From Martinez, another decadent little town six miles from Port Costa, we proceeded over fairly good roads to Concord and Antioch, where we turned southward into the wide plain of the San Joaquin River. It was necessary to make a long detour around the San Joaquin Delta, which has no roads. The highway angles towards Byron Hot Springs in long straight stretches. It was improved as a general thing, though we met with rough spots and sandy places occasionally. We struck one of the latter unexpectedly while bowling along at a forty-mile gait and gave a farmer who was coming towards us in a cart the scare of his life, for the car became unmanageable in the sand and started straight for him. Visions of impending disaster flashed through our minds as well, when the obstreperous machine took a tack in the opposite direction. We did not stop to discuss the occurrence with him, seeing plainly that he was in no mood for a calm consideration of the matter—but we had learned something.
A little beyond Byron Hot Springs we entered San Joaquin County and from this point we followed a splendid new boulevard as smooth and level as a floor—part of the county's new two-million road system. We coursed through the center of a wide plain, shut in by ill-defined mountains, and one of these, standing in solitary majesty against the evening sky, seemed to dominate the valley. It is Mount Diabolus, which no doubt received its appellation from some ancient padre who thought it safest to give his Satanic Majesty a habitation on this lonely peak, then so remote from the haunts of the white men.
XIV
THE NETHERLANDS OF CALIFORNIA
Stockton has a population of over forty thousand according to the 1920 census—a gain of nearly one hundred per cent in ten years. You would be likely to guess even a larger figure when you note the metropolitan appearance of the town—the broad, well-paved streets, the handsome stores, and the imposing public buildings—or when you enter Hotel Stockton, a huge, modern, concrete structure that it would be hard to match in most eastern cities of a hundred thousand. The town is situated at the gateway of a vast, fertile plain, rich in grainfields, orchards, vineyards, and garden and dairy products. It is a sightly city, with eleven public parks and numerous fine homes and churches; many streets are bordered with shade trees, the elm, maple, acacia, and umbrella tree being most common. Orange trees and palms are also plentiful, reminding one that a mild winter climate prevails in the valley.
The town was incorporated in 1850 and was named in honor of Commodore Stockton of the United States Navy, who raised the first American flag in California. It had previously existed as a mining supply camp and the site belonged to Captain Weber, who received it as a grant from the Mexican Government in 1843. It has been a quiet, steadily growing commercial center and its history has never been greatly varied by sensational incidents. Its first railroad came in 1869, its commerce having been carried previously on the San Joaquin River. To-day a canal connects the river with the heart of the city and good-sized steamers arrive and depart daily. It is also served by main lines of three great transcontinental railways, an advantage not enjoyed by many California towns.
Stockton is seldom the goal of the tourist and most travelers get their impressions of the town from a car window while enroute to or from San Francisco. Not one in a thousand of these, nor one in ten thousand who only hear of the town, knows that in its immediate vicinity, almost adjoining its borders, is the greatest and most remarkable enterprise of the kind in America. I refer to the land reclamation projects of the San Joaquin Delta, comprising the marvelously fertile tracts already under cultivation, and the efficient methods employed to ultimately reclaim a million acres of peat swamps still untilled. Thirty years ago this land was supposed to be absolutely worthless—a vast tract of upwards of a million and a half acres, covered with scrub willows and "tule"—a species of rank reed—and overflowed at times to a depth of several feet by flood and ocean tides. The soil in the main is black peat, made up of decomposed tule and sand washed in by the floods—a composition of untold fertility if properly drained and farmed.
I was especially interested in this enterprise since a pioneer in reclamation work and president of one of the largest concerns operating in the delta was an old-time college-mate who came to California some twenty-five years ago. He had little then save indomitable energy and unusual business aptitude, and with characteristic foresight he recognized the possibilities of the San Joaquin swamps when once reclaimed and properly tilled. He succeeded in interesting capitalists in the project, which has steadily grown until it has merged into the California Delta Farms Association, a ten-million-dollar corporation which owns and controls more than forty thousand acres, mostly under cultivation. The company also owns a fleet of a dozen great steam dredging plants, principally engaged in reclaiming new tracts on their own properties, though occasionally doing work for other concerns.
Besides the Delta Farms Association, there are several other large companies and individual owners operating in the delta, which now has upwards of three hundred thousand reclaimed acres, and it is said that a million more will be brought under cultivation within five or six years. The aggregate value of the land at that time will not be less than two hundred millions, figures which speak most eloquently of the almost inconceivable possibilities of the Netherlands of California, and any tourist whose convenience will permit will find himself well repaid should he stop at Stockton for the especial purpose of seeing this unique wonder of America.
We found no difficulty in arranging for a good-sized motor-boat capable of twelve to fifteen miles per hour, in charge of a man familiar with every part of the delta and well posted upon the details of farming and reclamation work. The harbor is at the foot of Washington Street, well within the confines of the city and a canal about two miles long connects with the main channel of the San Joaquin. There are no roads in the delta, the river and canals serving as highways; each tract in cultivation is surrounded by water held back by a substantial levee usually about twenty-five feet high and one hundred and fifty feet thick at the base. The tracts range from one thousand to thirteen thousand acres in size and are usually spoken of as islands. It is hard for a novice to get a clear idea of the lay of the land—the waterways twist and turn and interweave in such a baffling manner. Nor can one see over the high levees from an ordinary launch; the top of the pilot house on our boat, however, afforded views of most of the tracts. The main stream is several hundred feet wide and the canals average about twenty-four feet, with a depth of ten to fifteen feet.
The first step towards reclaiming a tract of land is to surround it by a large levee or bank of soil scooped from the swamp by great floating dredges, the resulting depression serving as a canal. When the levee is completed, the island is cleared of tule and brush and the water pumped out. It is then ready for cultivation, but breaking up the tough, fibrous peat is laborious and tedious work, which the average white man seems unwilling to do, and Oriental labor has played a big part in reclaiming the delta.