THE IKKIGATION AGE. 



171 



ADMINISTRATION OF STREAMS IN IRRIGATION. 



BY ELWOOD MEAD. WASHINGTON, D. C. 



Read before the Western Society of Engineers. 



( Continued) 



State experimental stations will be expected to con- 

 struct farm buildings and make other permanent im- 

 provements and supply necessary live stock. The de- 

 partment of agriculture will pay running expenses, fur- 

 nish seeds, trees and plants. The products will be sold 

 to create a fund for payment of the cost of buildings, 

 live stock and other expenditures. 



If necessary to discontinue the work the State 

 experimental stations will have the option of taking 

 over all rights of the Department of Agriculture, and 

 if not wishing to do this the property shall revert to 

 the Eeclamation Service and be sold for the benefit of 

 the irrigation fund. 



It is proposed by the Secretary of Agriculture 

 that the experimental farms shall be conducted with a 

 view to assisting settlers under various irrigation 

 projects with a view to assisting plants and trees so 

 as to determine the best varieties for use in the re- 

 spective localities. These farms will be object lessons 

 to prospective settlers, and it is the intention to make 

 them self-supporting. 



"Greeley is located if there be such a thing as 

 locating a baker's dozen slab shanties, as many tool- 

 chests, a great ditch and twenty acres of prickly pears ' 

 on a barren, sandy plain, part and parcel of the 

 Great American Desert, midway between a poverty- 

 stricken ranch and a prairie-dog village on two sides, 

 and a poverty-stricken ranch and a prairie-dog village 

 on t'other. It is bounded chiefly by prickly pears." 



Awakened at last to the need of public control, 

 farmers, ditch owners and a number of able attorneys 

 devoted much time and study to preparing a plan for 

 establishing rights to the river and for dividing the 

 water supply in times of scarcity. The method finally 

 agreed to required each ditch owner, or appropriator 

 of water, to appear before the district judge and pre- 

 sent proof of his right to water. The judge then ren- 

 dered a decree fixing the amounts of these rights. As 

 the shortage in the stream had shown there was not 

 enough for all, some distinction had to be made be- 

 tween rights in order to know which headgates should 

 be closed in times of scarcity. The first ditch built 

 was given the first right to the stream, and other 

 ditches rights to the remaining water in the order of 

 their construction. Each owner of a right was called 

 an appropriator, using the term "appropriation" in it? 

 ordinary sense to take for one's own. The order of 

 these appropriations was called their priority. The ap- 

 propriator having the last priority was to be the first 

 cut off whenl there was a shortage of water, while the 

 holder of the first priority could take the entire stream 

 if he needed it all to supply his right. 



When the ditch owners appeared before the court 

 neither lawyers, witnesses nor the judge had enough prac- 

 tical knowledge of irrigation to bring out the facts. 

 The testimony was given miles away from where the 

 water was used, and this encouraged witnesses to iise 

 their imagination. No one appeared except those 

 claiming a share of the stream, and, as they were all 

 disposed to be liberal to themselves, more water ran 

 through the courthouse than ever flowed in the river. 

 The result would have been grotesque if its conse- 



quences had not been so unfortunate. There had been 

 no disinterested measurement of the stream to deter- 

 mine how much water there was to be appropriated, 

 nor impartial gauging of the ditches to show how 

 much had actually been diverted. Although the de- 

 cree transferred from public to private ownership one 

 of the State's most vital resources, there was no pub- 

 lic official at these hearings to look after the public 

 welfare and keep down the rights recognized to the 

 limits of actual use. The decree gave away over 4,500 



.., UtfT. Of AOR.. BUL. 2. OFFICC OF EXPT. STATIONS. IRRIGATION INVESTIGATIONS. 



cubic feet of water per second, out of a stream whicli 

 in midsummer often carries less than 100 cubic feet 

 per second and which has an average discharge of less 

 than 700 cubic feet per second. So far as measure- 

 ments show, it has never in its highest floods carried 

 the full amount decreed. The decree was most gen- 

 erous to owners of small ditches, one of which irrigat- 

 ing 160 acres was given water enough to cover the land 



