though foremost in the extent and variety of its irriga
tion interests, enterprises, and methods, is behind several other com-
munities within the arid region as to its statistics and data. The oper-
ations of the State engineer's office have extended quite systematically

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over a considerable portion of the San Joaquin Valley and the section south thereof. But a full, clear, succinct statement of the irrigated areas, number of ditch systems, and the mileage, with the cost thereof, is not accessible. From a number of authorities, your committee present the best average estimate obtainable, consulting therefor the State engineer's reports, the State board of trade, evidence offered by local witnesses, and county assessors' returns to the State board of equalization. The following is given as being well within the facts:

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In the San Joaquin Valley, counties of Fresno, Merced, Kern, and
Tulare.

In the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, and San Bernardino
In San Diego County

In the remaining part of the State, twenty-four counties, where
irrigation is practiced

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Counting one-third of the mining ditches in the State as available and used for small irrigation, we have

1, 128, 000

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Total...

3,825

10, 375, 289

Without question the total valuation or cost is much below the true figures. Much of the data on which the estimates are based is taken from the assessors' returns made for the purpose of taxation. They can therefore be doubled. That will give a total cost of at least $20,000,000. The acreage is as difficult to arrive at with certainty, but it can be fairly and moderately stated as follows:

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The total acreage wholly under ditch and now irrigated is fairly within the annexed totals:

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If all the areas directly cultivated by the aid of natural sub-irrigation, etc., be added, the total area in California will certainly be not less than 3,500,000 acres. The point of interest, however, in these figures is the profitable character of such cultivation, especially in the matter of fruit-raising.

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