24 SOUTHERN ARIZONA. 



WATER AND ITS COST. 



HAVE attempted in a brief manner to give more fully a clear 

 idea of the Salt, Gila and Colorado valleys, embraced within the 

 counties of Maricopa, Final and Yuma, and to show their 

 fertility, and demonstrate the value of their lands to those 

 seeking homes. It only remains to add a few words, general in their 

 character, in reference to the cost of reclamation of land, incident to 

 the necessity of irrigation, and the price at which reclaimed lands 

 can be purchased, and my task is done. 



The laws of Arizona permit any person to appropriate water for 

 mining and agricultural purposes, but does not sanction the English 

 common law principle of riparian rights. The territory claims the 

 power to regulate the water supply, so as to prevent undue waste, 

 and also, if occasion requires, to fix its price, so as to prevent extor- 

 tion on the part of ditch owners. 



Water has been so abundant heretofore that it has been used 

 with great prodigality. Irrigation has been by flooding, which is 

 wasteful as compared to sub-irrigation. It is doubtful if in the val- 

 leys under review there will be any necessity for a resort to those 

 methods of irrigation which entail a more economical use of water. 

 The Salt river supplies more water than all the streams in 

 Southern California combined ; the Gila, as it flows through Final, 

 Maricopa and Yuma counties, could supply water for treble the 

 quantity of land that can be brought under canals, while the Colo- 

 rado is navigable for more than one hundred miles above the town 

 of Yuma. Many of the canals in these valleys are owned by the 

 proprietors of the lands, and therefore are taxed only for keeping the 

 ditches in repair. When this is not the case, the canals sell the 

 water at a fixed rate, making a charge upon the land cultivated, 

 varying from one dollar to one dollar and a half per acre. 



In all of these counties land can be entered along canals now 

 being constructed and lands can be purchased that have been 

 already reclaimed at from ten to fifty dollars per acre, according to 

 the value of the improvements made thereon. 



