The padres who settled California were adepts in this science. In founding a mission they always chose its site near some stream, the water of which could be turned upon the cultivated fields; and the dams, canals, and reservoirs which the padres constructed were so well built that many of them have lasted until the present time. It will seem strange to many people to learn that the highest-priced, most fertile farm lands in the United States are not to be found in the rich valleys of the Eastern states or the prairies of the middle West, but in the dry region between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Colorado, which belongs to the land of little rain, has in proportion to its size the richest mines of any state in the Union, yet the product of its farms, all irrigated, equals the output of its mineral wealth. All the flourishing towns of southern California depend for their wonderful prosperity upon the fertility of the irrigated country surrounding them. Trees and plants require water for their growth, but they do not all need it in like quantity, nor at the same time; therefore, the scientific farmer on arid lands, where there is an abundance of water for irrigation, has an immense advantage over his Eastern brother who depends for water upon the rainfall alone. While the valuable raisin crop of the Californian is drying in the sun and the slightest shower would damage, or perhaps ruin it, just beyond lies the orange orchard, the trees of which are suffering for water. The fruit, the size of a large walnut, is still hard and green, and must have an abundance of the life-giving liquid if it is to develop into the rich yellow orange, filled with delicious juice, which adorns the New Year’s market. How would our ranchman prosper if he depended upon rain? As it is, he furrows his orchard from its highest to its lowest level; then into the flume which runs parallel with the highest boundary of the grove he turns the water from pipe or reservoir, and opening the numerous little slide-doors or sluice-gates of the flume, soon has the satisfaction of seeing each furrow the bed of a running stream, the water of which sinks slowly, steadily, down to the roots of the thirsty trees. After the water has been flowing in this manner for some hours, it is shut off, for it has done enough work. In a day or two the ranchman runs the cultivator over the ground of the orchard, leaving the soil fine and crumbly and the trees in perfect condition for another six or eight weeks of growth.