12 1HE IRRIGA T10N A GE. 



of the interest on the investment must be met in some other way. 

 Over ninety-nine per cent of the irrigators of the United States have 

 recognized this and submitted cheerfully in one of three ways. 



By paying a wet price for dry land, in some cases as high as live 

 hundred dollars an acre for land that without the water would produce 

 next to nothing. 



By paying the same wet margin for stock in a company that rep- 

 resented the right to irrigate. 



By paying for what is called a "water right," which is a contract 

 or deed of water. 



But don't these amount to the same thing if you calculate interest 

 onthem? Of course they do. But human nature says no, always has 

 said no and always will say no. That settles it. All of these are sub- 

 ject to an annual payment which is just about enough to maintain the 

 works in good shape and cannot be the basis of any profit worth 

 talking about without danger of making the annual payment so high 

 as to act as a damper upon settlement. The second case makes a land 

 owner's company where the annual rates are immaterial, because if 

 there is any profit paid by the rates it would come back in dividends. 

 Hence they are set at only a maintenance figure. The first case gen- 

 erally results in a land-owner's company, the stock being turned over 

 with the land. But this is not always the effect. It generally should 

 be, as there is little chance to make any profit out of annual rentals 

 that can be safely charged upon the land. Unless the water is valua- 

 ble also for power or something similar, or some of it available for 

 city use, the stock had better be sold out with the water and the whole 

 turned over to the irrigators. In California these are the most suc- 

 cessful of all the companies and there is hardly ever any trouble in 

 them. 



These principles have stood the test of many years. Almost all 

 the irrigation of the United States has practically been done under 

 them. It is therefore safe to assume that they will continue to rule 

 for many a year to come. If principles of law founded on cases in no 

 respect parallel such as city supply step in and conflict with them 

 farewell all farther development of water for irrigation by private en- 

 terprise. Nothing remains but state or government aid and the day 

 of judgment will overhaul most of us before that machinery starts 

 running. The sooner this is regulated by statue or constitution the 

 sooner the building of irrigation works will again begin. There are 

 now many cases where the law need not stand in the way, but capital 

 once scared is scared all around. 



There are many more objections to the principle that, irrigation, 

 works must be run as city works are and that a contract for water at a 

 fixed rate is invalid. But I can stop to mention only one of them. 

 And this is so bad that it is not necessary to mention the others. 



If the landowner cannot bind himself and the agreement of the 



