The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1893-05-14
HOW LANDS ARE IRRIGATED,
An Article from the Versatile
It's. Van Dyke Of San Diego.
He Treats of Irrigation as Seen in
Southern California.
The Water Supply, Methods OF Irrigs-
ton, and the Results-Why the
Section Is Prosperous
and Growing.

The following interesting article up
on Irrigation in Southern California APP
peared in the May issue OF the New
York Independent. 1t is by the TALENT
ed I. s. Van Dyke of San Diego, who has
devoted much intelligent study to the
subject OF which he treats:
1t is common impression that irri-
cation is wretched substitute for rain,
that il one will insist on living in
desert, one may worry out an existence
by irrigating. But the skillful irrigator
will tell you that rain lie only q substi-
tute for irrigation, and very poor one
at that.
Irrigation means control OF the water,
putting it on just when needed and in
the quantities needed. lts necessity
generally implies control OF the sunshine
slso; for ii is only in the lands supposed
to be afflicted with too much sunshine
that it ia much used. There is not q
farm on the Atlantic coast whose value
would not be nearly doubled If the own
or had the ordering OF his sunehine ).
and if he had the ordering OF his rain
the value OF his land would be nearly
doubled again.
When to these two advantages is
added a growing season about double
that OF the country east OF the Rocky
mountains, and for many things practic-
ally endless, the effect OF irrigation in
Southern California can be understood.
The high values of the irrigated land
there depend not alone upon the heavy
profits, which are now go easily verified
by the books of the fruit buyers as to be
beyond question, but also upon the con-
seriousness that if all markets should
fail or disease annihilate any class of
products, the owner OF one OF these
email farms could work the soil for a
living alone and defy time and fate to
drive him from 1t.
Without any irrigation the greater
part OF Southern California that is in
habited will raise for period of five or
the acre than the greater part of the
east Yet right in these places, as in
the San Gabriel valley, we find water
bringing the highest price in the Onited
States. From this most instructive
Lesson may be drawn by the east.
Wherever water can be had at prices
that the products will justify. the whale
country, from the Pacific to the Atlantic,
viii yet irrigate az surely as the next
osninry 10 born. Southern California
proves conclueively that on all land euf-
ficiently well drained to be available for
trees. vines or other valuable crops in
seasons OF excessive rain, whatever may
be 1nne without irrigation may general
ly b. doubled, tripled or even quadru-
pied with 1t.
This difference ia generally in the per-,
centage of the first grade, difference
thp he experienced frdit buyer notices
in q minute when he comes to bid on
the crop, but which the ordinary eye
may not notice. The profit on al kinds
Of i.uit is in the first grade. The lower
grades generally go towasd paying ex-,
ference between 25 per cent OF fret
grade and rs per cent would not be mo-
ticed by the majority of people while
the fruit was on the tree; but it may
mean difference between several hun
bred dollars an acre and bare wages for
the growers toll.
The amount of water needed by vegets-
ton is not represented by the sap and
iuice of the fruit, nor by the amount
needed to keep the ground moist enough
TO enable the roots to feed. It needs in
hot weather an amount far In excess of
these wants. For tree laboring with
large crop of fruit is much like man.
He must evaporate 80 much water
through his lungs and skin or he will do
little work. Every spear of lusty vege-
tation lie evaporating water like q lamp
wick in hot weather, and ii it doesn't
do as much OF it as it wants the differ
ence will show in the amount of first
grade fruit. A delay of even q week in
the coming of rain may make great
difference in the crop.
The control Of the water also permits
almost indefinite fertilization, as there
ia little danger OF burning anything.
Hence the amount of vegetation that
can be crowded on an acre is far greater
than where reliance is on the rainfall.
In some places in California three crops
year are raised for several seasons in
the young orchards, making practically
four crops year. Water from ditch
is also, to come extent, and often to q
great extent, a fertilizer itself. The
purest water from streams carries potash
and lime and other fertalizers that rain
lacks. 1t is also generally much higher
in temperature than rain, and this is a
most important factor in profitable
growth.
From these advantages 1t is easy to
see why Southern California is so pros
perous, why it went with triumph
through the reaction from folly that
would have put any other country to
sleep for 20 years, and why its irrigated
lands bring more money and sell faster
to actual settlers than in the hight of
the great boom. There never was any
boom on these lands and their value has
risen slowly but steadily for 10 years.
Without irrigation the whole would be
stock range today; for without the de-
mand caused by the irrigated tracts and
the towns and cities they create there
would be no profitable market for the
vast amount now raised on much Of the
unirrigated land.
Irrigation, as generally done here, is
intensive farming OF the most intense
kind. The soil is worked to its highest
capacity, and it takes high order of
business talent to do it. But it has
made country such as can be seen mo-
whore else, and supports in comfort and
even luxury more people to the acre
than the soil supports in any other
country peopled by the Anglo-Saxon
race. 1t brings emigrants in palace
cars instead of "prairie schooners," and
makes settlements like the suburban
residence portions of large cities instead
OF farming communities. Instead OF
one man buying out his neighbor and
throwing the two farms into one, about