USA > California > History of California, Volume V > Part 20
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Mutual Water Companies of the Imperial Valley. Although the members of the Anaheim colony must
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be recognized as pioneer irrigators, their work is no more praiseworthy than that of the settlers of the Imperial valley, almost half a century later.
The Imperial valley was an uninhabited desert so late as 1900. It is mostly below sea level, the bottom of Salton Sea being more than two hundred and eighty feet below sea level. Its summers are long and hot- the maximum daily temperatures ranging from ninety to one hundred twenty-six degrees Fahrenheit. Its average annual rainfall is less than three inches.
The valley is now irrigated by a main canal belonging to the California Development company and by lateral systems belonging to seven mutual water companies- known as Mutual Water companies Nos. 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 12. These mutual companies differ from the ordinary mutual companies in that they own a part only of the system. The California Development company originally owned the lateral systems and sold stock in the mutual companies for from fifteen to twenty-five dollars per share-one share of stock being appurtenant to one acre of land. The Develop- ment company charges fifty cents per acre foot for water delivered to the mutual companies.
In 1912, the seven mutual companies irrigated 228,600 acres-a remarkable showing for twelve years.
COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISES
Commercial enterprises may be divided into three groups as follows :
First-Enterprises furnishing water on a rental basis only;
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Second-Enterprises selling water rights and charg- ing either a fixed or variable annual rate in addition;
Third-Enterprises selling water rights and a pro rata interest in the irrigation system. The enterprises of this group may become mutual enterprises.
First Group of Commercial Enterprises. There are many examples of the first group among the old systems of the state. The old Moore ditch, now the property of the Yolo Water company, was started in 1856. It diverts water from Cache creek for the irrigation of lands in Yolo county. The largest system on the west side of the San Joaquin valley-the San Joaquin and Kings River Canal and Irrigation company-is another example. Many of the mining ditches con- structed during the fifties for hydraulic mining in the Sierra and foothills are now used for irrigation purposes and fall into this group.
Water is delivered by the systems of the first group on a quantity basis (that is, so much per twenty-four hours inch or per acre foot), or on a flat acreage basis at rates formerly fixed by the county board of supervisors and now fixed by the Railroad Commission.
Second Group of Commercial Enterprises. Although there are many examples of the first group, the favorite type of commercial enterprise in the past has been the second group-those selling water rights and charging an additional annual rate. Prominent examples in the San Joaquin Valley are the Fresno Canal and Irrigation company and the Consolidated Canal company, divert- ing water from Kings river for the irrigation of about 360,000 acres in Fresno county, and the Crocker-
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Huffman Land and Water company, diverting water from Merced river for the irrigation of about 60,000 acres in Merced county.
There has been much litigation over the rights of companies to charge for the so-called "water right." The most notable instance is that of the California Development company, delivering water on a contract basis to the mutual companies of the Imperial valley.
The United States circuit court of appeals in Imperial Water Company No. 5 v. Holabird (as receiver of California Development company) [197 Fed. 4], decided May 6, 1912, holds that the contract in question is void, as the company is a public service corporation and, therefore, obligated to furnish water on tender of the annual rate. The whole decision is based on the assumption that the company is a public service corporation.
The supreme court of California, however, in Thayer v. California Development Company (128 Pac. 21, 164 Cal. 117), decided November 8, 1912, holds that the company is not a public service corporation as it has not sold water to any users except those under contract with it. The court, therefore, denies the right of Thayer to receive water from the company without purchasing and holding a water right-that is, stock in one of the mutual water companies.
According to the Thayer decision, the water right contracts of enterprises of the second group will be upheld in all cases where the company has delivered water only to those holding contracts. In order to place such companies in the class of public utilities subject to the jurisdiction of the Railroad Commission,
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legislation was recently passed (approved April 30, 1913) declaring all water companies public utilities except those organized for the sole purpose of delivering water to their stockholders at cost. This act makes all irrigation companies, except mutual companies, public utilities.
Third Group of Commercial Enterprises. There are very few examples of commercial irrigation enterprises (of the first two groups) in any of the western states which have been successful financially. To the unini- tiated there seems great potential wealth in a project which will cause desert-like land, worth only a few dollars per acre, to jump to fifty or more dollars per acre. Those experienced, however, know that this great increment goes, and has gone, to the land owner and not to the water company. The successful plan adopted today is to place the enterprise in the third group-those selling water rights entitling the pur- chaser to a pro rata interest in the system. Not only are commercial enterprises so organizing, but the Reclamation Service projects and the Carey Act proj- ects, under the provisions of the respective congres- sional acts, become the property of the land owners when all charges are paid.
Recent examples of the third group are the Sacra- mento Valley Irrigation company, diverting water from the Sacramento river for the irrigation of about one hundred and fifty thousand acres in Glenn and Colusa counties, and the Patterson Land company, diverting water from the San Joaquin river for the irrigation of nineteen thousand acres in Stanislaus county.
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The big problem before such companies is coloniza- tion, rather than irrigation. The companies own the land (or most of it) under their systems and make their profits out of the sale of the land. The installa- tion of the irrigation system is but an incidental, though prominent, part of the colonization scheme. A great number of the mutual water companies of California were started as commercial enterprises of this group.
IRRIGATION LEGISLATION
Although the miners of California in the construction of ditches in the early fifties departed from the old common law doctrine of riparian rights and recognized their new doctrine of appropriation only, the former doctrine is the paramount rule in California today. The miners in each district formulated rules governing the possession of both mines and ditches and the early practice of initiating a claim-to either mineral land or water-was by posting a notice. This practice rested on local rules only for many years and was finally adopted as the statutory method in 1872.
The other western states followed the lead of Cali- fornia, but most of them have adopted better legislation during the past twenty years. Under the newer codes, one intending to appropriate water must apply to a state officer for permission to do so. The state officer, in approving the application, fixes the time of beginning and completing construction work and the application of the water to beneficial use. The applicant, there- fore, knows, before expending any money in construc- tion, just what he must accomplish so far as time is
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concerned. As it is now in California, an appropriator, after posting and recording his notice, must proceed with reasonable diligence, and just what reasonable diligence is, must, in contested cases, be decided by a jury.
California has no special procedure for adjudicating water rights. One must protect his right as he would any other property right, by suing everyone who injures him. Under the newer codes in other western states, the rights along an entire stream system are determined by a state officer or commission, specially and technically qualified, in a comparatively short time and at very little expense to the claimant.
Under the present system in California, there is no state officer whose duty it is to divide the waters of a stream in accordance with the court decrees, where such exist. After long and expensive litigation one may have the case decided in his favor, but gen- erally he must choose between physical force or more litigation in order to stop the wrongful diversions by the losing parties. Unfortunately, physical force is accepted as the only alternative to secure results, and lamentable frays between armed guards follow. Other western states have adopted statutes providing for water masters to close or partially close ditches having late rights so that the water will go down to those entitled to its first use. These water masters supervise the orderly use of irrigation water as a well organized police corps preserves order in a town.
Since 1900, many irrigators in California have been striving to secure better legislation regarding water rights. A bill containing most of the good features
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of the newer legislation in other states was passed by the legislature in 1913 and approved by the governor. Its operation has been suspended, however, by a petition to refer it to a vote of the people at the general fall election in 1914.
It is believed by those who know the successful operation of the newer irrigation codes in other western states that the opposition in California is due to lack of knowledge of the real purpose of such legislation. In southern California, the water rights on many streams have been settled by years of litigation. The owners of such rights are fearful that the new statute will necessitate more litigation for them-which is not the case. Many others, although admitting the crudeness of the present system, or lack of it, hesitate to accept a new scheme of which they are not sure. The fate of the new bill at the general election is, therefore, very uncertain.
As stated above, the doctrine of riparian rights is superior to that of appropriation in California. The supreme court of California so decided in the famous case of Lux v. Haggin (69 Cal. 255) in 1886, and has since in many cases refused to depart from its opinion therein given. A riparian owner along a stream has a right to use its waters for irrigation purposes provided he does not take more than his proportional share, considering the other riparian owners. He is not limited to any degree of reasonableness of use when attempting to restrain a diversion by an appropriator to nonriparian lands.
As the great bodies of land to be irrigated in Cali- fornia lie distant from streams-that is, are not riparian
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thereto-the riparian doctrine is an obstacle in the way of industrial development. It has been fixed upon the state by the courts and must remain until they decree otherwise-which is a consummation devoutly to be wished but not likely to be realized.
DEVELOPMENT OF UNDERGROUND WATERS
According to the census of 1909, 125,590 acres were irrigated in the arid states from flowing wells, and 308,043 acres irrigated from pumped wells. Of these totals, 55,818 acres were irrigated in California from flowing wells, and 276,595 irrigated from pumped wells. It is clear, therefore, that California far outranks the other arid states in the use of underground waters.
The census (1909) gives California 1,604 reservoirs with a total capacity of 743,269 acre-feet, and gives Colorado 1,084 reservoirs with a total capacity of 2,646,591. Arizona, Idaho, Oregon, and Wyoming are also far ahead of California in the aggregate capacity of reservoirs. Although California leads in the number of reservoirs, the great number is due to the fact that many very small reservoirs are used in connection with its pumping plants.
The reports of the United States geological survey and the United States reclamation service show that there are many reservoir sites which have not been utilized in the Coast range and in the Sierra. In southern California, however, practically all available sites for feasible reservoirs are now in use and the irrigators are turning their attention to subterranean storage. Detailed studies of water supply in southern California, particularly in the Owens valley, the San
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Bernardino valley, and the vicinity of San Diego, show the need for such underground storage on account of the tremendous losses of stored and natural waters in transit in the regular channels. This need has been so recognized by congress that public land in the "debris cones" of southern California streams has been reserved for the sole purpose of underground storage-through the artificial spreading of the flood waters of the streams over the surface.
The extended use of underground water in California, and particularly in southern California, is reflected in the resulting litigation-which has been so extensive that a new doctrine governing the use of percolating waters has been established.
Elsewhere in the western states, the common law rule of percolating waters applies-that is, such waters belong to the land owner. Under the new rule, as adopted by the supreme court of California, the land owner is restricted to a reasonable use of the water on his overlying land, and his neighbor may pump from his (the neighbor's) land to land not overlying the percolating water, provided he does not interfere with such reasonable use. The aim of the new rule is to secure a reasonable use of the percolating waters. It is very different from the riparian doctrine, governing surface waters, as, under the latter, the riparian owner may restrain a diversion to nonriparian land regardless of the reasonableness of use on the riparian land.
The new rule of percolating waters, therefore, results in economy of use and conservation of the water supply, while the riparian doctrine fortifies waste and prevents efficiency.
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THE OUTLOOK
Although the legal situation regarding irrigation water rights in California leaves room for great im- provement, it must not be concluded that it is an insurmountable obstacle in the way of irrigation development. A business house adopting the most efficient methods operates at far less cost than one which sticks to those of fifty years ago. So, in Cali- fornia, greater expenditures than in other states are necessary to perfect the water rights, but the difference in selling prices, of land irrigated and land not irrigated, is ample to stand the greater outlay.
As stated above, the problem regarding new irrigation works is one of colonization rather than one of engineer- ing. The attractiveness of the climate and the fertility of the soil insure an ever increasing population, so that the real difficulty in the way of irrigation development must disappear as the years roll on.
A & Chandler
THE CALIFORNIA FRUIT INDUSTRY
W ILD apples, pears, plums, cherries, grapes, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries, cranberries, huckleberries, elderberries, currants, etc .- practically all fruits whose names and characters are common to English speech are native to California, and the species thereof are, for the most part, different from those found wild elsewhere. Besides these, other fruits of semi-tropical fame, such as the almond, the walnut, the olive, the jujube, etc., have botanical relatives indigenous to California. The wild fruits were the delight of the aboriginal Indians and bears-many of them refreshed the throngs of gold seekers of 1849 and some still remain in local esteem. Wild fruits hang about the snow line on the mountains, crest the ridges of the foothills, festoon the river banks of the valleys, hang upon the cliffs, or spread upon the sand beaches of the ocean.
The Spanish missionaries, who reached Lower California in 1697 and entered our territory in 1769 to Christianize the Indians, established missions which comprised churches and residences and farms to render the establishments self-supporting. Between 1769 and 1823 more than a score were founded through a distance of about 500 miles along the California coast under the authority of the king of Spain and all of them had irrigated gardens which were planted with fruits from Mediterranean countries.
Thus came the first cultivated apples, cherries, pears, plums, peaches, and apricots-grown from the seed of the then popular kinds in Spain. The grape and fig
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came also in the form of cuttings. But the most sig- nificant contribution by the padres was the introduction of distinctively semi-tropical fruits: the orange, citron, lime, olive, and pomegranate. Fruits were grown in considerable quantities at the missions. The mission vineyards were of notable area and value of wine product-in fact, the beginning of the export wine trade consisted in a shipment of mission wine from Lower California to Mexico in 1707 where it was exchanged for other goods. The first commercial fruit growing by Americans was in 1850 when, securing possession of the remnants of the old mission gardens, they stimu- lated them to new production and sold the products to the inrushing gold seekers.
Fruits also came to California by way of Siberia for the Russian outpost on the coast of Mendocino county, as early as 1812, possessed an orchard of apples and cherries and some of the original trees still survive- old, mossy, and not very thrifty but still bearing fruit.
Improved fruits came to Oregon with the American pioneers as early as 1847, and trees from this stock reached California in 1851. This introduction is notable because the trees were grafted and were the first of improved and named varieties to reach the state.
Fruits came to California from everywhere. The almost fabulous prices of the early fifties, the surprising size and excellence of the fruits first grown and the sight of the semi-tropical fruits growing in the open air at the missions, stimulated the pioneers to send for fruit trees to all countries whence they had come, and an industry full of unique phases arose rapidly with
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plants from every clime and has attained an eminence in volume, value and variety of products which it is our purpose to outline.
In passing to this task, however, let it be noted that the California fruit industry is not new, but is of ancient and honorable origin. It is not generally known that at the time of the establishment of the United States as a nation, there was a larger acreage of bearing fruit trees and vines in California than in all the rest of the territory which now constitutes our national domain.
WHY DOES FRUIT GROW SO WELL IN CALIFORNIA?
California soils are prevalently deep, rich, and loamy. Not only are the alluvial deposits often of similar character to the depth of many feet, but the soils of higher lands formed by rock decomposition are also free and fertile to a notable depth. Only in spots does the planter encounter an infertile subsoil; the rule is that the roots of trees and vines strike deeply-five, ten, yes even at twenty to thirty feet below the surface, well diggers have found them helping themselves to subterranean moisture. Thus the California fruit grower who makes a good location may buy the equiva- lent of several ordinary eastern farms, one above the other, and his trees and vines will strike roots through all of them. This is one of the reasons why deciduous fruit trees in California can grow thriftily and bear large fruit, though not a drop of rain may fall during the half year of spring and summer, while at the east a few weeks of drought may seriously distress them.
Another reason why California fruits are large is the length of the growing season. The high winter
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temperature makes Februaryand March the months of bloom, then come the months which are warm enough almost everywhere and then September, October, and part of November, with temperatures still favorable for deciduous fruit ripening. Thus it appears that for these fruits California has a month or two advantage in the spring and a month or two again in the fall-at least three months advantage on the whole in the length of the growing season as compared with average eastern locations-a quarter of a year more growth for the fruit, a quarter of a year more of delightful con- ditions for outdoor labor for the man in helping the tree to do its best. But this comparison is, of course, unjust to California, for it is based only on the activity of deciduous fruit trees such as are grown in wintry climates. After this comes the season of ripening of many semi-tropical fruits-the orange, lemon, grape- fruit, olive, etc. They reach their fruitage while the deciduous trees are resting and the temperatures which favor the fruiting of these trees also encourage, in many places, the strawberry and raspberry to add another delightful fragrance to the winter air and an- other phase of deliciousness to the winter menu. All this is merely another way of saying that California has an evergrowing temperature-each fruit according to its nature spreads its bloom, makes its growth and completes its maturity without haste or hindrance. How can it escape being large, handsome, and luscious, providing man gives it the culture which meets its requirements and befits its nature?
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But there is involved a finer point still. There is in California an atmospheric quality which works together with light and heat for the development of fruit and the preparation of fruit products. The dryness of the air promotes the efficiency of sunlight: the energy of that light opens opportunity for the fullest employ- ment of heat. In a moist summer climate there is a screen invisible to the eye but nevertheless, to a degree, destructive of the efficiency of sunshine. It is to the perfect transparency of dry air that the sunlight of California owes a part of its efficiency, and the evidence thereof is the clearness and delicacy of the colors of California fruits. Moist air deepens tints and tends toward russet blemishes; the dry air tends to brilliance and to refinement. Then, too, light and heat work together in fruit chemistry and promote the production of sugars, oils, and essences whence come fruity flavors and the nutritive qualities and they continue their labors, in connection with dry air, in the preservation of fruit from decay while it is maturing, and in retaining natural colors in dried fruit so that California sun dried fruit reaches the highest standard described in the trade as "evaporated fruit."
All these factors contribute to the distinctive excellence of California fruit but all these would fail of results without the ever present promotive and pro- tective skill and devotion of the growers. California fruit growers as a class have no superiors among agricultural producers in the application of science, invention, and experimental knowledge to the promotion of their business. They have practically revolutionized
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fruit growing all the way from soil to sale. They plant, prune, cultivate, irrigate, protect, pick, pack and sell fruits according to methods they have them- selves devised. All other fruit growing states and countries study their ways and are imitating them so far as adaptable to other conditions.
But after all, the underlying secret of success in California fruit growing is the conception of the tree or vine as a producing machine which must be developed and maintained in the highest degree of efficiency. This idea of a tree widely prevails, and in commercial plantings is sharply and diligently pursued. The tree must have the best shape to bear a fair amount of large, well-developed fruit. It must be a low tree in order that all work upon it can be most cheaply done. It must grow every year a sufficient amount of strong, new wood, and to do this it must be pruned to prevent overgrowth and over-bearing. On the other hand, satisfactory growth and fruit-bearing must also be promoted by constant cultivation of the soil and by irrigation and fertilization, when necessary. It must be protected in its strength by the absolute destruction of injurious insects, blight, and diseases. All this signifies that the tree must be maintained in full possession of its producing powers, and the California grower expects to stand beside his trees, constantly training and pushing them to their work and generously assisting them to all that they need to do it well. It is this conception of the grower's relation to his trees and the discharge of the duties which such relation requires, which have brought to California fruit growing such notable success and wide repute.
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