358 7 HE 1RRIGA 7 ION A GE. 



and smiling orchards. Within the borders of any one State ample 1 

 provision can be and generally has been made to protect and safeguard 

 the rights of first users against usurpation, of the water supply by 

 later comers. But where the sources of a river, whose water is util- 

 ized in a State for irrigation, are not within that State, but in another 

 State, it may always happen, and has happened repeatedly already, 

 that the residents of the latter State can divert the water to their own 

 use and purposes, and absolutely deprive the users of it in the other 

 State, of all right to it. An over-ruling supreme power in such cases 

 certainly appears to be called for, and could without difficulty be 

 vested in the Federal Government, or in a kind of Board of Arbitra- 

 tion formed by the States concerned. Such an arrangement should 

 give confidence to owners and users of existing irrigation facilities 

 and also to prospectors and constructors of new canals and ditches 

 that their property would not be liable to become worthless, and their 

 labor and money thrown away. If the boundaries of States requiring 

 irrigation canals could have been fixed carefully along the great 

 watersheds of the country much inconvenience and loss would have 

 been saved and litigation prevented. Lines of latitude and longitude 

 can never form such satisfactory geographical boundaries as the nat- 

 ural physical features of a country do. Creation was not made to cor- 

 respond or fit in with them in any way. To force States or countries 

 to regulate their boundaries in exact accordance with them tends to 

 cripple the States and countries and deprive them of necessary mem- 

 bers and extremities, which, falling within the border of another 

 State of generally a different agricultural type, are of little use to the 

 rest of, that State and have their capabilities and resources neglected, 

 1 or even made to suffer by adverse legislation. Such boundaries form 

 a kind of bed of Procrustes, compelling different physical types of 

 natural creation to conform to the same human legislative pattern. 

 It may be now too late to make any alterations of State boundaries; 

 but their inconveniences in the matter of allowing the same water 

 supply to belong to different States might be minimized by the pro- 

 vision of some controlling or arbitrating authority. The people of 

 America have already effected such wonders and overcome so many 

 difficulties, that they should find it quite feasible to arrange something 

 satisfactory in the settlement of disputes and troubles as to water 

 supply for irrigation purposes. 



In States where the water of streams is not required for irriga- 

 tion, riparian rights to the use or ownership of the water may reason- 

 ably be upheld. But where the water is absolutely, necessary for 

 irrigation purposes in order that the land may be cultivated and 

 inhabited, it really becomes the life blood of the country, which with- 

 out its vivifying influence permeating everywhere is -as a dead body, 



