Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/403

 Rh tiers, whether offered by the government, the railroads, or the great ranches, its advantages and the methods of reaching it.

It seems a little singular at first that lack of suitable lands can be adduced as a reason for lack of population in so vast a region, with the climate and other natural advantages of which so much has been said. It can only be understood by taking into account the unusual atmospheric dryness, and the important part played by water, which has to be brought upon the soil by costly contrivances. The locations where there is sufficient natural moisture for the maturing of crops are of small extent. They were among the first taken up. In much of the central and southern portions of the State the annual rain-fall is almost infinitesimal in quantity. At Bakersville, the capital of Kern County—whither our journey presently leads us—it is no more than from two to four inches. Light crops of grain and pasturage for stock may occasionally be got even under these conditions, but the only certain reliance is irrigation.

The springs and small streams were early appreciated at their value, and seized upon by persons who controlled with them great tracts of surrounding country, valueless except as watered from these sources. These tributary tracts are used chiefly as cattle and sheep ranges. A person owning five thousand acres will often have for his stock the free run of twenty thousand more. Cultivation is confined to the springs and water-courses, and becomes a succession of charming oases in a desert the superficial sterility of which is phenomenal.

The tenure of land by thousands of acres under a single ownership is a tradition from the Spanish and Mexican times. It has been much decried, as a great evil, and it is said that the State would be much more prosperous