Summering in the Sierra. Tulare Levels. John Muir Comes Down From the Mountains-Exuberant Farmers-The Story of an Irrigation Ditch-Blessed Ministry of Water. (Special Correspondence of the Bulletin.) Grangerville, Tulare Co., October 25th.

TULARE LEVELS. John Miiir C3nes Botvn froTOt the RfonnfrLlriB— Exuberant JSarmers—The Bfcary of an Irrigation Citcls—Blessed Ministry of Water, [SPECIAL COKKESPONDENCE 01? THE BULLETIN.] Geangerville, Tulabb Co., October 25th. when one comes suddenly out of the woods everything is novel. The wide arching sSy, the flowing plains, fields, dogs, horses, oxen, are beheld as never seen before, and even our feliow-bemgs are regarded with something of the same keeness and freshness of perception that is brought to the study of a new species of wild anima!. My first specimens of the perpendicular animal were a hearty, jovial company of lumbermen, redolent of pine gum, and as wholly unconventional as saw-log?. My next were found in a long string of dusty teamsters hanling lumber from the pines to the plains. These framed two well marked varieties, with distinguishing characteristics derived chit fly from the animals they drove, the one equine, the ether bovine, both of which gave forcible illustration of the Scripture, Dust thou art. At the base of the range I di?„ covered a Eocky Mountain adventurer, whose free wild life was patent in every line and sign of his countenance, and a couple of bearish bear hunters, who lived and moved and had their being in bears. JOLLY EAKSERS. Lastly, ont here in the smooth Tulare levels I find a group of gentle grangers, that, taken ail in ail, are tie most radiant and joyful set of farmers I have yet met in .California. Every specimen is bright with smiles, and challenges congratulation like home- bound prospectors who have struck it rich. Most California farmers are afflicted with dry rot, which makes these thristy fellows all the mors remarkable. It is now autumn, but their fields are yet fall ot spring. The generous soil seems unniiUng to rest, and continues to xour forth its benefactions more lavishly than the most sanguine could anticipate. Look say these jubilant fellows. as they triumphantly showed me their wealth. Look at that broom - corp, dense and impenetrable as canebreat with paniclei enough to sweep the Si ate and *\u27 that Indian corn, grown after wheat, with ears so high you cannot reach them; and at these level sheets of alfalfa mowed, heaven knows how often. I tell you, sir, we have found H out: wa want no better thing, no bigger bonanza. For the last ten years we have played at farming as at cards, speculating and gambling, scouring over thousand-acre lots with mustangs aa gang-plows, and and putties in crop after crop, that are in yet; but these dry games are played out. Two years ago we had wit enongn to construct aa irrigating ditch from King\u27s rivtr to Mussel SlcugS, big enough to moisten cur half and quarter sections, and you see the result. ALL ABOUT A DITCH. It appears, therefore, that all this physical and moial brightness flows directly from a ditch. The. village itseJf, with its schoo\u27-house and church, has come out cf the ditch. In the blocking out of the mountains by glaciers, and in their after-sculpture by torrents and avalanches, an immense quantity ot detritus is carried to the lowland?, and it wa3 in tracing these mountain chips that I was led into the Grangevilie fields. The agriculture ot a country depends upon its geology arc! climate, a fact which 1 state here for the purpose of explaining my interest In farming; besides it is hardly possible that wheat fields can ever be viewed with Indifference by one who is often hungry. Bat to return to the ditob, I find that it is three feet deep.and twenty-five feet wide at the bottom, and that the water flowed is it for the first time, about the end of last April. It appears, therefore, that this grand agricultural revival was accomplishes in six months—a fact that seems incredible on passing over She gray, arid plains out of which these green fields were made. In the application of tne water it was found that the soil became thoroughly saturated for a distance of 200 yards or more on either sides of the branch ditches, making it wholly unnecessary to overflow the fields. But so simple a method is not applicable everywhere.- The soil.of these Grangevilie fields, and of a considerable portion of the plain between them and the foothills, : is composed of a fine sandy loam, deposited by Kiaa\u27s i river floods in nearly level sheets like tlio leaves of a I book. But the greater portion of the soils of the Sac- j raroento, San Joaquin and Tulare valleys are of an i entirely different origin, and the particles of which ! they are composed are put together in quite another i way from those of ihe river deltas, so that to irrigate I them it is found necessary to spread out the water m I a sheet-over the entire surface. THE NEW ASEICTJLTUKE. With reference to irrigation, al! the lands of these valleys may be regarded as belonging to two distinct o-\u27asses—the first comprehending all that are being degraded by atmospheric weathering; the second, ail that are being elevated by deposition of fresh so:! fiom extraordiiiaiy river floods. The so-called liog- wallow lands belong to the first, all the river bottoms to the second, each requiring tlit- . ferent methods cf irrigation. But farmers j are coining to life, experiments are being made, j and the problems connected with tee watering ot i every kind of soil, are being persistently wrought out. ! The price of land in this vicinity lias nearly quadra. i pled since the completion of ihe ditch, ranging now | from about, five to thirty dollars per acre. The ; greater number of the farmers here own shares in the i ditch, and as long S3 snow falls on the mouutains ! their water is sure. The price charged for the inlga- tion of fields belonging to bnffiicrera is a dollar and a half per acre: 3Ld tnis Granger company in their first love are also offering settlers shares 01 water at prime cost. To farmers coming from the rainlands of the East it must seem hard to be obliged to buy not only land bat water, as if the first comers had taken possession of the clone\u27s. Nevertheless all seem saiisfled wilh the necessities of the new agriculture on trial, every one to wham I have put tiie question, declaring that he would rather have a ditch than a ciond ot I1I3 own. The question of water-rights m general Is beset with great, difficulties, many of the most important ditches being owned by companies, who refuse to sell a tingle share to farmers, thus forming (conditions under which the main enaDC i of the ui-ie agricultural iuuepeude-nce aeeius impossible. But notwithstanding a\u27 that and a\u27 that the thirsty grooud is being water,.d, cheerless shanties, sifted through and through with dry winds, are being displaced by true homes embowered in trees and lovingly broidered with flowers; and contentment, which in California is nerhaps the very rarest of tne virtues, is sow beginning to take root. Irrig- uons revivals are breaking out over all the glad plains, and wildcat farming is dead. John Muir.https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/1038/thumbnail.jp