94 IRRIGATION INVESTIGATIONS IN CALIFORNIA. 



and diversified crops, or thousands and thousands of acres of fertile soil must 

 remain forever useless and desolate. There was no other alternative. It was a hard 

 situation for the Tule farmers; an equalh' hard one for the later settlers who were 

 suffering for the water necessar}' to make their homes, and for those who had 

 developed large private enterprises for the purpose of reclaiming the sagebrush 

 lands. As the Tule farmers are riparian proprietors, with vested interests long 

 established bj' actual use, thej' feel that any diversions which may diminish the 

 quantity of flood water must be injurious to them. Out of these conditions costly 

 litigation and much ill feeling among neighbors have come in the past. 



The three communities sketched in the foregoing include practicallj- all the 

 old settlers of the valle}' taking water directly from Susan River. During the past 

 ten years another communit}' has been growing up on the higher sagebrush lands 

 watered bj- Lake Leavitt and the sj'stem to which it belongs. This is somewhat 

 widelj' scattered, but is united by a common interest in the waters that may be saved 

 from waste by storing the floods and enforcing a more economical use of the peren- 

 nial flow in periods of plenty'. These new farmers produce three annual crops of 

 alfalfa, with a yield ranging from 3 to 6 tons per acre, against 1 ton per acre of wild 

 hay from the river bottom and tule fields. It is here that small, diversified farms 

 and well-kept orchards maj' be expected to develop in the future, since these results 

 are always associated with the more economical and skillful use of water. The rise 

 of what was originalh' known as the Leavitt sjstem, and is now the property of the 

 Colonial Irrigation Companj' of Honey Lake Vallej', has intensified the struggle for 

 water and precipitated several lawsuits which seem to involve the development of 

 the countrj^ to a marked degree. Old settlers have opposed this system only to the 

 extent that they feared it might encroach upon their established rights and deprive 

 them of water which thej' had formerlj^ used and still used for the production of 

 their crops. They concede that there are flood waters now wasted which might be 

 stored to the advantage of the whole communitv, but under prevailing laws it is 

 extremelj' difiicult to carry on a system dependent upon the use of flood waters — 

 partly by diversion and partlv by storage — in the midst of riparian owners and old 

 appropriators who have no conception of the actual water supply, of the dutv of 

 water, nor the methods of distribution employed in countries having more enlightened 

 laws. Again, it should be said that the trouble lies not with the people themselves, 

 ))ut with the system which compels them to settle b}^ physical force and wasteful 

 litigation the controversies which should have been settled in the beginning by 

 a proper method of appropriation, and the results of which should be enforced by a 

 system of administration commanding everybody's respect. 



CAUSE AND CHARACTER OF LAWSUITS. 



It might be expected that in the earh- days of the country's settlement there would 

 be water enough for all, and therefore no occasion for litigation. The first judgment, 

 however, bears date of June 7, 1864, and related to the waters of Lassen Creek. The 

 plaintiffs were awarded 75 miner's inches and the defendants enjoined against inter- 

 fering therewith. The case has no special interest for the present inquirj' except as 

 marking the beginning of the water controversies of the valley. The total number 

 of judgments in the period of thirt3^-six years, from 1864 to 1900, was fifty-three. Of 



