35 



sufficient to use the entire flow of the river clurinfr seasons of low 

 water when shortage woukl occur in the lower districts. 



Distrkf 1. — District 1 comprises the lands watered by the South 

 Platte and its tributaries between the mouth of Cache la Poudre and 

 the west line of AVashington County. The district can receive water 

 from all the districts above on the main stream and the tributaries 

 and is obliged to supply water to district (U below. The rights in 

 this district are in general later than those in the districts above, so 

 that it can demand little water from them. The decree defining 

 the rights in this district was rendered in 1895. The standard l\v 

 which the rights were measured was the amount of water actually 

 used. The referee found that each ditch, with four exceptions, had 

 used water to its full capacity. The four ditches excepted were held 

 not to have used water to their full capacities, and were decreed less 

 than these amounts. 



The following table gives the rights in district 1 and the prior 

 rights in lower districts: 



Rights io water in (listrict 1 and prior rights in the loirer ilistriet. 



Six reservoirs in this district supplied from torrential tributaries 

 of the South Platte have decreed rights. There are a few reser- 

 voirs, built since the decree was rendered or now under construction, 

 rights for which are undefined. Some of the large ditches in this 

 district have rights later than those in district 6-1:, and are closed by 

 the water commissioner on order of the division engineer when 

 water is scarce. 



Distnet 61^. — District 64 comprises all the lands watered by the 

 South Platte River and its tributaries between the western boundary 

 of Washington County and the Colorado-Nebraska State line. Five 

 adjudications of water rights have taken place in this district. In 

 the first adjudication, in 1894, the court found that 1 cubic foot of 

 water per second is needed for the irrigation of every 50 acres of 

 land, and that in addition there is lost by seepage and evaporation 

 25 per cent of the volume used. The decree awards water to the 



