282 IRRIGATION INVESTIGATIONS IN CALIFORNIA. 



In the actions A. Heilbron et aj. v. Peoples Ditch Company, 1883; A. Heilbron 

 et al. V. Last Chance Ditch Company, 1883, and A. Heilbron et al. v. Emigrant Ditch 

 Compan}', 1883, it was decreed that the causes of action were barred by the statute 

 of limitations. A. Heilbron et al. were the owners of the Laguna de Tache Ilancho. 



The decisions above quoted do not represent all the litigation between the appro- 

 priators of water from Kings River, as numerous cases were of minor importance, 

 or decisions were reversed, or had no bearing upon the right of the canals to water, 

 or are still pending. 



A lack of consistency' in these court decrees is apparent. In cases where appro- 

 priators of water have not acquired rights by the statute of limitations the ripa- 

 rian owners seem to be successful in obtaining decrees restraining appropriators from 

 diverting the waters of the stream, even when the riparian owners are themselves 

 diverting the water from natural channels in order to make it accomplish a greater 

 duty in watering crops than it could accomplish if left to flow undisturbed in natural 

 channels. But after decrees are entered and confirmed, enjoining canal owners from 

 taking water, thej' are followed by other decrees apparently conceding water to the 

 same canals and fixing the priority of use as between the several canals. 



These decisions are rendered at the close of long and expensive trials. The facts 

 relating to canal construction, to canal dimensions and capacity', and to periodical 

 enlargements are not of record, and the courts are not provided with impartial tech- 

 nical aid to ascertain or verify facts which are presented bj' the host of witnesses 

 marshaled by plaintift' and defendant. Even the experts do not agree, and in many 

 cases the best expert testimony is outweighed by evidence erroneously classed as 

 expert. The expert, moreover, is generally not called until the cause of action has 

 been clearly defined, and he must deal with facts as he then finds them. He is rarely 

 in a position to follow up the full history of canal building, so as to present a correct 

 sequence of such facts as are essential in passing upon the merits of rival claims to 

 water. 



KINGS RIVER CANALS. 



The first irrigators using Kings River water were some of the settlers on the 

 Centerville Bottoms — Hiram Dennis, Harvey Akers, Jesse Morrow, John Carey, and 

 others, who severally, and occasionally in partnership, constructed small ditches for 

 the irrigation of favorably located tracts of land. Most of these early works were 

 badly wrecked by the great floods of 1867-68, and it has been found difiicult to trace 

 the history of these earliest ditches, many of which have been out of service most or 

 all of the time since then. The most permanent in character seems to have been the 

 Centerville Canal or Ditch, for the enlargement of which J. B. Sweem filed a notice of 

 a claim to water August 5, 1869. The Sweem water right and the Centerville Ditch 

 both passed soon after into the hands of M. J. Church, the projector of the Fresno 

 Canal. 



SAN JOAaUIN AND KINGS RIVER CANAL. 



The most comprehensive project for the utilization of Kings River water of the 

 early days of irrigation development in this region was that of the San Joaquin and 

 Kings River Canal Company, which" proposed not only to divert San Joaquin River 

 water upon the west-side plain of the valley, a project which has been carried out, 



