REPORT OF IRRIGATION COMMITTEE. 147 



islation than your committee feel that they possess. After mature 

 deliberation, we have reached the -conviction that a general bill, ap 

 plicable to the whole State, can, and ought to be prepared, per 

 fected, and enacted into a law, having for its objects the utilizing of 

 all the inland waters of the State, and their uniform and equitable 

 division and distribution, under the authority and control of the 

 State, among the actual land owners of the State, regardless of 

 whether such lands yield to the hand of industry precious metals 

 only, or the less precious, but far more indispensable article of 

 bread. And to accomplish these ends we recommend the appoint 

 ment of a committee by this State Grange, to be composed of five 

 members, with authority to prepare, or cause to be prepared, the 

 draft for a bill to be presented to the next Legislature, and in that 

 regard to expend such sums of money as they shall deem to be nec 

 essary; and we further recommend that the several Subordinate 

 Granges of this State shall petition the next Legislature of Califor 

 nia for the enactment of a general law, having for its design the car 

 rying into effect the objects above mentioned. 



Recognizing the natural division of our seasons into dry and 

 rainy, and that the farmers of the State are wholly dependent for 

 remunerative crops upon a sufficient supply of water and recogniz 

 ing and looking fully in the face the further fact, that nearly all of 

 the inland waters of the State, available for the purposes of irriga 

 tion, are now under either the practical or asserted control of cor 

 porations, or confederated capital, in some form, we earnestly rec 

 ommend the adoption of the following declaration of principles, as 

 expressive of our purposes in that regard : 



1st. We hold that the inland waters of this State, not claimed by 

 the general government for navigation purposes, its lakes, rivers 

 and streams, are, and of right ought to be, the property of the 

 State, or of the people thereof, subject to their use and control, 

 through their creature, the Legislature of the State, and that each 

 inhabitant of the State is of right as much entitled to the use and 

 benefit of his equitable proportion of the inland waters of the State, 

 as he is to a sufficiency of the free air of heaven. 



2d. That the asserted proposition, that a few, or any number of 

 men, can, under the forms and privileges of a corporation, lay claim 

 to, and hold, as private property, the first right, or exclusive priv 

 ilege to use, for their own gain, to the impoverishment of the gen 

 eral public, any of the inland waters of this State, is false. That it 

 is indefensible in law or equity, and an unblushing outrage on the 

 people, and especially the farmers of this State. 



3d. That it is not only the right, but the duty of the Legislature 

 of this State, to at once take and retain the control of all the inland 

 waters of this State, and by a general law, so far as it does not con 

 flict with any of the rights of the general government, provide the 

 mode and means for dividing and surveying the whole State into Ir 

 rigation Districts, and of distributing under fixed, equitable rules, 

 the waters of each District among the land and mine owners there 

 of, whose land and mines are susceptible of being advantageously 

 supplied with water. That the State should pay the cost of laying 

 out and surveying the several districts; that the lands and mines of 

 each district, susceptible of being advantageously supplied with wa- 



