The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1904-09-30

IN II launched upon the reclaim
EM. -M alton of the arid region by
government enterprise. Lands worth
three times the amount of the national
debt and capable of supporting So
oO0,000 people i'll comfort will be
Wrested from the desert and the same
process that will rescue some regions
from drought will rescue others from
food.
There is a general disposition in the
East to ask why the Government
should concern itself with such mat
ter as this. Why should it not leave
the farmers in the arid regions to
look after their own affairs, as the
farmers in other regions do? Perhaps
an account of some personal expert
ences may throw little light on this
question.
In the early eighties q study of
Nordhof's seductive book on Califor-
ma convinced me that the creation of
irrigated orchards and vineyards in
the San Joaquin Valley was the most
direct and certain route to the position
OF multi-millionaire. The figures
were irrefutable. Good land. with wa
Ter rights, could be bought for $50 an
acre. In four years, when the trees
and vines came into bearing, they
would return 5000 per acre net annual
profit and the land would be worth at
least $1,000. A years profits from 1870
acres would be $4,000, which would
buy thousand acres of fresh land.
This process could be repeated every
year In another four years there
would be 1150 acres in bearing, which
would bring in clear profit of $780,
900. In ten years from the start there
would be 47,150 acres of orchard and
vineyard. of which $3.50 acres would be
in full bearing and producing an an
nual revenue of $63O,O00. In fifteen
years there would be 574,32O acres,
worth in round figures 100000, 900
and yielding net profits of $1O,963, 200 a
year, which would be multiplied by
ten as soon as the younger trees and
vines should come to maturity.
j felt sorry for the poor Vanderbilts
and Astors, who had to get along on
$1OO,OOO,0O0 apiece. My only fear was
that there might be no land left in the
San Joaquin Valley when / got there,
but l found, to my relief, that there
was 4 considerable amount still to be
had, and l succeeded in securing $50
acres from a philanthropic real estate
agent before it was all gone. In fact,
! understand that it is not eli gone yet.
This was my first introduction to
practical irrigation, which l found
quite different from the theoretical
view l had gained of the subject at
college and from books. We got our
water flom Kings River by the method
of "prior appropriation" A number
of farmers would form a ditch COM
pany and stick up a notice somewhere
along the upper course of the river,
claiming 100 or 200 or 1000 cubic feet
of water per second, as the case might
be. Then they would pay in a little
money on their stock to meet the alb
solutely necessary cash expenses of the
ana work out the rest with
their teams and scrapers. They would
build dam of boulders and brush,
put in headgate and scrape out
trunk canal. From this each man
would dig his own branch ditch to his
own farm. Some of the canal COM
panies were organized on a more cap
italist basis, but dealt in water as
commercial speculation, but all of
them tapped the river in the same
way. 49, 'v@
Now, Kings River. like all the
streams of the arid region, had its reg
ular seasons of flood and scarcity. III
the spring it rose like little Nile.
never missing the loss. But two
months later it was trickling rivu-
let. The first dam it struck turned !
the whole stream into the neighboring
ditch. The canals lower down went |
dry. Then there was trouble. A
that had a right by prior ap-
to 200 cubic feet of water |
per second all the year round found |
itself cut off by later conner that had |
built dam higher up the river. More |
over, the great land owners on the low |
er course of the stream denied the |
right of the irrigators to divert any
water at all. They insisted Upon the |
old English riparian law. which or
dained that water should flow as it |
had been accustomed to flow.
The result was that cur particular |
ditch company, in which 1 filed the |
honorable but not lucrative Office of |
Treasurer, was involved in eight law