1902, 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION. 



445 



the irrigation expert in charge of the 

 irrigation investigations of the office of 

 experiment stations of the Departnaent 

 of Agricnlture. 



But the ghost of State Control, hke 

 that of Banquo, will not down. Mr. 

 Mead, ever since he has held that office, 

 has used the influence which it gives 

 him to try and induce the adoption in 

 ever}^ western state of a code of water 

 laws providing for an administrative 

 system similar to that of Wyoming, 

 where the water is distributed by a corps 

 of state ditch tenders appointed by state 

 officials. 



Such a system as this is the very thing 

 that should not be created where it does 

 not alread}' exist. It puts the control 

 of the distribution of the waters of a 

 state in the hands of a great political 

 irrigation machine controlled by state 

 politicians, and raises innumerable pos- 

 sibilities of complications between the 

 state and national governments in carry- 

 ing into actual operation the National 

 Irrigation Act. 



HOME RULE IN IRRIGATION. 



What is wanted is the exact contrary 

 of this theory of a centralized political 

 state control of irrigation. 



"Home rule in irrigation" should 

 be the slogan of the irrigators of the 

 west from this time on. The individual 

 irrigator should manage the distribution 

 of the water from his own ditch on his 

 own farm. The land-owners under each 

 canal system, large or small, should 

 manage its own affairs in practically the 

 same way, distributing the water from 

 the canal to the farmers who are entitled 

 to it. Where more than one canal sys- 

 tem takes water from a single stream, 

 they should all be organized together 

 into one association to manage their 

 mutual interests and divide the water 

 among themselves. 



If public officers are necessary, each 

 drainage basin should be organized sep- 

 arately into an administrative district 

 having power to elect its own water 

 commissioners and ditch tenders. No 

 such officers should be appointed and 

 put over any irrigated community by 

 any governor or any state board of any 



kind, and no such administrative dis- 

 trict should be organized unless it is 

 done voluntarily by the irrigators them- 

 selves on their own initiative and vote. 



If this plan be followed, every drain- 

 age basin, every irrigated community, 

 every canal system, and the whole body 

 of irrigators on any stream controls its or 

 their own affairs. They can then deal 

 with the national government as a unit 

 to secure the construction by it of either 

 reservoirs or canals ; they can guaran- 

 tee the government the return of its in- 

 vestment ; they can adopt any rules and 

 regulations desired or approved by the 

 Secretary of the Interior, and all this 

 can be done without any necessity for 

 a complicated code of state laws. 



No man can tell in advance what stat- 

 utes may be needed. If we are let 

 alone, then, as communities are created 

 or plans made for building new systems, 

 either by governmental or private enter- 

 prise, statutes can be enacted when nec- 

 essary to meet the local needs as they 

 arise. The development of the laws of 

 irrigation in every state must be a grad- 

 ual evolution, following rather than pre- 

 ceding the practical experiences of the 

 irrigators themselves. 



The first task before us is to overcome 

 this movement, which has now attained 

 too much headway, in favor of the adop- 

 tion of these complicated codes of water 

 laws in every state. We do not want 

 them. They would complicate and re- 

 tard beyond calculation the operations 

 under the national irrigation act. 



WHAT STATES SHOUI.D DO. 



There are things that the states ought 

 to do, but those things are not the adop- 

 tion of complicated codes of water laws. 

 The states should establish a few simple 

 fundamental principles by constitutional 

 amendment and judicial decision. It 

 cannot be done by statutory enactment. 



Every state should adopt a constitu- 

 tional amendment to the effect that the 

 right to the use of water for irrigation 

 vests in the user and becomes appurte- 

 nant to the land irrigated, and that ben- 

 eficial use is the basis, the measure, and 

 the limit of all rights to water. 



In every state, in addition to this con- 



