IRRIGATION PROBLEMS OF HONEY LAKE BASIN. 95 



these thirtj'-five related to Susan River, seven to Willow Creek, three to Balls 

 Canj'on, three to Long Vallev, two to Baxter Creek, and four to the lake district. 

 Every one of these suits maj' be traced to the laxness of the appropriation law and 

 the absence of the exercise of public authority* over the distribution of water. While 

 the financial loss occasioned by this litigation, direct and indirect, may onlj^ be 

 guessed at, it is perfectlj- safe to say that if the same amount of monej^ had been 

 used in storing flood waters it would have furnished a satisfactorv supply to all 

 parties engaged in the lawsuits and irrigated nmch more land than is now in cultiva- 

 tion. These suits were of three classes, as follows: First, those which arose from 

 conflicts between appropriators as to the amount of water each was entitled to use; 

 second, those which came from misunderstanding as to the precise meaning of judg- 

 ments previously rendered; third, those which were due to the vague and indefinite 

 terms of contracts between irrigation companies and consumers. In order to show 

 more clearly the evils arising from present laws and the prevailing theories of water 

 ownership and control, it is proposed to analyze three tj'pical cases representing 

 these different aspects of the matter. 



AV^hat is locally known as "the big water suit" began with the filing of com- 

 plaints on Julj' 12, 1890, and ended with stipulated judgments in Januarj' and Feb- 

 ruarj, 1893. Although there were thirty-four of these judgments, involving more 

 than sixt}' litigaqts, thev all related to the title to the waters of Susan River and its 

 tributaries (including Willow Creek) as between the residents on these streams and 

 the farmers of the Tule district on the shores of Honey Lake. 



This suit marked the beginning of the inevitable struggle between those who 

 desired to have the waste waters flow "as thej' had been wont to flow from time 

 immemorial" and those who desired to store and divert these waters so that the arid 

 lands might be reclaimed. In a word, it was the iri'epressible conflict between natural 

 irrigation and artificial irrigation. The adoption of the former method would limit 

 the amount of land that may be cultivated in the future to that which can be sufliciently 

 moistened by the spreading of the waters in times of flood and by the seepage from 

 streams in times of perennial flow. It is true that by very crude devices and some 

 slight labor water is held upon the fields a little longer than it would otherwise 

 remain. Practicalh', however, natural irrigation means simply that man shall rest 

 satisfied with what nature has done, and that agriculture shall be limited to the moist 

 lands in river bottoms and ax'ound the margins of ponds and lakes. Artificial irriga- 

 tion, on the other hand, aims as much to keep the water ofl" the land when it is not 

 needed as to bring it on the landwhen it is needed. The utility of artificial irrigation 

 in a given locality is not limited at all to the area naturally flooded, but only by the 

 actual amount of water which the stream maj^ contain. Each miner's inch of this 

 water is equal to the reclamation of a certain number of acres. It is the oflice of 

 artificial irrigation to see that the maximum amount of land is irrigated with the 

 minimum amount of water. The moment that artificial irrigation begins to assert 

 itself trouble arises ^vith those who depend on natural irrigation and claim the entire 

 volume of the stream for those wasteful uses which have furnished sustenance to their 

 crops of native haj' and water grasses. In the end one system or the other must 



