Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-10-08
AGRICULTURAL.
MArTER PREPARED SPECIALLY FOR
THE RECORD UEIoN."
Necessity for Irrigation-The Best Cow
The Horse for the Farmer Produce
for Export.

We raise wheat without irrigation and
therefore it is generally believed that irriga-
ton is not necessity TO successful agricult-
ure. But does wheat raising constitute sue
cessful agriculture If not, then the fact that
we can raise wheat without irrigation is no
argument against the necessity for irrigation
in any part of the State. Wheat raising is
one of the items or specialties that go to make
up general agriculture, just as grape raj ng or
peach or apricot culture is a specially, but
no one of these specialties alone can give to a
country character as a good agricultural
country. We have soil adapted TO almost
any culture. Our soil as a rule comes as
near to being inexhaustible as the soil of any
other known country; the fact that we have
been raising wheat for twenty-fiv to thirty
years in succession on the same soil in many
sections of the State is a proof of the valu-
able qualities of our soil. Yet this very soil
upon which wheat has been so grown will
produce but little else than the small grains.
Where the best wheat is produced, neither
potatoes, onions, cabbage, turnips, beets,
carrots, peas, beans, buckwhest or lcorn can
be produced successfully without irriga-
ton. Neither can the ordinary kinds
of hay, as timothy, redtop, red or
white clover or even alfalfa, be raised sue
cessfullY without irrigation on our best wheat
lands. Because we have been able to pro-
duce wheat for SO many years on the same
soil, it does not follow that We will always be-
able to continue to produce wheat in paying
quantities on this soil. Ga the contrary, all
experience is against this conclusion. Then
the question, what will we resort to as a sub
stitute for wheat when wheat can no longer
be profitably produced, becomes OF grave i'm
port, and it is not the part of prudent peo-
pie to put off the solution of this question
much longer. Ten or twenty years hence,
without some change in the practice of the
wheat farmers of California, may find them
unable to make living on their farms by
raising wheat, and we shall not be disap-
pointed if that point be reached quite gener-
ally in much less time. But we hear it
stated, and we believe it is now the general
opinion, that the profits of wheat culture will
hardly warrant the necessary expenditure to
bring water over the country for general irri-
cation. If wheat culture is not at the pres
ept time sufficiently profitable to
warrant this necessary outlay, will
it be twenty years hence, when the
soil is SO much exhausted that it will not
produce half the present field of wheat?
There certainly can be found no good reason
for shutting our eyes to the unpleasant pros
pect of the future Of agriculture in California
if the present prohigate course of the farmers
be continued. The popularity of our climate,
as every practical farmer well knows, rem
ders it impossible to keep up the fertility of
our soil by the usual Notwithstanding and
rotation of crsps-as practiced Ia countries
where rains are common during the
warm seasons. We have the necessary rains,
but we lack the moisture at the same time
hence our coarse manUres plowed in will net
rot and assimilste with the soil. As We can
raise no other crop on our grain lands but
grain, we cannot adopt any system of rota-
ton of crops. Some wheat farmers, seeing
the condition Of things, and the menace to
wheat culture arising therefrom, are intro
ducing more stock on their farms and are
thus endeavoring to put off the day when
their lands will become sterile and
unproducsive. This is good idea
and proves the foresight and wisdom of
those who are resorting to this change.
But every year OF their experience in sys-
tenn of join wheat and stock-raising will go
to show them how much more profitable they
COulu Iuhko lAlls nlOde VI II lucy 4idu
water at their command with which to food
their lands two or three times a year. The
wheat-farmer, under the present system, gets
the practical use of his land for only about
six months in the year or, in other words,
it takes the wheat farmer twenty years to get
ten years. growth from his land. The wheat
crop is about four months growing, and about
two months are consumed in getting the crop
harvested ard off the land. The stubble is
of no value for pasture except for the wheat
that is left upon it and the dry feed that
grew during the time the wheat crop was
growing. Ii water could be turned on TO the
wheat lands as soon as the grain was eff,
the growth for the balance of the
year would produce a crop of stock
feed very nearly or quite as valuable
as the crop of wheat. Or, with such control
of water. the farmer could produce four crops
of alfalfa during the time required TO grow
and harvest one crop of wheat, either of which
would be almost equal in value to the wheat
crop, and then could have good pasture for
his stock the balance of the year, on the same
land that had produced four crops of hay.
Now, in the above statements we have refer
ence to all the wheat sections of the State, as
well north of San Francisco as south of it.
There is not an acre of land in Sacramento,
Yolo, Solano, Colusa or Butte counties that
would not be enhanced nearly fifty per cent.
for wheat culture alone by the free introduo
ton of water for irrigation. In this state
ment we have reference to the present as well
as the future. For general agricultural pur-
poses it is impossible to estimate the enhance
ment of the value Of the land in these coun-
ties that would follow the introduction and
control of water for irrigation purposes.
We claim that irrigation, or the power
to conduct water over the cultivated lands,
is necessity not only in the southern
counties, but in all the great valleys Of the
San Joaquin and Sacramento and their
principal contributaries. 1t is true that the
southern half of the State needs irrigation
more than the northern half, but the north
ern half would be doubled in value for agri-
cultural purposes If supplied with water, so
that each farmer could use it on his fields,
when it would enhance their production. It
has always been claimed that grape vines did
not need irrigation, even on the dry
est lands, but experience has taught such
successful grape culturists as g. G.. Briggs,
of Solano, aud +. B Blowers of Yolo, that
they can at least double the value of the an
nual product of their vineyards by the use OF
water, and both these gentlemen have spent
large sums of money in the preparation of ir-
rigation works for the special purpose of irri.
eating their vines. An irrigated agriculture
is indeed the only agriculture that can sus
tain in California even a fair population to
the square mile. The Spaniards and In
dians that roamed over this country before
its settlement by Americans could get a
hslf-starved living and could support half
civilized and half .barbarous state of society,
as they did, without irrigation. And so we
can maintain the present sparse population
for years yet without the use of water for
that purpose, but we cannot break up the
large grants now held for sheep ranges, and
settle up the immense tracts of second quail
ity of lands now unoccupied in pro6tably
way by anybody, and introduce general pros
perity and high state of cultivation and
civilization, till we adopt some general plan
of utilizing the water that now runs from the
mountains to the sea each year, doing no one
any good, but on the contrary sowing desola-
ton and misery in their paths, because IN
controlled and unused.
Tha Caxu