McCook weekly tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 188?-1886, 1885-01-22
REcTIFYlNG NATURE.
How Sterile Plains Have Been Made Fertile
by Means Of Irrigation-1he Artesian
Well Belt Of California Wonderful

HOW oterle fihinS nave Deen hhue( rerttie
by Means Of Irrigation-The Artesian
Well Belt Of CalifornIs-w Wonderful
Results Accomplished in
Two Years.
Tulare lake, the great, shallow inland
sea of California, writes correspond
ent of The Attd California, is surround
ed by some of the richest farming lands
of the state, but, taken as q whole, it
is about the least developed region to
be found between Siskiyou and San
Diego. The Southern Pacific railroad
runs on the east side of the lake at a
distance of ten to fifteen miles from its
shores, and a second road-the pro-
posed Bakersfield and Antioch-has
been surveyed between the lake and
the Southern Pacific. Hence the
country on this shore is better known,
and is filling up with population quite
fast. Tulare is a large and rapidly
growing towE-the most prosperous in
the county-and the land around it is
mostly divided up into small farms,
and is being planted with vines, fruit
trees, and alfalfa.
On the western shore of the lake
there are some large land-holdings,
and also considerable government land
not yet taken up, but there is no rail-
road on that side of the valley, and
though the land is rich, owing to its
inaccessibility it is not so desirable.
Both shores of the lake, however,
would long ago have been thickly set
tied AMI prosperous farming districts
had it not been for the supposed lack
of water. After rainy winter the
land will produce abundant crops of
wheat, but three years out of four it is
only good for pasturage, unless it can
be irrigated. In natural fertility of
soil no region in the state can surpass
this about Tulare. There is a deep,
rich black loan, neither too heavy nor
too light, which with sufficient irriga-
ton will produce an almost endless
succession of crops without exhaustion.
BY soil and climate the region seems
to be the natural home of the fruit tree
and the vine, possessing clear SUI
periority in at least the former re-
spect over the more sandy lands about
Fresno. DR.. Chaplin, the state in
spector of fruit pests, has testified to
the capabilities of this section as a
fruit-growing district, and has backed
his opinions in a practical way by
making an investment in lands here
abouts. West of the town of Tulare,
and for miles up and down the lake, it
is one of the most beautiful valley re-
gions in the state. There is thick
sprinkling of those magnificent oak
trees which would relieve any land
scape of monotony, even did it not
have for a background, as does this,
the majestic Nierra Nevadas, on whose
submits ga swaying line of snowy
white" now shows that the accumula-
ton of the winter SHOWS has begun.
In the spring these frozen floods will
be loosened and come down to feed
the creeks and rivers which, being di-
verified from their beds, bling wealth
and fairness to the land. There are
two important irrigating canals. one
constructed at an expense of 100000,
besides the numerous artesian wells
which will be described presently
now engaged in supplying water TO the
farmers of the immediate vicinity.
But first word about Tulare lake.
It is not the pestilential Dead sea
which it is sometimes pictured. Its
waters are strongly tinged with alkali,
but their touch is not the malignant
poison to animal and vegetable life
that they are popularity supposed to
be. The lake is well stocked with
fish, including perch, cat, and spe-
cies of trout, and the business of
catching these finny species for the
markets has become quite an industry.
Vast fiocks of ducks also inhabit the
lake, and at its southern extremity the
pot-hunters who kill game for the
markets have recently been making as
high as 500 a day per man. They sta
ton themselves in boats at dawn and
dusk at the mouths Of the sloughs, and
slaughter the birds as they pass in and
out from the lake. Sometimes the
birds fly in such immense tiocks as to
obscure the rising sun, and a gun
pointed in any direction can not fail
to bring them down in heaps. A day
or two before Thanksgiving party of
four or five hunters shipped to San
Francisco over ton of ducks, being
the proceeds of two days shooting,
and cOnsignments of one thousand or
twelve hundred pounds from the same
point are of frequent occurrence: This
sportsman's paradise has been so far
but slightly invaded by the city gun
clubs, and it may be well to say that.
the obstacles in the road thither are
considerable. For example, the lake
is so shallow on its shores that it is
impossible to launch a boat except by
dragging it a long distance, in doing
which the hunter must wade in mud
and water. But vegetable life flourish
es on the shores of the lake as thrifty
as animal life does in its depths, and
this year, the lake having receded,
some of the land over which its waves
used to roll was cultivated in wheat
ard yielded abundant crops. Some
wears ago there was q small steamer
on Tulare lake, but it has gone to de-
cav, and the vast sheet of water is now
navigated only near the shore by snail
hunting and fishing boats.
More interest has been excited in
this section by the development of a
water supply from artesian wells dur
ing the last two years than by any
other event in its history, and the facts
about the great artesian belt of Tulare