Life in the Central Valley of California 1949 Coronet Instructional Films

more at http://quickfound.net/

SHOWS MAN'S... PROVIDING WATER FOR THE NATURALLY FERTILE SOIL OF CENTRAL CALIFORNIA. PICTURES THE ABUNDANCE OF CROPS BEING PRODUCED THERE.

Originally a public domain film, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Valley_(California)

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The Central Valley is a flat valley that dominates the geographical center of the U.S. state of California. It is 40 to 60 miles (60 to 100 km) wide and stretches approximately 450 miles (720 km) from north-northwest to south-southeast, inland from and parallel to the Pacific Ocean coast. It covers approximately 18,000 square miles (47,000 km2), about 11% of California's total land area (or about the size of the Dominican Republic). The valley is bounded by the Sierra Nevada to the east and the Coast Ranges to the west.

It is California's single most productive agricultural region and one of the most productive in the world, providing more than half of the fruits, vegetables, and nuts grown in the United States. More than 7 million acres (28,000 km2) of the valley are irrigated via an extensive system of reservoirs and canals. The valley also has many major cities, including the state capital Sacramento; as well as Chico, Redding, Stockton, Modesto, Fresno, and Bakersfield.

The Central Valley watershed comprises 60,000 square miles (160,000 km2), or over a third of California. It consists of three main drainage systems: the Sacramento Valley in the north, which receives well over 20 inches (510 mm) of rain annually; the drier San Joaquin Valley in the south; and the Tulare Basin and its semi-arid desert climate at the southernmost end. The Sacramento and San Joaquin river systems drain their respective valleys and meet to form the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, a large expanse of interconnected canals, stream beds, sloughs, marshes, and peat islands. The delta empties into the San Francisco Bay, and then ultimately flows into the Pacific. The waters of the Tulare Basin essentially never flow to the ocean (with the exception of Kings River waters diverted northward for irrigation), though they are connected by man-made canals to the San Joaquin and could drain there again naturally if they were ever to rise high enough.

The valley encompasses all or parts of 18 Northern California counties: Butte, Colusa, Glenn, Fresno, Kings, Madera, Merced, Placer, San Joaquin, Sacramento, Shasta, Solano, Stanislaus, Sutter, Tehama, Tulare, Yuba, Yolo, and the Southern California county of Kern...