318 IRRIGATION INVESTIGATIONS IN CALIFORNIA. 



allowed to perfect his claim, or to put the water to the intended use, without the 

 sanction and protection of the State. Such protection can not be assured until the 

 State takes cognizance of the amount of water at its disposal and limits the amount 

 assigned for use to the available supply. Herein, above all, lies the necessity for 

 continued investigation. 



The industries as now established need protection. The users of water should 

 have their rights defined. It must be determined under what conditions of flow in 

 the river a ditch shall receive water, and how much, and in that right to receive its 

 water the ditch must be protected be3'ond peradventure. 



It is not wise to longer permit each canal owner to take water if he can get it, 

 with shotgun protection if necessar}', nor, when the canal company and its officers 

 are all enjoined from opening gates, to let the irrigator turn in water despite court 

 injunctions. Either the canal has a right to use water and must be protected therein, 

 or it has no right, there being a prior or a higher established use for the water some- 

 where else, and then the law should be enforced. 



The cause of the uncertainty of the right to use wat«r, either under the riparian 

 doctrine or by appropriation, is due to the indefiniteness of the law and the insuffi- 

 ciency of the machinerj' for its application. Where appropriations are in question, 

 the uncertainty of the rights acquired has been already sufficiently emphasized. 

 Under the common law, as interpreted by our courts, each case must be settled on its 

 own merits; there is no specific rule that can be applied. The only remedy, under 

 the circumstances, appears to be for the State to step in at once and provide machinery 

 for the speedy determination of established rights of whatsoever character, and to 

 give definiteness to the rights of all claimants. It will thereby be placed in position 

 to determine what are surplus waters, and the way will be open for sucli further 

 irrigation development as circumstances warrant. 



Canal management is generally most businesslike when the canal is owned by per- 

 sons^ companies, or corporations who are not landowners, but are merely the agents 

 for distributing the water to consumers; but, notwithstanding this fact and despite 

 the probabilitj^ of less intelligent management, there seems to be no question that 

 canal ownership by the same persons who own the land is far to be preferred. The 

 ideal arrangement would be the ownership in the irrigating canal or ditch in exact 

 proportion to acreage that is to be irrigated. Land and the use of the water necessary 

 to make the land productive should not be separated in ownership. It is only thus 

 that fullest benefit from the use of water can be secured; it must not alone be used 

 economically by the irrigator and handled without unnecessar}^ waste in transit from 

 stream to the lands to be benefited, but the irrigator must know that he is secured in 

 his own rights so long as he complies with his part of the contract. 



One matter just touched upon which interests all irrigators and which particularly 

 interests the State at large is the economical use of water. Whether water is allowed 

 to run to waste, perhaps on demand of a riparian owner, or is used in a wasteful 

 manner, either by a riparian owner, by a canal corapanj' in effecting distribution, or 

 by the individual irrigator, or whether it does duty on crops of low economic value 

 when it might be put to higher use, injury to the community at large is the result. 



So soon as the canal capacities become so large as to leave no surplus flow in the 

 stream for further canal development, while the lands commanded are not yet 



