extremely hard conditions, and where irrigation in almost any other portion of the world would not have been undertaken. The result has justified the faith of those who have made these efforts. While water, under all these circumstances, is worth almost fabulous prices, the use of it is extremely profitable. The late ex-Governor Waterman once stated, in a public address, that water for irrigation purposes in southern California had a market value of two thousand dollars per miner's inch, and while this may be in excess of present market rates, it is not greatly so.

In central California, where the water supply is much more abundant, and where the areas to be covered are largely in excess of those in southern California, water is furnished at a much cheaper rate, where furnished at all. Great systems have grown up in Kern, Tulare and Fresno counties. These are operated, in the main, by private corporations. Some of them furnish water for sale, but the greater number are merely used to supply lands owned by the corporations operating the systems. The great wealth of the last named counties is based almost wholly upon the use of water for irrigation. Lands without the artificial use of water are of very little value. Yet their fertility is such that, with the added use of water for irrigation purposes, they become highly productive, and of great value. Fresno county has become. celebrated the world over as a producer of fine raisins. This product is wholly the result of irrigation systems existing in that county. The same may be said of its orchards. What has been said with respect to Fresno may be equally said as to Tulare and Kern counties. These counties have become famous as producers of all kinds of fruits. The actual results attained by means of their irrigation systems are astonishing in the extreme. And yet these systems are only in their infancy. They They have been compelled, thus far, to rely wholly upon the natural flow of the streams.. No water has ever been impounded for irrigation purposes in any part of the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys. They have rivers which have an annual flow, if all their waters could be utilized, to afford an ample supply for the irrigation of all the lands in these great valleys. Kern, Kings, San Joaquin, Merced, Tuolumne and Stanislaus rivers each have an immense annual flow, which in the aggregate would easily serve all the lands in the San Joaquin Valley. It is most gratifying, indeed, to those who are interested in irrigation, to know that the general government has entered upon the pian

of impounding waters for irrigation purposes, and we have no doubt that this system will be carried out to the extent of utilizing all the waters of all the rivers wherever the same can be used for irrigation purposes. The government can very well afford to do this because it merely advances the necessary funds to be returned to it with absolute certainty, since the security afforded by the lands covered by the systems to be served is many times more than ample as security. It is not too much to hope that many of the present generation will live to see all the lands in California. which are so susceptible to irrigation, supplied with ample water for that purpose, by means of the impounding system, which has been entered upon by the government. Heretofore twenty times the water supply actually used in irrigation purposes passed on through the natural channels to the sea, without benefit to either the riparian owner or the appropriator. Such condition of things, it is not at all likely, will be permitted to exist.

The effects of the use of water for irrigation purposes may be studied with interest in those portions of the San Joaquin Valley where water has been recently furnished. It has not been many years since farming in those localities consisted in wheat-raising exclusively. For the support of a single family, the natural conditions existing in that valley required the use of several sections of land, and then farming had to be carried on with the utmost regard for economy. In those localities, where water has been recently furnished land has been quickly subdivided into twenty to forty acre tracts, and twenty homes may be found where but one existed before. There is, indeed, a bright future for irrigation in California, and prosperity heretofore unknown within its boundaries.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF VITICULTURE.

By Honorable Andrea Sbarboro.

CALIFORNIA THE LAND OF THE VINE-WHAT THE OLD PADRES DIDPOSSIBILITIES OF WINE-MAKING-MARKETS FOR CALIFORNIA WINES -PURITY OF CALIFORNIA WINES-EXPORTATION OF CALIFORNIA WINES HOW THEY SHOULD BE USED OTHER INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT GRAPE-GROWING.

The good padres who first came to California for the purpose of civilizing the wild Indians of the west are not only deserving for this good meritorious work, but the people of the new El Dorado are also greatly indebted to the good friars for having discovered the fact that California was the land of the vine.

That necessity is the mother of invention was once more verified in this

manner.

The Holy Fathers were not only accustomed to their flask of ruby wine at their meals in their mother countries, Spain, France and Italy, whence they came, but in the celebration of the holy sacrament of the mass wine was indispensable.

These learned men soon discovered to their joy that grape vines were growing everywhere along the creeks and embracing and climbing oak trees one hundred feet high, and were not long in importing from Spain the Vita Vinifera, or the vine which produces the true wine grape.

Around their Missions they set out grape cuttings, and at the end of the third year gathered the grapes from which they squeezed the healthy and exhilerating beverage which makes all wine-drinkers healthy, happy and merry persons without "stealing away their brains," like is done by the strong alcoholic beverages used in our modern times, unfortunately by a large number of the American people.

At the Mission of Santa Barbara may yet be seen one of the original