326 THE IRRIGATION PROBLEM. 



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

 &quot; 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.&quot; 



No sensible man will countenance the lawless idea that what a 

 man owns is not his to enjoy, be it much or little, but 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 immense 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 exer 

 cise 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 revolution could con 

 quer 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 magnitude of the questions involved in the water supply 

 of the San Joaquin Valley, and the probability that it will be 

 one of the most prominent before future Legislatures, warrants 

 a careful and critical examination of all sides of this subject. 

 The Granges desire equity to all, and the good of all, and will 

 be guided by these principles through the mazes of conflicting 

 interests which harass the limitation of powers already in the 

 hands of strong and skillful combinations. Dr. M. W. Ryer, 

 (in the Eural Press of May 1st, 1875,) has, it appears to us, 

 come most nearly to a solution of the irrigation problem. He 

 says: 



The question how to frame a law of association so that the owner 

 ship of the water and the land may go together, should be considered 

 by every politician in the State, and no candidate for legislative 

 office should be considered competent until he presents to his con 

 stituents the draft of a law covering land and water ownership. 



We have found that, by association, lands may be reclaimed frt&amp;gt;m 

 overflow. Why, by the application of similar laws, may not lands 

 be irrigated ? 



To the question, Why has not reclamation been more successful? 

 the answer is, California engineers have tried to exclude water from 

 lands by building levees of turf and spongy soil, upon land which 

 floats on a bed of mud and water. The most insane engineer in ex- 



