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Surely one could give up some of the products now produced by this mega farmers to save such a precious resource as the King Salomon. Now that the Pacific King Salmon season has been shut down on the entire California coast for the 2008 and 2009 seasons due to the almost total extinction of their number, citizens of California and the nation may want to ask about how the water allocation which made these barons so rich and politically powerful can be more justly shared with the entire environmental system.
The incredible reporting job done by these authors speaks to the highest traditions of that craft. The King, J.G.Boswell II, died in April 2009 but the empire he and his fore bearers built still allowed his chroniclers to drive the distance from Washington DC to Philadelphia (over 135 miles) without leaving their property.
You must admire the effective management they brought to their tasks and almost find yourself applauding their victories until you ponder the immensely adverse consequences. Their detailed, balanced account of just how Boswell and his family acquired and maintained this vast empire of cotton and other agricultural products ranks with other California water sagas such as the classic "Cadillac Desert: The American West and its Disappearing Water" by Marc Reisner.
That the Boswells and their competitors, who often joined in oligarchical goals, were clever, able, and rapacious is only part of a fascinating story. Most would agree I think that trading the magnificent salmon harvest for more Pima cotton shirts makes no sense.
This book serves as the ultimate cautionary guide to how we should not go about water allocations in this beautiful state.
As an American, I have a much deeper appreciation of how our country was formed, with all its entrepreneurial spirit and warts combined.Is the book long. After finally slogging through this giant book, I'm ready to recommend it to anybody who is interested in water and agriculture, and how the relationship between these two things has developed in the state of California. However, the length and amount of information - it was much more like reading a Michener book like Hawaii than a regular boring history book. As a Californian, I'm extremely glad I know something important about our history. Worth reading. I feel like I "lived" it by reading the pages of this long history of the Boswell family and how it has shaped not only California, but much of the agricultural system in the United States.What's more interesting to me is that the book left me with a good perspective, both good and bad, of how these giants of agriculture came to be.
Too long. This book is not a light read, and sometimes a bit confusing to follow. Yes. Though there are clearly many things that could make a person upset with the "evil big company", the incredible detail about the families, their lives, and the entire history gives some balance to the view.As an environmentalist, I hate to see what happened (with big ag). As a businessman, I can't help but be impressed. Probably.
Definitely.
In the final analysis, the Boswell's got the land, the water rights, and handed the tax-payers the bill for the construction of Pine Flat Dam on the Kings River.I feel a bit of guilt when I throw on a mass produced cotton T-shirt (e.g., I can buy a three-pack for under ten dollars). Coming from Greene County Georgia, the Boswell family built this empire largely on the backs of migrant labor and water--lots and lots of water. Because this cheap cotton underwear really isn't that cheap. One other point: on the way to becoming one of the largest landowners in California, the Boswell's forever reshaped the landscape and drained Tulare Lake.Prior to settlement, the Central Valley's river floodplain system nourished some 1.4 million acres of tule marshes and wooded wetlands. Boswell, and "Cockeye" Salyer. The proximity of such a huge, seasonal lake to a large farming operation was a mixed blessing. Boswell was determined to rein these waters in and convinced the Federal Government to help.In an errant attempt to encourage small family farms, loopholes in the reclamation laws brought most of the land in the Central Valley under the control of a handful of private landowners.
During dry years, as the shoreline contracted, the land could be transformed to grow grain or row crops. If you wanted to focus on a single family/farming empire that played the biggest role in this alternation, then you could do no better than The King of California.Tulare Lake lies near the southern end of California's Central Valley. In wet years, however, as the Sierra Nevada snow pack melted, the runoff of the Kings, Kaweah, Tule, and Kern Rivers filled this basin. And by default, you can be sure the Boswell family grew it.
This particular chapter details the rise of a farming empire in California's Central Valley. The Californian land barons went by the names of Henry Miller, J. G. The land around Tulare Lake eventually got folded into Boswell farming empire. The flooded farmland resulted in less crops, less money. If you own a piece of cotton underwear, chances are pretty good it's fibers came from land in California's Central Valley. The draining of vast sweeps of wetlands along with the damming and channeling of four major rivers has altered the landscape in both a manner and at a scale that is, quite literally, unprecedented. Mass produced cotton uses a lot of water.
The big runoff produced high flows into July and August, resulting in a vast and expanding lake shore. J.G. In fact, to grow a single T-shirt takes 257 gallons of water. The King of California tells the interesting story of how the Boswells became the single largest grower of cotton in the United States.
As a transplant to California, I picked this book up out of historical curiosity and, from that perspective, it does not disappoint. In numerous places, they abandon all journalistic detachment and express their opinion as fact, usually in a blistering condemnation of their target. The story of the Boswell Company's growth and not-infrequent run-ins with regulators and legislators is an interesting, eminently readable history of California itself. Water rights and agriculture policy are, rather dry subjects in and of themselves, but told as part of the story of this interesting family and company, they come to life.The only drawback of the book is that the authors can barely conceal their utter contempt for their subject. Consider this screed against former Los Angeles Times Publisher Harrison Gray Otis on page 83: "Otis was a fourth-rate publisher and first-rate bully who used the columns of his disgraceful newspaper to spill bile and venom at organized labor and an infinite list of enemies, real and imagined."-- Fact or Opinion. The authors' inherent bias notwithstanding, they did a good job of research and crafted an engaging narrative.
I'm not feeling real verbose so just let me say that this book illustrates so much more about US history than the mere subject of cotton suggests. The Boswell story is the American story of our moving further and further away from democratic, egalitarian principles in the pursuit of various notions of efficiency.Great book. A great non-fiction companion piece would be "Wealth and Democracy" by Kevin Philips.
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