24 IBRIGATION INVESTIGATIONS IN CALIFORNIA. 



(c) The present law provides for the appropriation of water for sale, rental, or distribution. 

 Does it provide for its direct appropriation by the user without tlie intervention of the seller, renter, 

 or distributor? Is there any method l)y which the owner of a tract of land can acquire directly from 

 the public a right to the water which reclaims that land, as he can now obtain title to the public land 

 itself by means of the desert or homestead laws? If not, should there be legislation to provide for this? 



(d) Is the present system of stream control or lack of it, and the dividing of water between the 

 different ditches which divert the common supply satisfactory? If not, what form of administration 

 or control should take its place? 



(e) Should there be a State engineer; and if so, what should be his duties? 



(/) Should there be a central office of record of claims or titles to water in place of the present 

 separate county records, and what supervision or control should be exercised over rights to be acquired 

 hereafter? 



(g) What steps should be taken to secure the fullest conservation and use of water which now runs 

 to waste? The discussion of this question to include State or national control and aid, the legislation 

 needed to define rights to stored water, and to determine who is entitled to the water thus stored. 



It is understood that this outline will not touch all of the complex and imjiortant problems which 

 your investigations will disclose and with which your reports will have to deal. It is, however, 

 believed to state some of the leading ones with which legislators and users of water are now confronted, 

 not only in California, but in every other Commonwealth. 



Sincerely yours, Elwood Mead, 



Irrigation Expert in Cliarge. 



Within the limits thus fixed each of the gentlemen in cliarge of these 

 investigations has been a law to himself He has gathered his facts and 

 stated his conclusions without advice or direction from any source. This has 

 resulted in some repetitions which might otherwise have been avoided, but 

 this defect is thought to be outweighed by the advantage gained from a 

 complete and unmodified statement of the views of each of these gentlemen. 



REASONS FOB BESTRICTING DISCUSSION OF WATER-BIGHT PBOBLEMS TO 



IRRIGATION. 



While this investigation deals primarily with the problems of irrigated 

 agriculture, the fact is not lost sight of that other important industries have 

 a common interest with irrigation in securing laws which will provide for 

 the final establishment of titles to the water used and protect these titles in 

 time of scarcity. At present it is notorious that anyone attempting to 

 utilize the streams of California for any purpose has to add to the ordinary 

 or legitimate risks and expenses of his enterprise a large and continuing 

 outlay for litigation to maintain his right to water. A reform which will 

 render this needless will promote development in other directions as nuich 

 as in agriculture. A just system of laws will take into account the needs 

 of all interests. This report is restricted to a consideration of the riglits 

 and needs of the irrigator because the Congressional appropriation limits 

 the investigation to irrigation, but this must not imply that other rights are 

 not regarded as important or not entitled to impartial recognition. Exactly 

 the reverse is true. 



