IRRIGATION FROM SAN JOAQUIN RIVER. 237 



Section 43 provides for the apportioimient of water pro rata in case of deficiency. 



Section 45 specially provides that the navigation shall not be impaired by the 

 operation of this act, nor shall any vested rights already existing in water used for 

 mining pui-poses be disturbed. 



Section 4(i provides that none of the provisions of this act shall repeal or in any 

 wise modify the provisions of any other act relating to the subject of irrigation or 

 water commissioners; nor shall any private property be taken or injured without 

 compensation. 



A number of supplementary acts have been passed since the enactment of the 

 law, modifying or strengthening certain poi'tions of the act. 



This law has been repeatedly attacked in the courts of the State, and at every 

 assailable point, but has, without exception, been held to be constitutional by the 

 supreme court of the State. It has also been carried into the United States courts, 

 and although declared unconstitutional in a decision by United States Circuit Judge 

 E. M. Ross, was subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States on 

 the points involved. 



A large number of irrigation districts have been organized in the State, and 

 many of them, particularly in southern California and in Kern and Tulare counties, 

 have been successful; but others have been at least financial failures. It would seem 

 to the writer that the lack of success in these instances was not due to defects in the 

 liaw, nor to the difficult engineering problems involved, but to bad financial and 

 executive management. In some instances where districts have been organized and 

 bonds issued, interest is long overdue and irrigation works have not been as yet con- 

 structed, or at least completed. The farmers in the disti*ict are assessed when no 

 benefits are immediately derived. Default in paj'ment of interest and expenses has 

 resulted, and the financial state of the irrigation districts is in a chaotic condition. 

 Such outcome, as the writer believes, is much to be regretted, as, with skillful man- 

 agement, under naturally favorable circumstances, the irrigation -district system 

 ought always to be successful. It involves the idea of local self-government, con- 

 trol, and taxation, and disposition of the taxes received, and, further, retains for the 

 use and benefit of the farmers in the immediate locality the waters which otherwise 

 might Vje diverted to remote districts. 



LITIGATION OVER WATER RIGHTS ON SAN JOAaUIN AND FRESNO RIVERS 



AND CHOWCHILLA CREEK. 



nr THE STTPEBIOB COURT OF FRESNO COXTNTY. . 



As compared with other rivers in the State, there has been very little litigation 

 growing out of disputes over water rights in these rivers; and the cases that have 

 occurred are scattered over a number of 3'ears. In many of the cases the disputes 

 arose over a construction of the rights of riparian owners, as opposed to those of 

 appropriators. No adjudication of the water rights of an\' of the canal or irrigation 

 companies taking water from any one of these streams has been had. 



The first case of any interest is that of Wm. Howard et al. v. John G. Stitt, No. 

 522, Fresno Count3". The complaint I'ecites that Fresno River flows over and through 

 a certain section, township, and range; and that for manj^ years previously the 



