SELECTION OF A WATER 311 



once comparative purity of the water and a welcome 

 source of food for the fish in it. 



It is well to ascertain at the preliminary stage what 



extent of fishing the lessor 

 Extent of the fishery. claims to own. In reference 



to this branch of the subject 

 it must be noted that agents often measure both 

 banks, so that the right of fishing from both sides 

 of half a mile of the stream is described as one mile 

 of fishing. I do not suggest that this is a mis- 

 representation, but I would respectfully urge that it 

 is a most misleading method of measurement. When 

 the land owned by the lessor includes a number of 

 carriers and irrigation channels the combined lengths 

 of all these carriers and channels are by some included 

 in the total length of water offered. This may be a 

 fair estimate of the length of the fishery in cases 

 where the flow of water through these carriers is 

 fairly constant, but where, as well may happen, many 

 of these are dried up during a good part of the season 

 they can scarcely be described as fishing water. In 

 a water-meadow country the lessee should, if he can, 

 ascertain not only which of the carriers are constant 

 in their flow, but also what are the water rights. 

 Neglect of this preliminary information may land him 

 in considerable expense to compensate tenants for 

 waiving their rights to water for irrigation purposes, 

 or the alternative of finding his fishing considerably 

 curtailed by the diversion of the stream during the 

 best of the fishing season. 



