104 IRRIGATION INVESTIGATIONS IN CALIFORNIA. 



6. Ths confusion resulting from the recording of appropriations hy counties 

 rather than hy streams. — This is especially unfortunate in places where important 

 streams flow from one county into another, but everywhere it is desirable to have 

 the appropriations upon each stream brought together upon the records. The reason 

 for this is so obvious as to call for no discussion. 



7. The failure to provide a tnethod for settling disputes among water users less 

 costly and more expeditious than a resort to the courts of law. — In the petition to the 

 Secretary of Agriculture, which resulted in the present investigation, it was well 

 said: " Great sums have been lost in irrigation enterprises. Still greater sums are 

 endangered. Water titles are uncertain. The litigation is appalling." 



The foregoing enumeration does not include all the evils arising from the 

 present laws. There is another class even more fundamental to be mentioned later. 

 But ever}^ one of the evils so far mentioned maj- be cured bj- such a system of 

 administration as exists in other States of the arid region. It seems strange that 

 California, ranking first among her sisters in the irrigation industrj-, should be far 

 behind States having less than one-tenth her population in this respect. The fact is 

 due to the early predominance of mining over agriculture, as evidenced by the 

 decision of Chief Justice Murray, which has been quoted. Mining diffused the 

 spirit of speculation throughout the economic life of California. The peculiar 

 conditions which surround the agricultural industry were not appreciated, and the 

 people were to learn their needs through suffering and experience. 



Turning from this Empire State of the AVest to Wj-oming, we may bring into 

 contrast with the California laws a system of administration which is not a theory, 

 but a practice. 



Wj'oming came into the Union with an irrigation law which provided for a 

 State engineer and a board of control, and for water divisions corresponding to 

 natural hj-drographic districts. A superintendent is placed in command of each 

 district. These divisions are then organized into several subdivisions, with a water 

 commissioner over each. In division No. 1 there are fourteen subdivisions; in 

 division No. 2, six; in division No. 3, two; and in division No. 4, three. The four 

 superintendents of the water divisions constitute the board of control, over which 

 the State engineer presides. Thus the smallest ditch on the remotest stream in 

 Wyoming is brought into close and intimate touch with the central authority at the 

 capital of the State. Here complete records of all appropriations and all adjudica- 

 tions are kept, and to this same central authority must come all applications for new 

 rights. No appropriation can become actually operative until the State engineer's 

 office has passed upon it and determined that the water is available to meet the new 

 demand. Not only so, but the same authority passes upon the works to be built, 

 and must know that thej' are of proper character, and that the proposed construction 

 will conform to public polic}', before it will issue the necessary permit. It will be 

 readily seen that such provisions eliminate at a stroke manj' evils which have 

 furnished the ))asis for litigation in California and many risks which have over- 

 whelmed irrigation enterprise with disaster. But this is by no means all the good 

 accomplished ])y the Wyoming system of administration. 



It is the business of the State engineer and his assistants to thoroughly- explore 

 the water resources of the State. Streams are regularly gaged, and the results shown 



