96 IRKIGATION INVESTIGATIONS IN CALIFORNIA. 



prevail. Either the water must be used for the greatest good of the greatest number 

 or the country must be abandoned to a few amphibious farmers living in the midst 

 of cattle and wild beasts. Those who claim the protection of the law in the continued 

 enjoyment of natural irrigation are no more selfish than other men. They stand 

 upon their rights as they understand them and are perfectly sincere when they 

 contend that any interference with the natural flow of the stream results in loss and 

 consequent injustice to them. They claim that all the water they have had in the 

 past is actually needed to properly irrigate their land. It is perhaps true that the 

 water is needed for the kind of irrigation they have practiced. But this in nowise 

 alters the fact that the issue raised by these conditions involves the whole future of 

 the country under consideration. The country in Honey Lake Basin will be sparsely 

 or densely peopled, will produce little or vast wealth in aggregate, will linger upon 

 the edge of semibarbarism or move forward to the enjoyment of a high state of 

 civilization, according as this question is answered in one way or the other. 



These issues were raised for the first time in "the big water suit." The time 

 was favorable for the storage side of the question, since it fell in a period of wet 

 years when the Tule district was really suffering from an excess rather than a dearth 

 of water, even when judged from the standpoint of natural irrigation. The advocates 

 of storage argued that the carrying out of their plans would do the Tule farmers more 

 good than harm by reducing the winter and spring overflow, when the excess of 

 water really amounted to a nuisance, and by keeping up the flow of the stream later 

 in the irrigation season as the result of seepage from the higher lands. In behalf of 

 the more economical and skillful use of water, it was urged that the Tule farmers 

 would be still further benefited if they restricted the product of wild hay as much as 

 possible and raised alfalfa upon their better lands. The difference between one lean 

 crop of poor native grass and three good crops of alfalfa would add enormouslj' to 

 the wealth of the Tule disti'ict, it was argued. To illustrate, one Tule farmer has an 

 estate of 3,000 acres. Half of this estate is in sagebrush and of no value except for 

 inferior pasture. The other half is watered by the overflow and produces about 

 2,000 tons of wild haj' worth, say, $8,000. With water properly stored and distributed 

 his sagebrush lands would produce 4 tons per acre of alfalfa, or a total of 6,000 tons, 

 worth $30,000. Capitalize this at 10 per cent (which money is worth in this locality) 

 and it would increase the valuation of the estate at least fivefold. From this illus- 

 tration, which represents average conditions in the Tule district, it clearly appears 

 that the Tule farmers are themselves large sufferers in consequence of the vicious 

 system of natural irrigation, though the entire community shares in the great loss, 

 just as it would share in the benefits which might accrue from the more enlightened 

 forms of irrigation practice. 



Before considering the effects upon storage enterprises of "the big water suit," 

 it will be interesting to examine some of the minor judgments in that case. 



SOME BEWILDERING DECISIONS. 



Indefiniteness is the characteristic of the large majority of decisions which have 

 resulted from water litigation in Honey Lake Basin. Judgments are rarely expressed 

 in quantitative terms, and when they are, the language more frequently refers to 



