THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



87 



tion the county supervisors for the formation of 

 irrigation districts. It was required, in the case of 

 any proposed district, that the petition should con- 

 tain a description of the land, the names of the land- 

 owners, and the names of three persons whom it 

 was desired should serve as trustees for the first 

 three months. After verification and publication 

 of the petition the supervisors were required to 

 grant it. By-laws, powers of trustees, reports, and 

 assessments were briefly provided for. 

 The law was inoperative. In 1874 an 

 act was passed, applicable only in 

 Los Angeles county, providing for 

 the office of county superintendent of 

 irrigation, whose duty it should be- 

 come, upon petition of a majority of 

 the property owners in any given 

 area, to examine the plans and the 

 feasibility of any irrigation system 

 proposed therefor, and thereupon to 

 notify the county supervisors, who 

 should then call an election upon the 

 question of taxation for the construc- 

 tion of irrigation works, and the elec- 

 tion of water commissioners, only 

 taxpayers being permitted to vote in 

 any such election. There was no or- 

 ganization under that act. In 1876 

 another special act was passed cre- 

 ating the Westside irrigation district. 

 That law provided for five commis- 

 sioners, an assessor, a collector, and 

 a treasurer. It further provided for issuing 

 twenty-year 8 per cent bonds to the amount of 

 $4,000,000, to be redeemed by direct tax levy, and 

 to be a lien upon the lands within the district. 

 This also soon lapsed. 



"In 1886, however, Mr. C. C. Wright, a lawyer 

 of Modesto, who for some years had been care- 

 fully studying irrigation, and who was familiar 

 with progress in Europe and elsewhere, and who, 

 also represented a typical San Joaquin Valley com- 

 munity striving to obtain an irrigation water sup- 

 ply and to construct a community irrigation system 



in spite of opposing large landowners, was sent to 

 the legislature expressly, it has been said, to pro- 

 cure the passage of a law under which such com- 

 munities as his own could build and operate their 

 irrigation works. For ten years progressive farm- 

 ers in Stanislaus county had been advocating the 

 construction of an irrigation system to permit of 

 substituting irrigation farming for the grain farm- 

 ing that had already begun to be unprofitable. They 



In the Sierra Nevadas, the Source of a Never-Failing Supply of 



Preparing the Land in the Spring for Irrigation. 



had not, however, been able to agree on any plan. 

 The only hope seemed to lie in a law under which 

 the opposing minority could be forced into com- 

 pliance with the will of the majority, and to pay 

 their just proportion of the cost. The decision in 

 Lux vs. Haggin had just been rendered and advo- 

 cates of irrigation by appropriation were ready to 

 join enthusiastically in any measure that promised 

 relief. 



"The irrigation district act passed the legisla- 

 ture of 1887, known as the 'Wright Act,' remained 

 on the statute books for ten years, with important 

 amendments, drafted in the light of ex- 

 perience, adopted in 1889, 1891, 1893, 

 and 1895. In 1897 it was re-written, 

 considerably enlarged, and re-enacted 

 as an entirely new act, variously 

 known as the 'Bridgford Act,' the 

 'Irrigation Act of 1897,' and the'Cali- 

 fornia Irrigation District Act.' Many 

 further amendments have been made 

 from time to time, and numerous 

 supplemental acts have been passed, 

 as well as a number of acts relating 

 individually to the various districts 

 that have been organized. The more 

 important of the recent amendments 

 and supplemental acts have had to do 

 with financial aspects and state con- 

 trol. 



"Entirely aside from any value that 

 may be attached, from an academic 

 Water. standpoint, to a rather full statement 



