TRANSACTIONS OP STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 87 



per acre-foot, which renders such construction commercially possible. 

 The capacity of the reservoir sites located by it in 1900 on the Kings 

 River and Cache and Stony Creeks aggregated six hundred and sixty- 

 five thousand acre-feet. Few people appreciate the fact that this water 

 so stored would justify an increased population of from one hundred 

 thousand to two hundred thousand people, would result in an increased 

 value in the lands irrigated, after deducting cost of construction 

 (five million dollars), of more than twenty million dollars, and 

 would yield an annual income of about five hundred thousand dollars. 

 Yet we sit down year after year and see these opportunities wasted, 

 because of a lack of knowledge or of interest in the subject. If data like 

 the above could be officially placed before foreign capital, the large 

 holdings of unirrigated land might be cut up and irrigated from these 

 sources, provided we passed such legislation as would encourage invest- 

 ments in these enterprises, rather than our present legislation which 

 completely throttles all such investments. 



Pumping. — The third method of developing irrigation requires no 

 argument or extended explanation. In districts where subterranean 

 flow exists, and where electrical power is available, generated either by 

 water or oil, pumping is the most economical method of irrigation. It 

 is cheaper to run a wire than to run a ditch. 



Liberal legislation should be promptly enacted encouraging the 

 investment of private capital in power plants. 



To put into successful operation the second and third plans for 

 developing irrigation, we must do one thing and do it promptly, and 

 that is enact an entirely new code of irrigation laws. Elwood Mead, 

 the recognized authority on irrigation laws and the head of the Irriga- 

 tion Bureau of the Department of Agriculture, pronounces our present 

 law as hopeless. No patching by way of amendment will cure the diffi- 

 culties. We need a brand-new code on this subject. Under the irriga- 

 tion code of Wyoming, drawn by Mead, but one lawsuit has appeared 

 in the books. Our Supreme Court reports are filled with decisions, but 

 how many irrigators consider their rights definitely settled ? Fortunes 

 have been spent in litigation. Fortunes must yet be spent if we go on 

 under our present defective system. I heard an old farmer say once 

 that among his assets were five injunctions secured against his neighbors 

 at a cost of five thousand dollars, but which netted him not one drop of 

 water. Is not that the experience of many of my readers ? There is 

 no remedy for this condition of affairs other than a new code. In order 

 to bring about these reforms so necessary to the safety and welfare of 

 the State, some unanimity of action is necessary. Citizens, no matter 

 how public-spirited they may be, can do nothing if working individually 

 or in detached bodies. In the fall of 1899 a number of public-spirited 



