Report on Pit River Basin (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915 Excerpt: ... Irrigation Works. While much has been accomplished by the efforts of individual farmers, three organizations--one an incorporated company--have been largely instrumental in the irrigation development so far accomplished. The Lookout J)am Company, an association of four farmers, constructed a diversion dam on the Pit River at Lookout for the irrigation of 1,500 acres along the Pit in that vicinity. In 1884 it took over an old ditch which had been used to operate a grist mill, and built two and one-half miles of main canal by following and improving natural channels much of the distance. Recently a concrete diverting dam has been constructed at Lookout. The main canal is 5 to 10 feet wide and 2 to 5 feet deep, and is claimed to have a capacity of 50 second feet at the head. Irrigation is mainly for wild hay and, after harvest, for pasturage. In 1884 settlers along Pit River near Bieber organized a voluntary association termed the West Side Irrigation Company, which undertook to perform by cooperative effort certain work, mainly the building of rough timber dams which would raise the water over adjacent lands. About 3,000 acres of hay and alfalfa lands along Pit River in the vicinity of Bieber receives a somewhat haphazard irrigation by this system. Alfalfa is also grown to some extent on the lowlands by subirrigation. The C. W. Clark Company, an incorporated company of San Francisco, engaged extensively in the cattle business in Lassen County, has built a ditch about eleven miles long beginning five miles west of Adin and extending thence southwesterly to a point two miles below Bieber. This ditch reclaims about 5.000 acres of swampy land at the mouth of Ash Creek by diverting Ash Creek water therefrom. The water thus diverted is for an irrigation supply for...