IRRIGATION FROM SAN JOAQUIN RIVER. 239 



tivation of said lands by virtue of riparian ownership and usage for twenty years. 

 They stated that defendants proposed to dam Stevenson Creek and Mill Creek, and to 

 divert the waters of said streams from their natural channels, thus preventing them 

 from flowing into Sau Joaquin River, as they naturalh' would do, at a point above 

 the land of plaintiff. This suit involved questions of the right of appropriators to 

 take from a stream flowing past riparian lands, by interfering with any tributary 

 flowing into the stream above the land of the riparian owner. Other minor questions 

 were also involved. The case has not come to trial, the defendants having as yet not 

 filed an answer. 



In March, 1899, Miller & Lux, a corporation, and the San Joaquin and Kings 

 River Canal and Irrigation Company, filed a complaint against the Enterprise Canal 

 and Land Company et al. (No. 8636), claiming that Miller & Lux were the owners of 

 certain tracts of land bordering on San Joaquin River and its branches, and that they 

 had owned said lands for twenty years past, and that said lands were irrigated and 

 cultivated hj means of the waters of said stream. Thej- set up. then, claim as riparian 

 owners. To make this claim more decided they went further, and stated that a great 

 part of these lands (being in fact the wild gi-ass lands) had been overflowed 5'early 

 by the flood waters of said stream, thus being rendered exceedingly fertile without 

 need of artificial irrigation. That under their claim and right as riparian owners and 

 appropriators, plaintitt's had constructed and used numerous canals and branches 

 leading out of said river. The San Joaquin and Kings River Canal and Irrigation 

 Company also claimed right to waters taken out of said river in its canal system, by 

 appropriation and usage for twenty-five j'ears past. Plaintiffs claimed that their 

 canals could be easih' supplied onh' by water from San Joaquin River, and that the 

 lands irrigated therebj' could be irrigated only from that stream, and claimed the 

 right, by appropriation and usage, to take from said stream 3,350 cubic feet per 

 second of the water there flowing, and claimed that defendants had no right to take 

 any water from the river until plaintiffs" claim had been satisfied. Then returning to 

 its claim as a riparian owner, to have certain lands overflowed bj' the flood waters of 

 the stream, plaintiffs denied the right of defendants to diminish the flow of the river 

 by the diversion of water, thus preventing this flooding which was beneficial to 

 plaintiffs' lands, and which occurred \'early if the stream was allowed to take its 

 natural flow of water past and over plaintiffs' lands. Having thus set up their rights, 

 plaintiffs stated that some time during the year 1898 the defendant Enterprise Canal 

 and Land Company, constructed a lai'ge canal or ditch above the lands of plaintiffs 

 for the purpose of taking water from San Joaquin River, and known as the Enter- 

 prise Canal and Land Company's Canal, and that in March, 1899. the defendant 

 actually diverted through said ditch a part of the flow of San Joaquin Riverj which 

 water rightfulh' belonged to plaintiffs: and, further, that the water thus taken was to 

 be used in the irrigation of lands not riparian to San Joaquin River. Plaintiffs 

 prayed for an injunction staying defendant from taking said water. 



In answer to this lengthy complaint the defendant Enterprise Canal and Land 

 Company, except through a general denial of all the allegations of the complaint, did 

 not deny the riparian rights of the plaintiffs to a reasonable use of the waters of San 

 Joaquin River, but principally based its claim upon the right of outside parties to 

 appropriate water of a stream not covered by claims of other companies or indi- 



