148 1HE 1RR1 GA110N A GE. 



tained, and operated by the owner of the land at his own expense. It 

 is, however, not usually of very great length, and is comparatively 

 simple and inexpensive. In some cases the company contracts to de- 

 liver the water at some convenient point on th, tract of land to be ir- 

 rigated by it, in which cases all the lateral ditches are constructed 

 and controlled by the company. This method involves a great addi- 

 tional expense of management and operation, and is not usually 

 followed. 



The practical results from operations conducted under the cor- 

 poration regime do not materially differ, so far as the actual user of 

 water is concerned, from those realized under the auspices of the com- 

 munity organization. The farmer's success is measured and deter- 

 mined almost entirely by the certainty and permanence of a satisfac- 

 tory supply of water at a reasonably price. When these conditions 

 are fulfilled it makes little difference under what character of organ- 

 ization he operates, the advantage of one system over the other being 

 measured by the relative certainty of supply and the expense of get- 

 ting it. 



That the annual cost of water from a large corporation system is 

 in most cases greater than from the smaller partnership or community 

 canals is inevitable for several reasons. The latter are nearly always 

 constructed first and occupy the best locations for cheap diversion and 

 economical construction and do not usually require such extensive and 

 costly headworks nor such a long line of expensive canal to be con- 

 structed and maintained before the irrigable area can be reached. 

 These are advantages which the earlier enterprises have secured. In 

 addition to more expensive construction and maintenance in the case 

 of the larger canals, the salaries of general officers often materially 

 increase the fixed charges, while the interest on the investment dur- 

 ing the period between the construction of the canal and the settle- 

 ment of lands and consequent sale of water rights and the expense 

 incident to securing such settlements are always very large items of 

 expense which do not figure in the community systems. More individ- 

 ual and community canals involve scarcely greater expense in con- 

 struction and maintenance than do some of the individual and com- 

 muuity lateral ditches which have to be constructed by the irrigators 

 to convey their water from the company's main canal to their lands. 

 So if the completed main canal systems should be turned over free to 

 the land owners under them, they would have but similar advantages 

 for irrigating their lands to those which many of the earlier settlers 

 secured from the natural streams. To offset this added cost of irriga- 

 tion which often prevails under these extensive corporate canals, the 

 quality of the land covered by them is often superior to that of the 

 ands along the river bcttom and adjacent which were settled upon. 



