HEARINGS BEFORE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE. 367 
labored under at first owing to these different laws in different States, 
so the members can understand the question a little more fully. 
Mr. Meap. You will understand that irrigation in this country has 
grown up very rapidly. It has been developed by people who had 
been accustomed to working independently of each other. When 
they went West they were confronted with and thought most about the 
physical obstacles, the leveling of the lands, the getting out of the 
ditch, and they did not appreciate at its true importance the necessity 
of the people who live along the river, and who are all dependent on 
one single water supply, securing an organization that would protect 
the man at the lower end of the stream when there were enough users 
above him to take the entire supply. They went on in that kind of 
development, without organization, without system, until all at once 
they came up to this situation. Here were a large number of rivers 
with more ditches than the river would fill, and there was no sort of 
law, no sort of reer that would protect the rights of the people 
who were entitled to that water supply, and no provision for any pos- 
sible division of it. 
The first thing, to get out of that chaotic situation, was to ascertain 
just what the facts were, to go on certain typical streams and measure 
the facts as to the location, the kind of laws that existed there, the 
kind of measures they adopted, so that each farmer would get what he 
thought was his share of this common fund flowing down through the 
channel. That was the leading line of our investigation in the earlier 
years of this investigation. That was the fundamental line at that 
time; but having collected the facts appertaining to that line of work 
I do not believe it has the same importance now. ‘The publication of 
those reports has had a great influence on public sentiment and has led 
to the enactment of laws reforming those rules. 
Mr. Scorr. That is one of the problems, then, that you have toa 
large degree solved? 
Mr. Meap. Yes. Ido not say we have solved it, but I will say it 
has ceased to be the important problem, and there is no particular 
need at the present time, if these reports illustrating them are published, 
to go on with that the same way we did before. It is probable that 
in time, with changing conditions, it may need further investigation, 
but not at the present time. 
Mr. Scorr. Can you indicate any other lines of work that you have, 
to a considerable degree or wholly, completed? How about the inves- 
tigation in California? 1 asked you a few moments ago to what 
extent the people there had profited by it. You answered, I believe, 
that they had profited by it to a very large degree. Will it be neces- 
sary to repeat that work or to continue it? : ; 
Mr. Merap. You mean the kind of work that was done in bulletin 
100% 
Mr. Scorr. Yes. : ; ’ 
Mr. Meap. No; we are not carrying on that kind of work in Cali- 
fornia now at all. 
Mr. Scott. That is what I wanted to know. ; 
Mr. Mrap. No; our work in California now is along these lines: 
To determine, in a country where water rents are $45 an inch in a 
year, how you can distribute that water most economically, how you 
ean apply it so as to make an inch of it go over the greatest possible 
area of land and to secure the largest yields. That is one question, 
