The herald., 1897-02-22
UNDEVELOPED WEALTH

Nine years ago Southern California
was busily engaged developing its irri-
cation systems, when wave of imam
cial depression swept over the land and
put a stop to further work. For nine
years our people have been engaged in
clearing up the wrecks taking account
of stocks, paying off old debts, and
getting ready for another wave of pros
perity, which is due before the close Of
the present year During these nine
years the population of Los Angeles has
nearly doubled; our mortgage debt has
been materially reduced, and our peo-
pie have learned lessons of economy.
A large part of the wealth of Southern
California is based on irrigation. Once
it was believed that most of our So
called arid lands must forever remain
arid in fact as we'll as in name; but
wherever the wand CT development has
been stretched out the desert has be-
come a garden.
One source of water development still
remains practically untouched. This is
the underflow of the streams. Los An
geles city is supplied today with water
developed from the underflow of the
Los Angeles river, and the development
of that unde-fow has but just begun.
Other streams remain to be drawn upon
when enterprise and capital combine to
do the work.
Another source of supply is the stor-
age reservoir. It is only about fifteen
years since the first storage reservoir
for irrigation purposes was constructed
on the Pacific coast Prior to that time
a few reservoirs had been built in Cen
tral California for mining operations.
and some of those have since been used
for irrigating purposes, but the Bear
Valley reservoir was the first one built
in California for irrigation purposes
Afterwards the Hemet reservoir was
constructed on the headwaters of the
San Jacinto river to store water to ir-
rigate a portion of the valley below.
San Diego county has already resumed
work on her storage system.
During the winter season large guam
titles Of rain and snow fall in the noun
tain regions and find their way to the
ocean before the season arrives when the
drainage streams are drawn upon for
| irriga ton. This wealth Of water has
been heretofore and is yet mostly
wasted. How to save it is the ques-
ton. There is but one way, and that
is by storing the storm water in large
reservoirs
A reservoir supply is more valuable
from an irrigation standpoint than
water flowing in streams, for the reason
that it can be held for the convenient
season and does not have to be caught
as it goes A small reservoir is of great
value to supplement flowing stroam.
! A stream contains the most water in the
| winter, when little or none is needed,
| and the last in summer, when the great
| est amount is needed. Hence the value
Of stream is measured by the amount
of water it contains in midsummer.
when it carries the least water. One
half of the water needed for irrigation
| purposes during year is used during
! the three months of June, july and Au
| gust. A stream thar would supply 1000
| inches of water during those months
with which to irrigate 5000 acres Of land
would carry enough water during the
other nine months to irrigate 10000
acres, and a storage reservoir that
could supply 1000 inches for those three
months would double the capacity of
that stream to irrigate land. For this