Page:The National geographic magazine, volume 1.djvu/354

 Adjacent lands were in a more or less swampy condition; ground waters stood within 10 or 20 feet of the surface, and there was no hard-pan or impermeable stratum between such surface and these waters. In other words, general swampy conditions prevailed, and malarial influences followed by chills and fevers were the result. Irrigation brought about the clearing out of many of these old channel ways, and their use as irrigating canals. The lands were cleared off and cultivated, fresh water was introduced through these channels from the main river throughout the hot months, and the swamp-like condition of the country was changed to one of a well-tilled agricultural neighborhood with streams of fresh water flowing through it; and the result, as I have said, was one happy in its effect of making the climate salubrious and healthful.

Considering now the case of the King's river or the Fresno country, the lands there were a rich alluvial deposit, abounding in vegetable matter which for long ages perhaps had been, except as wetted by the rains of winter, dry and dessicated. Soil water was deep below the surface. Then irrigation came. Owing to the nature of the soil, the whole country filled up with the water. Its absorptive qualities being great and its natural drainage defective, the vegetable matter in the soil, subjected to more or less continued excessive moisture, has decayed. The fluctuation of the surface of the ground waters at different seasons of the year—such surface being at times very near to the ground surface, and at other times 5 or 6 feet lower—has contributed to the decaying influences which the presence of the waters engendered. The result has been, when taken with the general overgrowth of the country with vegetation due to irrigation, a vitiation of the atmosphere by malarious outpourings from the soil. The advantage of the pure atmosphere of a wide and dry plain has been lost by the miasmatic poisonings arising from an over-wet and ill-drained neighborhood, with the results, as affecting human healthfulness, of which I have already spoken. The remedy is of course to drain the country. The example is but a repetition of experiences had in other countries. The energy and pluck of Californians will soon correct the matter.

George P. Marsh, in his "Man and Nature," laid it down as a rule that an effect of irrigation was to concentrate land holdings in a few hands, and he wrote an article, which was published in one of our Agricultural Department reports, in which he rather