# National Geographic Magazine/Volume 1/Number 4/Irrigation in California

THE
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE.
IRRIGATION IN CALIFORNIA.
By Wm. Hammond Hall.
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Society:
When I was invited to address this society I had no material at hand on the subject. I have come to the east without any notes or memoranda whatever, from which to prepare a lecture or address, no statistical data which would make a paper valuable, no notes of characteristic facts to render an address interesting, and no time to write anything to guide me in any way to a proper treatment of the subject. Some of your members have thought that I have written something worthy of being read, and hence this invitation to address you. But, even if they are right, people who can write cannot always talk, so if I fail in this address, I shall hope, on the basis of their opinion, that you will find in the reports I have written something worthy of reading. The subject has been announced as the "Problems of Irrigation in the United States." I should like very much to speak broadly on that subject, but I am unable to do so, for the reasons I have given, and shall have to speak rather of irrigation in California, trusting that something which is said, may, perchance, be valuable in relation to the subject at large. Irrigation in the far west, generally, is attracting a vast deal of attention. This is particularly the case on the Pacific Coast—the field with which ​I am specially acquainted. I apprehend that although many gentlemen present have a far-reaching and definite appreciation of the subject at large, many others do not appreciate the value and importance of irrigation. In the arid parts of California (for we do not admit that California is as a whole arid) it is a vital matter. There it is a question of life, for the people. Not more than one-sixth of the tillable area in the State can sustain a really dense population, without irrigation; two thirds of it will not sustain even a moderate population, without irrigation; while one third will not sustain even a sparse population, without such artificial watering. Think well over these facts. They are very significant. I doubt whether they are generally appreciated in California itself.
I have no doubt many persons are familiar with the geography of the State, but, doubtless, some are not. California has a coast line of 800 miles and a width of from 140 to 240 miles. It is traversed almost throughout its length by a great mountain chain extending along near the eastern boundary, which is called the Sierra Nevada, and by a lesser range, more broken and less unified, running parallel to the coast, called the Coast Range, the southern extension of which, after joining the Sierra Nevada, is called the Sierra Madre, and at the further extremity, the San Jacinto and San Diego mountains. Within the interior of the State, looked down upon by the Sierra Nevada on the east, and closed in by the Coast Range on the west, is the great interior basin—the valley of the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers—forming a plain 450 miles long, with an average width of from 40 to 60 miles. Outside of the Sierra Madre in the southern part of the State, and within the Coast Range, is another interior valley, nearly 100 miles in length and from 20 to 30 miles in width, and outside of the Coast Range, and lying next to the ocean, is a plain whose length is from 60 to 70 miles, and width 15 to 20 miles. These three areas—the great interior valley, the southern interior valley, and the coast plain of the south—are the principal irrigation regions of the State. Numbers of smaller areas, as those in San Diego county, come in as irrigation regions of less importance, and the scattering valleys along the Coast Range farther north, as the Salinas, etc., will come forward in the future as important irrigable districts of the State. Still further north, in the interior, there are the great plains of Lassen and Mono counties, and some scattering valleys in Shasta county, where ​irrigation is also practiced or is being introduced, and these are on a par with the districts of San Diego county, in the matter of rank as irrigation regions. East of the Sierra Nevada, and at their base, lies the Owen's river country, an area suitable for irrigation, where irrigation is necessary and where it is being introduced. Upon the great Mojave desert and the Colorado desert, there is at present no irrigation. The water supply is very scanty. This is an irrigation region of the future, but it is not regarded by Californians as a practicable one at present. With this general idea of the State, we will now look at the rainfall and water supply. The State contains 157,440 square miles of territory, of which 17,747 drain into the ocean north of the Golden Gate, 21,665 drain into the ocean south of the Golden Gate, 55,942 drain into the interior basins, and 62,086 drain out at the Golden Gate. Of this territory which drains out by the Golden Gate, 26,187 square miles comprise the Sacramento valley, 31,895 square miles the San Joaquin valley, and 4,004 the country draining directly to the bays, making the 62,086 given above as the whole area.
The necessity for irrigation in California, and the relative necessity in different parts of the State, are shown by the distribution of rainfall. The San Joaquin valley has an average of less than 10 inches of rainfall, the Sacramento has an average of between 10 and 20 inches. The great deserts of the Mojave and Colorado have an average of less than 10 inches, and in certain localities only 3 to 6 inches. The Salinas valley, a small portion of the coast above Los Angeles, and a portion of the interior valley of the south, have also an average of less than 10 inches.
So, we may say, that the great irrigation regions of California have average amounts of rainfall varying from about 6 up to 20, but generally less than 10 inches. This rain is distributed in four or five months of each year, with some slight showers in one or two months other than these; the remainder of the year being absolutely dry, with no rainfall whatever. Hence, you will see at once, the necessity for the artificial application of water in California. In the older countries of Europe, where irrigation has been practiced for centuries, for instance, in Spain, where water is used more extensively than in California, the annual mean rainfall ranges between 10 and 25 inches. In the irrigation regions of France, the mean rainfall ranges from 10 to 40 inches; in the irrigation regions of Italy, the rainfall is between ​20 and 35 inches—for instance, in the valley of the Po, the classic land of irrigation, the annual precipitation is from 25 to 35 inches. There are none of these European irrigation regions where the rainfall is less than 10, and generally it is over 20 inches. But you will see that the most of the Californian irrigation regions have less than 15 inches, some less than 10, and the greatest rainfall of any large irrigable region in California is 18 inches, or, exceptionally, for smaller regions, 25 inches; while in Europe, the maxima are from 25 to 40 inches in countries where irrigation has long been practiced. It follows, then, that there is no place in Europe where it is so much needed as over a large part of California. Another reason why the necessity is felt in our Pacific Coast State, is found in the character of our soils; and not alone the surface soils, but the base of the soil—the deep subsoils. We have soils exceptionally deep; soils which extend below the surface to 50 feet, underlaid by loose sand and open gravels, so that the rainfall of winter is lost in them. The annual rain seldom runs from the surface. It follows that these lands are generally barren of vegetation without the artificial application of water.
Considering now the sources of water-supply: we have in the southern part of the State many streams which flow only for a few weeks after rainfall, and other streams which run two or three months after the rainy season. But there is not a stream in all California south of the Sierra Madre (except the Colorado, which has it sources of supply outside of the State) which flows during the summer with a greater volume than about 70 to 80 cubic feet per second—a stream 15 feet in width, 2 feet deep, and flowing at the rate of 2½ to 3 feet per second—a little stream that, in the eastern part of the continent, would be thought insignificant. The largest stream for six months in the year, in all southern California, is the Los Angeles river. The Santa Aña river, the next largest, flows from two sevenths to one third as much; the San Gabriel, the next largest, has perhaps two thirds or three fourths as much as the Santa Aña; and so, a stream which will deliver as much water as will flow in a box 4 feet wide and 1½ feet deep, at a moderate speed, during summer months, would be regarded as a good-sized irrigation feeder in that southern country. In the greater interior basin or central valley, we find other conditions. Here we have a different class of streams. The great Sierra Nevada receives snow upon its summits, which does not ​melt till May or June and July. The melting of these snows is the source of supply of the streams; so that, while in far southern California, with two or three exceptions, the greater flow of water in the streams is almost gone by June, in this central region it is the period of the height of irrigation, and the streams are flowing at their maximum. Kern river presents about 2000 to 3000 cubic feet of water per second; King's river presents in the maximum flow of the season about twice to three times as much as Kern river; the Tuolumne river about as much as King's. As we go farther north, the Sacramento river presents more than three times as much as the Tuolumne, so that in the northern part of the great valley, where the rainfall on the valley itself is greatest, and, consequently, the necessity for irrigation is least, the irrigation supply increases; and conversely, the greatest area of irrigation in the valley and the greatest necessity for it, is, in general, where the water supply is least.
About 100 years ago irrigation was commenced in California. The Roman Catholic priests, coming from Mexico where irrigation had long been practiced, introduced it. They established missions among the Indians, started cultivation, and by the labor of these Indians built the original irrigation works. The practice of irrigation was extended in San Diego county, as far as we are able to trace, to several thousand acres; in San Bernardino county in the southern interior valley, they thus cultivated and watered, perhaps 2000 acres; and in Los Angeles county there were possibly 3000 acres irrigated under Mexican rule. Traces of the old mission works are found in San Diego, San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties, and as far north as Monterey county.
Then came the gold fever, when canals were dug throughout the foot-hills of the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, for the supply of water for the mining of gold; and these canals have since, in many instances, been turned into feeders for irrigation. Several thousand miles of irrigation ditches have thus been created from old mining ditches. In 1852, a band of Mormons came from Salt Lake into the San Bernardino valley; they bought a Mexican grant rancho there, took possession of some old mission works, constructed others and started irrigating. That was probably the first irrigation colony, on a large scale, composed of others than Mexicans, in California. In 1856, some Missouri settlers went into the valley of Kern river, diverted water from that stream, and commenced irrigation upon a small scale. In 1858, the waters ​of Cache creek, in the Sacramento valley, were taken out for irrigation. In 1859, the waters of King's river were taken out and utilized for irrigation. These instances represent in general outline the commencement of irrigation in the State. Now we have in the neighborhood of 750,000 or 800,000 acres actually irrigated each year, and that represents what would ordinarily be called an irrigation area of 1,200,000 acres; and there are commanded by the works—reasonably within the reach of existing canals—an area of about 2,500,000 acres.
In the organization of irrigation enterprises there is great diversity. Commencing with the simplest form, we have a ditch constructed by the individual irrigator for his own use; we have then successively ditches constructed by associated irrigators without a definite organization, for the service of their own land only; ditches constructed by regularly organized associations of farmers, with elected officers; works constructed by farmers who have incorporated under the general laws of the State and issued stock certificates of ownership in the properties, for the service of the stockholders only; works where incorporations have been formed for the purpose of attaching water stock to lands that are to be sold, bringing in the element of speculation; then works where the organization has been effected with a view of selling water-rights; and finally, organizations that are incorporated for the purpose of selling water. There is a great difference between the principles of these methods of organization, and the practical outcome is a great difference in the service of water and in the duty of water furnished by them. In selling water, measurement of volume is made by modules—the actual amount of water delivered is measured—or it is sold by the acre served, or in proportional parts of the total available flow of the season.
The general character of the irrigation works of the State varies very much with the varying conditions under which it is practiced. In the San Joaquin valley, King's river, for instance, comes out of the mountains nearly on a level with the surface of the plain, cutting down not more than a few feet below its banks; and hence but little labor is required to divert its waters out upon the lands to be irrigated; but farther north, the Tuolumne, as another example, comes out of the mountains in a deep cañon, and the foot-hills extend far down the plain on each side. It is easily seen, then, that it will require a million or more dollars to divert from the latter stream the amount of water diverted from ​King's river by the expenditure of a few months' work, by a small force of the farmers themselves. On King's river, individual and simple coöperative effort is sufficient to bring water enough upon the plains to irrigate thousands of acres, while in the case of the Tuolumne river it is absolutely necessary to have associated capital in large amount—an entirely different principle of organization from that which was originally applied on King's river and the Kern and other rivers in the southern part of the great central valley. In discussions on the subject of irrigation some people have advanced the idea that the works should be undertaken by the farmers, and that capital should have nothing to do with them. That may do very well where the physical conditions will admit of such a course, and where nothing but the farmers' own service depends upon it; but the great majority of the streams of California are of such a character that the work of the farmers can avail nothing. There must be strong associations and large capital. For this purpose special laws are required. On the Santa Aña, in San Bernardino county, water has been easily diverted, and such is the case with every stream in the interior valley of San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties.
Capital for the first works was not required. The water was procured by primitive methods and the works were simple. But in San Diego, an entirely different condition of affairs prevailed. There the waters are back in the mountains, twenty or twenty-five miles from the coast, and the irrigable lands are close along the coast, or within ten or twelve miles of it. To bring the water out of these mountains requires the construction of ditches following the mountain sides for 20 to 35 miles. But simple ditches do not answer, because of the great quantity of water lost from them. So the companies have resorted to fluming, and even to lining the ditches with cement. Thus in San Diego, individual effort is out of the question. Farther north again, in the great interior valley, King's river is a stream where coöperative and individual effort have been efficient, although it requires a greater amount of capital there than in the southern interior valley. In the southern interior valley, perhaps, $10,000 would often build a ditch and divert all the water that the supply would furnish. On King's river the works have cost from $15,000 to $80,000 each; on Kern river the works have cost from $15,000 to $250,000 each; and on the Tuolumne they will cost from $1,000,000 to $1,200,000 apiece. On Merced river, the cost has ​been $800,000 for one work. Taking the streams from San Joaquin river north, that come out of the Sierra Nevada, up to the northern end of the valley where the Sacramento river enters it, every important stream comes into the valley within a deep gorge. The beds of several of the northern streams are so filled up with mining debris that diversion from them would be comparatively easy, but in their natural state there is not an important stream north of the San Joaquin which could be utilized for irrigation by any other means than through the agency of capital in large amount. On the west side of this great valley the tillable strip is comparatively narrow. It is on the lee side of the coast range of mountains. Precipitation is made first on the seaward face of the Coast Range, and then crosses the valley, dropping upon the inland face of the outer range very little more than upon the valley itself, where the precipitation is only about 10 inches. So that we have no streams coming out of the Coast Range into the southern part of the interior valley specially noteworthy as irrigation feeders. But as we go northward the Coast Range becomes wider, and the big mountain basin containing Clear Lake furnishes a large supply of water to Cache Creek, probably enough for 10,000 acres. Stony Creek flows between two ridges of the Coast Range, and out on to the plains, furnishing about the same amount of water; but still there are no streams from the Coast Range into the valley that are comparable with those of the Sierra Nevada. In the northeastern corner of the State, on the great plains of Modoc, we have the Pitt river, a stream of very considerable volume, but its waters are in comparatively deep channels, not very well adapted to diversion, and the consequence is, they have been utilized to a very small extent, only on small bottom-land farms. The whole stream can be utilized, however, and the country is thirsting for water.
The practice of irrigation in California is as diverse as it could well be. California, as you know, covers a very large range in latitude, but a greater range in the matter of climate and adaptability to the cultivation of crops. In the southern portion of the State, the orange and the banana and many other semi-tropical fruits flourish. In some localities along the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada, also, those fruits flourish, particularly the orange and the lemon. In the valley of San Joaquin, wheat is grown by irrigation, and in some places profitably, and in Kern county quite profitably (were it not for high transportation charges), because ​the cost of distributing and applying water has been reduced to a minimum. There the lands have been laid out with as much care and precision as the architect would lay out the stones in a building and the mason would place them. Irrigation is conducted in some Kern river districts with the greatest ease, scarcely requiring the use of the shovel. The lands are so laid off with the check levels that by simply opening gates in the proper order, as the irrigation superintendents know how, the waters flow out and cover the successive plats or "checks" in their order, without leaving any standing water, and finally flowing off without material waste. This is the perfection of irrigation by the broad or submerging system,—a method wherein the slope of the ground is first ascertained, platted by contours, and the checks to hold the water, constructed with scrapers, are then run out on slight grade contours—not perfectly level, but on very gentle slopes.
There is no portion of the far southern part of the State where the check method is applied as it is in Kern county. The practice in San Bernardino is to irrigate entirely by running water in rills between the rows of plants. Orange trees planted 24 to 30 feet apart are irrigated by rills in plough furrows, 5 to 8 between rows, down the slope of the orchard, which slope varies from about 1 foot in a hundred to 4 or 5 in a hundred. In Los Angeles county they make banks about a foot high around each individual tree, forming basins 5 or 6 to 10 or 12 feet in diameter according to the size of the tree. Into these the water is conducted by a ditch, and the basin being filled, the water is allowed to remain and soak away. The low, nearly flat valley lands, when irrigated, are generally divided into square "checks," without respect to the slope of the ground, and the surface is simply flooded in water standing 6 inches to a foot in depth.
In the northern part of the State, in Placer and Yuba counties, clover is grown on hills having side slopes of 10 to 15 feet in a hundred, and irrigated in plough furrows cut around on contours—which furrows are about 5 to 10 feet apart horizontally—and the water is allowed to soak into the ground from each such furrow.
These are the five principal methods of applying water: by the check system; by rills; by the basin method; by the basin method as applied to low valleys; and by contour ditches on hill sides. The method selected for any particular locality is determined not alone by the crop to be cultivated, but also ​by the slope of the land and the character of the soil. For instance, on lands where oranges are cultivated, in the southern part of the State, where rills are most generally used, water cannot be applied by the flooding system, for the reason that irrigation would be followed by cracking of the soil, so that the trees would be killed. It is necessary on such land to cultivate immediately after irrigation, and the method of application is governed more by the soil than by the character of the crop.
We find in California very marked and important effects fol- lowing irrigation. For instance, taking the great plains of Fresno, in the San Joaquin valley: when irrigation commenced there twenty years ago, it was 70 to 80 feet down to soil water—absolutely dry soil for nearly 80 feet—and it was the rule throughout the great plain, 20 miles in width and 25 miles in length, that soil water was beyond the reach of the suction pump; now, in places, water stands on the surface, rushes grow, mosquitos breed, malarial fevers abound, and the people are crying for drainage; and lands, whose owners paid from five to twenty dollars per acre for the right to receive water, now need drainage, and irrigation is considered unnecessary. The amount of water taken from King's river which was, a few years ago, regarded as not more than sufficient for one tenth of the land immediately commanded and that seemed to require it, is now applied to a fourth of the whole area; so that if irrigation keeps on, the time will come when the whole country will require draining.
In a district, where water is applied by the broad method, I saw in 1877 enough water, by actual measurement of flow, put on 20 acres of land to cover it 18 feet deep, in one season, could it all have been retained upon it. It simply soaked into the ground, or flowed out under the great plain. Taking cross sections of this country, north and south and east and west, I found that where the depth to soil water had, before irrigation, been about 80 feet, it was then 20, 30, 40 or 60 and more feet down to it. The soil water stood under the plain in the form of a mountain, the slope running down 40 to 50 feet in a few miles on the west and north. On the south and southwest the surface of this water-mountain was much more steep. In the Kern river country, we have a somewhat similar phenomenon. Irrigation, in the upper portion of the Kern delta, affects the water in the wells 6 or 8 miles away. As I remember the effect is felt at the rate of ​about a mile a day, that is to say, when water is used in irrigating the upper portion of the delta, or of Kern island, as it is called, the wells commence to rise a mile away in twenty-four hours, and five miles away in perhaps five days.
In the southern portion of the State, in San Bernardino county, at Riverside, we find no such effect at all. There it was 70 to 90 feet to soil water before irrigation and it is, as a general rule, 70 to 90 feet still. Water applied on the surface in some places has never even wet the soil all the way down, and wells dug there, after irrigation had been practiced for years, have pierced dry ground for 25 or 30 feet before getting down to where soil waters have wetted it from below. The consequences of these phenomena are twofold. In the first place, in the country that fills up with water, the duty of water—the quantity of land which a given amount of water will irrigate—has increased. Starting with a duty of not more than 25 acres to a cubic foot of water per second, we now find that, in some localities, this amount irrigates from 100 to 160 acres; and that some lands no longer require irrigating. In the southern portion of the State, however, the cubic foot of water irrigates no more than at first, and it is scarcely possible that it will ever irrigate much more. The saving, as irrigation goes on in the far southern portion of the State, will be effected chiefly through the better construction of canals and irrigation works of delivery and distribution. In Tulare valley, the duty of water will increase as the ground fills up.
In Fresno, a county which was regarded as phenomenally healthy, malarial fevers now are found, while in San Bernardino, at Riverside, such a thing is rarely known. Coming to Bakersfield, a region which before irrigation commenced was famed for its malarial fevers—known as unhealthful throughout all the State—where soil water was originally within 15 feet of the surface, irrigation has almost entirely rid it of the malarial effects. Chills and fever are rare now, where before irrigation they were prevalent. What is the reason that where chills and fever prevailed, irrigation has made a healthful country, while where chills and fevers were not known, irrigation has made it unhealthful? I account for it in this way: in the Kern river country before irrigation was extensively introduced, there were many old abandoned river channels and sloughs, overgrown with swamp vegetation and overhung by dense masses of rank-growing foliage. ​Adjacent lands were in a more or less swampy condition; ground waters stood within 10 or 20 feet of the surface, and there was no hard-pan or impermeable stratum between such surface and these waters. In other words, general swampy conditions prevailed, and malarial influences followed by chills and fevers were the result. Irrigation brought about the clearing out of many of these old channel ways, and their use as irrigating canals. The lands were cleared off and cultivated, fresh water was introduced through these channels from the main river throughout the hot months, and the swamp-like condition of the country was changed to one of a well-tilled agricultural neighborhood with streams of fresh water flowing through it; and the result, as I have said, was one happy in its effect of making the climate salubrious and healthful.
Considering now the case of the King's river or the Fresno country, the lands there were a rich alluvial deposit, abounding in vegetable matter which for long ages perhaps had been, except as wetted by the rains of winter, dry and dessicated. Soil water was deep below the surface. Then irrigation came. Owing to the nature of the soil, the whole country filled up with the water. Its absorptive qualities being great and its natural drainage defective, the vegetable matter in the soil, subjected to more or less continued excessive moisture, has decayed. The fluctuation of the surface of the ground waters at different seasons of the year—such surface being at times very near to the ground surface, and at other times 5 or 6 feet lower—has contributed to the decaying influences which the presence of the waters engendered. The result has been, when taken with the general overgrowth of the country with vegetation due to irrigation, a vitiation of the atmosphere by malarious outpourings from the soil. The advantage of the pure atmosphere of a wide and dry plain has been lost by the miasmatic poisonings arising from an over-wet and ill-drained neighborhood, with the results, as affecting human healthfulness, of which I have already spoken. The remedy is of course to drain the country. The example is but a repetition of experiences had in other countries. The energy and pluck of Californians will soon correct the matter.
George P. Marsh, in his "Man and Nature," laid it down as a rule that an effect of irrigation was to concentrate land holdings in a few hands, and he wrote an article, which was published in one of our Agricultural Department reports, in which he rather ​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 southeastern 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 $1.25 in this great valley to $50, $150 and even $250 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 ​southern part of the State, is held at values ranging from $500 to $5000. Such a little stream has changed hands at $5000, and not at boom prices either. In the interior prices are much less, being from about a quarter to a tenth of those in the far southern part of the State.
Fully one fourth of the United States requires irrigation. When I say that, I mean that fully one fourth the tillable area of our country requires irrigation, in order to support such a population as, for instance, Indiana has. The irrigated regions of Italy support populations of from 250 to 300 people to the square mile; of south France, from 150 to 250 people to the square mile; of southeast Spain, from 200 to 300. When we have 50 to 100 to the square mile in an agricultural region we think we have a great population.
The great interior valley of California will not support, without irrigation, an average of more than 15 to 20 people per square mile. Irrigate it and it will support as many as any other portion of the country—reasonably it will support 200 to the square mile. I have no doubt that the population will run up to ten or twelve millions in that one valley, and there are regions over this country from the Mississippi to the Pacific, millions of acres, that can be made to support a teeming population by the artificial application of water. And why has it not been done before? Simply for the reason that there is a lack of knowledge of what can be done and a lack of organization and capital to carry out the enterprises.
The government has recently placed at the disposal of the United States Geological Survey an appropriation for the investigation of this subject, to ascertain how irrigation can be secured, the cost of irrigation works, and point out the means for irrigation, in the arid regions. It is one of the wisest things Congress ever did; wise in the time and in the subject. The time will soon come when the question would have been forced upon the country, and the wisdom of preparing for that time cannot be too highly commended.