150 THE 1RR1GT10N AGE. 



ginning work, they have little positive information as to the real ele- 

 ments of value in their investment, and they have not always done 

 this. The capitalists whose millions have been thus invested have 

 naturally been more ignorant of the principles involved than the pro- 

 moters and have often been deluded into believing that fabulous profits 

 were to be realized through such investments. 



In this manner a few irrigation works have been created through- 

 out the arid region for whose existence there was no warrant what- 

 ever, whose priority rights to the use of water are practically worth- 

 less, either for the reason that the supply never existed, or because 

 the available water had been appropriated long before the proposi- 

 tions under consideration had been conceived and executed. These 

 schemes not only work a permanent injury to the interests of legiti- 

 mate enterprises in this field and to irrigation development in general, 

 but are a menace to the future prosperity of the immigrant to the arid 

 region, who, being unacquainted with irrigation practice and unfamil- 

 iar with the principles involved, can not intelligently determine the 

 relative merits of the different propositions presented for his consid- 

 eration, and thus frequently falls a victim to the misrepresentations 

 of colonization agents, who, through the agency of elaborate and 

 beautifully executed prospectuses, present the most alluring descrip- 

 tions of the wonderful opportunities which await the settler who will 

 purchase a quarter section of land and a water right from their com- 

 panies whose canals may, in fact, be perfectly dry for ten months in 

 the year. Those who have been thus induced to invest their savings 

 in these arid land,, and worthless water rights may lose not only their 

 money, but frequently many years of time wrestling with the adverse 

 conditions growing out of their efforts to farm arid lands without a 

 sufficient supply of water. They may succeed in eking out a precari- 

 ous existence for several years, but are likely to find themselves be- 

 coming poorer with the advance of time, until at last, convinced of 

 the futility of their efforts and the hopelessness of the prospect before 

 them, they give up in despair, and, moving to some other locality, be- 

 gin anew under more favorable conditions, with less money but with 

 a vastly increased fund of information concerning the importance and 

 necessity of a safe and certain water right in order to profitably con- 

 duct agricultural operations in the arid region. 



THE DISTRICT SYSTEM. 



Another method of constructing or' otherwise obtaining a system, 

 of works for the irrigation of a given area of land is what is known as 

 the "district irrigation system." The law under which this system is 

 carried out originated in California, and although its general features 

 have been copied, with greater or less modification of details, into the 

 statutes of some other states, notably Idaho and Nebraska, the opera- 



