State Agricultural Society. 195 



As respects California irrigation, this in time will be another of the 

 problems of doubtful solution. Here, under our laws, the. ownership of 

 the water of the unnavigable streams of the State can be acquired by 

 the first appropriator. No legislation at this time could change this 

 rule or afford an ample remedy, for much of the water is already in 

 private hands. 



The only power, then, left in the State, and one which sooner or later 

 it must exercise, is to regulate the use and the price of water for irriga- 

 tion, not with the view of making the property in water less valuable, 

 but to avoid oppression- and discrimination, and thus make it, like all 

 public enterprises, of value to the whole people. 



It has recently. been held, by the highest judicial tribunal in Italy, 

 " that canals of irrigation are not to be regarded as works designed 

 solely for the benefit of their original constructors, * * * but that 

 the general good of the community has to be considered, as well as the 

 benefit of the individuals running them." 



No sensible man will countenance the lawless idea that what a man 

 owns is not his to enjoj T , be it much or little, but it is the part of wisdom 

 to profit by the experience of the past, and, so far as possible, protect 

 by law those who cannot protect themselves, and thus guard with a 

 jealous eye the best interests of the producers of the State. 



In this State and in this climate, if we should give to any one set of 

 individuals the fee of the waters of the State for irrigation, whether 

 such persons live upon the banks of rivers or remote from them, and 

 the State have no right to regulate their use, although it would be of 

 small value and little importance now, in a few years it would be of im- 

 mense value and of the greatest importance to the farming community. 



It would give to the men who controlled the water or owned the 

 canals the power, should they choose to exercise it, of controlling every 

 farmer who depended on irrigation for his crops or upon a water ditch 

 for his stock. 



It would soon have a relation to public affairs that no power but revo- 

 lution could conquer or control. It would imperil the great future 

 already marked out for us, and set us back on the'scale of advancement 

 a quarter of a century. 



the profits op irrigation. 



There are three classes of profits in irrigation that should be consid- 

 ered: 



First — The profit arising from the direct sale and use of water for 

 irrigation and transportation. 



Second — The benefit arising from increased value of land. 



Third — Increased production. 



Under the first proposition, we can only be guided by the experience 

 of such investments in other countries. 



In the Tonjore Delta, in India, after deducting the expenses of re- 

 pairs to the canals and five per cent for use of capital, the investment 

 pays twenty-two and one half per cent per annum. 



So, also, in the Godavery Delta, the profit is enormous, the annual 

 profits to the Government from all sources' amounting to fifty per cent. 

 This seems exaggerated, so much so that I feel constrained to say that 

 my authority, the thirty -third volume Institutes of Civil Engineering, 

 eighteen hundred and seventy-two, published in London, is unquestioned. 

 It further appears that the profits of the cultivation of the soil on irri- 



