100 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



Over one half million dollars worth 

 Great of irrigated land has been sold in 



Development a limited area near Great Falls, Mon- 

 In tana, within the past few months 



Montana and the demand appears to be in- 



creasing. A large per cent of the 

 buyers are farmers from Northern Illinois and 

 Southern Wisconsin and this brings to our atten- 

 tion the fact that Montana has shown more activity 

 in colonization affairs during the past year than 

 any other western state, with the possible exception 

 of Idaho. This is due, no doubt, to soil and cli- 

 matic conditions coupled with a lot of good adver- 

 tising on the part of the railroads. 



The Great Northern Railroad has been espe- 

 cially fortunate in inducing settlers to locate along 

 its line, and this brings to mind the fact that the 

 officials of that road are cautious in handling pros- 

 pective colonists as the colonization department 

 does not hesitate to advise against settlement on 

 land that is not up to standard in productiveness 

 or where water, when necessary for irrigation, is 

 not to be obtained in sufficient quantities to guaran- 

 tee crop results. This move on the part of the 

 Great Northern is commendatory and could be 

 profitably copied by colonization companies through- 

 out the country. 



This suit will no doubt bring all the facts to 

 the surface and further developments in the case 

 will be presented in future issues of THE IRRIGATION 

 AGE. 



The Klamath Water Users Associa- 

 Klamath tion, Klamath Falls Oregon, has de- 



Water Users cided to institute suit in an effort 

 Bring Suit to prevent the operation of the con- 

 For Rights tract recently made between Sec- 

 retary of the Interior Lane and the 

 California-Oregon Power company of that place, 

 whereby the secretary leased to the power company 

 the Keno irrigation canal and also granted them 

 a right to construct a dam across Link River at 

 the lower end of Upper Klamath Lake at the head 

 of the river. 



There has always been opposition on the Pa- 

 cific slope to the encroachments of the California- 

 Oregon Power company. It is the impression of 

 all who are in anyway familiar with the facts that 

 this organization is attempting to absorb all of the 

 hydraulic power on the coast, and judging from 

 the caution and secretiveness of their movements 

 there is no doubt more or less base for this impres- 

 sion, hence the antagonism. It would appear there- 

 fore, that Secretary Lane is facing a serious con- 

 dition unless he can show that the lease of power 

 to so grasping an organization in no way infringes 

 on the rights of the public or the settlers under the 

 Klamath Falls project in particular. This matter 

 was discussed with some of the officials of the 

 Water Users Association at the time of the writer's 

 visit to that section about two weeks ago and a 

 strong feeling exists against the secretary's action. 



The publisher of the IRRIGATION 

 Good. AGE returned recently from an ex- 



Prospects tended western trip which covered 



In over 7,000 miles and much territory 



West embraced in the reclamation pro- 



jects controlled by the Government. 

 A general air of prosperity pervades the entire 

 territory covered, and were it not for the extremely 

 backward spring it could be said that never in the 

 history of the west have been presented better 

 prospects for large crops and a certainty of good 

 prices. 



A particularly noticeable feature of this trip 

 was the large shipments of farm and heavy ranch 

 machinery. At almost every junction point the 

 freight houses and platforms are "stacked high" 

 with every kind of farm implements and, appar- 

 ently no former season has witnessed such heavy 

 shipments of farm tractors, all of which leads one 

 to believe that the irrigated west will do its share 

 toward solving the food problem that is disturbing 

 the public mind. 



Some irrigated areas indicate unrest owing to 

 uncertainty concerning the Government's attitude 

 about the cost of construction, but there are indi- 

 cations that the reclamation service officials are 

 inclined to a broader view in their decisions and 

 this will eventually lead to some sort of a compro- 

 mise which will be fair to both the settler and the 

 Government. 



Some of the more notable features of this trip 

 will be explained in future issues of the IRRIGATION 

 AGE. 



MUST ASSERT RIPARIAN RIGHTS 



Irrigation waters diverted from rivers for pub- 

 lic benefit cannot be curtailed by an upper riparian 

 owner who has permitted his rights to lapse over a 

 long period of time. Upon this dictum, the supreme 

 court of California overruled the lower courts and 

 ordered the James Canal Company not to impair the 

 supply of water taken from the San Joaquin river 

 by the San Joaquin and Kings River Canal Com- 

 pany which operates in Merced, Fresno arfd Stanis- 

 laus counties. 



Since 1872 the latter company has taken water 

 from the river near its junction with the Fresno 

 slough and supplied with it 18,000 acres of land. The 

 James company, owning thousands of acres riparian 

 to the Fresno slough, began taking water from the 

 river above the headgates of the plaintiff company, 

 seriously impairing the available supply of the 

 plaintiff company. Suit was immediately filed in 

 1898 for a writ of mandate against the James com- 

 pany to compel it to cease its operations. The case 

 has been buffeted between courts since that time. 



