302 MISCELLANEOUS FARM SUBJECTS 



The real problem of reducing losses is to bring the cost within the 

 limits allowed by the value of the water saved or to increase the net 

 returns due to the saving by decreasing the cost still further. (A. R. 

 Ex. S. 1907; Col. Bui. 48.) 



Co-operation. Co-operative social development is a necessary 

 feature of farm life in the arid regions. The first act of an irrigator 

 usually is to associate himself with others for the purpose of con- 

 structing a ditch and appropriating water. Co-operation can not 

 stop, however, with water development. It is equally necessary, by 

 reason of distance from large populations, to associate for the pur- 

 pose of marketing products. This co-operative spirit is favored by 

 the intensiveness of the agriculture and the consequent smallness of 

 the farms and the nearness of neighbors. Such communities, with 

 interurban lines of travel, good roads, rural delivery of mail, and the 

 numerous meetings necessitated by their canal, shipping, and other 

 organizations, will necessarily attain a degree of social development 

 far in advance of that possible to a country of large farms without 

 the incentives to organization existing in an isolated irrigated re- 

 gion. (Ex. S. Bui. 235.) 



In addition, if the farmers on a lateral take turns in using the 

 water, so that each may have a larger head of water, he need not use 

 it so long. A company having determined the area to be watered 

 by each lateral could turn into it the proportion of water to which 

 it is entitled. The farmers could arrange before the beginning of the 

 season the order and time in which each should have the use of the 

 water, and then all plan their work to that end. (Ex. S. Bui. 133.) 



The essential feature of rotation is its economy. The greatest 

 waste in irrigation comes from dribbling through farm laterals and 

 over parched fields streams too small to accomplish much more than 

 moistening the bare surface or equaling the rapid evaporation that 

 occurs under usual field conditions. Heavy unavoidable losses at- 

 tend attempts to supply all portions of an extensive system with wa- 

 ter at the same time. The use of larger heads run for only a portion 

 of the time in one section of the main canal or in one or two of the 

 main laterals, to be run in the other sections or laterals later, does 

 away with losses, lessens the time and the help necessary, and gives 

 far better results to the farmers. 



Rotation reduces evaporation and seepage losses in the main 

 canals and laterals by increasing the head and the consequent rate of 

 flow and economizes the time of the irrigators in applying water. 

 It encourages care and promptness in application by the certainty 

 that the supply will cease at a stated time whether or not the field is 

 covered, eliminates the waste of a continuous flow when not in use, 

 and aids greatly in the systematic use and delivery of water. 

 (A. R. Ex. S. 1907.) 



Water Rights. In a region of limited water supply a thorough 

 understanding of the principles of law relating to the use of water is 

 absolutely essential to harmony among irrigators and to the integ- 

 rity of farm values. Associations have been organized in compliance 

 with the principles of -beneficial use of water on land ; that particular 



