"Don't know, do you?" he answered himself. "Nobody pays any great and
particular amount of attention to that--you get water enough, except in
exceptional years. Out here it's different. Every one knows to the
hundredth of an inch just how much rain has fallen, and how much ought
to have fallen. It's vital. Water is King."
He gathered close the attention of his auditors.
"We have the water in California," he went on; "but it isn't always in
the right place nor does it come at the right time. You can't grow crops
in the high mountains where most of the precipitation occurs. But you
can bring that water down to the plains. That's your answer:
irrigation."
He looked from one to the other. Several nodded.
"But a man can't irrigate by himself. He can't build reservoirs, ditches
all alone. That's where a concern like the Lucky Company makes good.
We've brought the water to where you can use it. Under the influence of
cultivation that apparently worthless land can produce--" he went on at
great length detailing statistics of production. Even to Bob, who had no
vital nor practical interest, it was all most novel and convincing.
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