THE IKRIGATION AGE. 



465 



Supreme Court Decisions 



Irrigation Cases 



RIGHTS OF OWNERS. 



The most that ditch owners are entitled to claim at 

 any time is that the amounts to which they are respective- 

 ly entitled shall flow to the head gates of their ditches. 

 Kelly v. Hyncs. Supreme court of Montana. 108 Pacific 

 785. 

 EFFECT OF NOTICE TO STATE ENGINEER. 



An application to the state engineer for permission to 

 appropriate public water is merely notice of intent to ap- 

 propriate, and does not establish an appropriation. Sow- 

 artts v. Meaghcr. Supreme Court of Utah. 108 Pacific 1112. 

 RIPARIAN RIGHTS. 



An upper riparian owner may not impound all the 

 waters flowing in a stream for 14 hours out of every 24, 



has a primary right to the full flow of the stream at flood 

 in order to bring his stratum up to its water-bearing 

 capacity, though not to the extent that they may. replenish 

 his water-bearing stratum, as against the right of an ap- 

 propriator to divert any part of the waters for commercial 

 use beyond the watershed. Miller v. Bay Cities Water Co. 

 Supreme Court of California. 107 Pacific 115. 



ERECTION OF DAM. 



The owners of the right to mafntain a dam have no 

 right to rebuild and maintain a new dam in such a way 

 as to place a greater servitude or burden on the prop- 

 erty of other riparian owners than had been put upon it 

 by the maintenance of the previous dam. Greeley Irr. Co. 

 v. Von Trotha. Supre-me Court of Colorado. 108 Pacific 

 985. 



TRESPASSERS MAY ACQUIRE WATER RIGHTS. 



Trespassers upon land may acquire the exclusive 

 right to the use of water either- to irrigate land or for other 

 purposes, and, when such right is acquired, it is paramount 

 to the rights of ,the true owner or claimant of land, and 

 the water claimant, when he is dispossessed of the land, 

 may divert and use the water elsewhere, if he can so di- 



This illustration shows two Flour City Tractors manufactured by Kinnard-Haines Company of Minneapolis, Minnesota. These 

 outfits are owned and operated by Wakefield Bros., at, Mott, North Dakota. They are hauling two gangs of 8-14-inch breaker bottoms 

 and have a capacity in raw sod of from 20 to 30 acres per day each. See advertisement on page 456. 



without the consent of a lower riparian owner or a con- 

 demnation of his rights. Tacoma Eastern R. Co. v. Smith- 

 gall. Supreme Court of Washington. 108 Pacific 1091. 



FLOW FROM RESERVOIRS. 



So long as the required volume of water is maintained 

 at the heads of irrigating ditches of parties entitled to 

 water, other parties damming sources of the supply need 

 not permit any flow from their reservoirs, whether it con- 

 sists of the natural^outflow or of the conserved flood 

 water. Kelly v. Hynes. Supreme Court of Montana. 108 

 Pac ; 5c 785. ' 



JUNIOR APPROPRIATORS OF WATER. 



When a junior appropriator makes his appropriation, 

 he acquires a vested right in the conditions then prevailing 

 upon the stream and surrounding the general method of 

 use of water therefrom, and he may assume that these are 

 fixed conditions, and will remain without substantial 

 change, unless a proposed change will not work harm to 

 his vested rights. Vogel v. Minnesota Canal & Reservoir 

 Co. Supreme Court of Colorado. 107 Pacific 1108. 



UNDERGROUND WATER-BEARING STRATUM. 



The owner of land having an underground water- 

 bearing stratum supplied by the flood waters of a stream 



vert and use it. Patterson v. Ryan. Supreme Court of 

 Utah. 108 Pacific 1118. - 



SPRINGS. 



Though one may have riparian rights in a stream, 

 though its source is but a spring on the land of another, it 

 must be a stream that was wont to flow from time im- 

 memorial, and the owner of land on which a new spring 

 breaks out may make such use of the waters as he pleases, 

 though the waters, if unmolested, would cause a stream to 

 flow across another's land. Mason v. Yeanvood. Supreme 

 Court of Washington. 108 Pacific 608. 

 DAMAGES TO CROP. 



As land prepared for alfalfa will produce several crops 

 each year for several years without further care, except in 

 the way of irrigation, the measure of damages of one who 

 just after preparing his land for alfalfa, and cutting the 

 first crop, was wrongfully denied water for irrigation by a 

 water company, whereby he lost the two additional crops, 

 which, with irrigation, the land would have produced that 

 year, and a reseeding was necessary, is the value of the 

 two crops lost, less cost of irrigation and cutting, plus cost 

 of reseeding. Lowe v. Yolo County Consol. Water Co. 

 Supreme Court of California. 108 Pacific 297. 

 (Continued on page 481.) 



