14 THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



and more the result of bad calculation by the engineers than the result 

 of intention. Companies that intend to stay in the business are care- 

 ful not to oversell for it means too much trouble. The liability would 

 be too great and the whole community would be against them in case 

 of suits for damage which would be certain to follow whenever any 

 shortage not due to an unusual season might occur. 



But if a company is not under contract to furnish any given 

 amount of water under what obligation, moral or legal, is it to say it 

 will not supply any new land with water, because all that can be safely 

 furnished is already using it? If the only obligation is to furnish to 

 1,he first one that makes a tender of the rates and demands what he 

 says his crop needs then it is of no interest to the company if one en- 

 -tirely new man takes it all at a time of pressure from hot weather 

 when a hundred old consumers are needing it badly. If furnishing 

 under contract all consumers will be put on an equal footing and the 

 number limited. But if there are no contracts why should the com- 

 pany limit the number? And can it safely refuse one man who ten- 

 ders the rates all the water he wants, on the ground that some of his 

 neighbors, who have not yet made their demand, may want some? 

 The chances are that under a strict construction of the law the com- 

 pany would be liable for damages, and could not set up the possible 

 -needs of others as a defence. 



So far we have considered the water as coming from a flowing 

 stream in which the company gets a right to so much water, decides 

 that it can sell only so much and makes that much serve all its custo- 

 mers equally. The principle that the foremost in the scramble with a 

 demand for water and a tender of the rates is foremost in right, is bad 

 enough in such a case. But what shall we do when the water is in a 

 reservoir which is to be the great resource of the future, in fact almost 

 the only resource for many large sections? Now a company can say 

 "The capacity of this reservoir is indeed so much but we don't 

 believe it will fill every year and propose to .carry so much ahead to 

 make our patrons safe. We sell on that basis. Every man who buys 

 of us will have so much held for him against all contingencies except 

 one of those extraordinary drouths against which no one can figure 

 and which he would have to stand if he had a reservoir of his own." 



Under the other system how much water would they have in that 

 reservoir? Under what obligation, legal or moral, would the company 

 be to hold back any of it? Would not their present interest rather lie 

 in running it all out as fast as any one would pay for it? If somebody 

 .should sue for non-delivery and prove that there was so much water 

 in the reservoir at the time of his tender how could the company prove 

 it did not have the water? And what right would it have to set up the 

 possible claims of some possible irrigators? For under the no- con- 

 tract system all irrigators are merely possible irrigators, because the 

 amount of water they will want and the times and heads and runs 



