OCR Text |
Show VALUE Ol' IRRIGATION. California is Lle.-s.'d villi a fertile noil, Most delicious climate, treat mineral min-eral wealth and an almost unlimited quantity of valuable timber. The productiveness pro-ductiveness (if the State i.s almo.-t fabulous; fab-ulous; and since the decadence of mining min-ing a largo revenue has been derived from wheat crops und vineyards. This year the yield of the vintage is estimated esti-mated at Mime, ten millions of gallons of wine, which at the low average of a dollar a gallon would bring an even Dumber of millions into the State. But serious fears are entertained that the wheat crop in the eiiMiing harvest will be a failure. A long, dry season, with 1 scorching winds, have bad a bauei'u. ; effect on the growing grain. It has been withered up, and rain has boeo as earnestly wished for by the farmers aa new (rold lieMs in the earlier days of the State, w hen mining excitements were of frequent occurrence. Iu the climatic changes which every country experiences irrigation becomes a valuable adjunct of successful farming. farm-ing. Of course it costs much in means and labor, but in a country of mountains, moun-tains, rivers and valleys, where numberless num-berless streams permeate the breadth of the land, its value as a preventive agaiust failure iu crops through lack of rain can be scarcely over-estimated. And as a matter of expenditure to bear au iuterest certain to return, it is probable prob-able the amount lost by short crops from drouth in a scoie of years, in most grain-growing countries, would more thau cover the outby required for a complete system of irrigation. It is probable the loss to California this wa.on alone will fully equal what it would cost to dig canals and water ditches, make flumes aud carry the ! water to the land burned up for want of rain. Many people here in Utah1 are accustomed to view irrigation as an unmitigated evil; but in view of the results which a single dry season would l rrodueo without it, they may look at it from another aud entirely different: stand-point. Then, too, irrigation en-! riches the soil, and enables it to retain ' its productiveness without manuring for a much longer period than where this plan of watering is uot resorted to irrigation is a necessity in Utah, without which cereals and root crops could not be grown, we see no reason to view the absence of summer sum-mer ruius as a great evil while the mountains yield fatness to the valleys in nppung streams and rushing rivers, which bear strength to the land that is enriched by their being carried on to it. 1 Experience Las demonstrated that Tineyanls can be suecessful'y cultivated in a dry climate without irrigation; a fact which owners of bench, lands should not lose sight of. for Utah can also be made a great vine-growiEg region. |