If you will take, on a map of California, Stockton, Sacramento, and San Francisco for guiding points, you will see that a large part of the land lying between these cities is marked "swamp and overflowed." Until within five or six years these lands attracted but little attention. It was known that they were extremely fertile, but it was thought that the cost and uncertainty of reclaiming them were too great to warrant the enterprise. Of late, however, they have been rapidly bought up by capitalists, and their sagacity has been justified by the results on those tracts which have been reclaimed.
These Tule lands—the word is pronounced as though spelled "toola"—are simply deposits of muck, a mixture of the wash or sediment brought down by the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers with the decayed vegetable matter resulting from an immense growth of various grasses, and of the reed called the "tule," which often grows ten feet high in a season, and decays every year. The Tule lands are in part the low lands along the greater rivers, but in part they are islands, lying in the delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, and separated from each other by deep, narrow "sloughs," or "slews" as they are called—branches of these rivers, in fact. Before reclamation they are overflowed commonly twice a year—in the winter, when the rains cause the rivers to rise; and again in June, when the melting of the snows on the mountains brings another rise. You may judge of the extent of this overflowed land by the following list of the principal Tule Islands:
| Acres. | |
| Robert's Island............................ | 67,000 |
| Union Island............................... | 50,000 |
| Grizzly Island.............................. | 15,000 |
| Sherman Island........................... | 14,000 |
| Grand Island............................... | 17,000 |
| Ryer Island................................. | 11,800 |
| Staten Island............................... | 8,000 |
| Bacon Island................................ | 7,000 |
| Brannan Island............................. | 7,000 |
| Bouldin Island.............................. | 5,000 |
| Mandeville Island......................... | 5,000 |
| Venice Island............................... | 4,000 |
| Tyler Island................................. | 4,000 |
| Andros Island............................... | 4,000 |
| Twitchell Island............................ | 3,600 |
| Sutter Island............................... | 3,000 |
| Joyce Island................................ | 1,500 |
| Rough and Ready Island............. | 1,500 |
| Long Island................................. | 1,000 |
| ------- | |
| In all........................... | 217,400 |
These are the largest islands; but you must understand that on the mainland, along the Sacramento and its affluents, there is a great deal of similar land, probably at least twice as much more, perhaps three times.
The swamp and overflowed lands were given by Congress to the State; and the State has, in its turn, virtually given them to private persons. It has sold them for one dollar per acre, of which twenty per cent. was paid down, or twenty cents per acre; and this money, less some small charges for recording the transfer and for inspecting the reclamation, is returned by the State to the purchaser if he, within three years after the purchase, reclaims his land. That is to say, the State gives away the land on condition that it shall be reclaimed and brought into cultivation.
During a number of years past enterprising individuals have undertaken to reclaim small tracts on these islands by diking them, but with not encouraging success, and it was not until a law was passed empowering the majority of owners of overflowed lands in any place to form a reclamation district, choose a Board of Reclamation, and levy a tax upon all the land in the district, for building and maintaining the dikes or levees that these lands really came into use.
Now, this work of draining is going on so fast that this year nearly six hundred miles of levee will be completed among the islands alone, not to speak of reclamation districts on the main-land. There seems to be a general determination to do the work thoroughly, the high floods of 1871-72 having shown the farmers and land-owners that they must build high and strong levees, or else lose all, or at least much, of their labor and outlay. During the spring of 1872 I saw huge breaks in some of the levees, which overflowed lands to the serious damage of farmers, for not only is the crop of the year lost, but orchards and vineyards, which flourish on the Tule lands, perished or were seriously injured by the waters.
Chinese labor is used almost entirely in making the levees. An engineer having planned the work, estimates are made, and thereupon Chinese foremen take contracts for pieces at stipulated rates, and themselves hire their countrymen for the actual labor. This subdivision, to which the perfect organization of Chinese labor readily lends itself, is very convenient. The engineer or master in charge of the work deals only with the Chinese foremen, pays them for the work done, and exacts of them the due performance of the contract.