IRRIGATION IN NORTHERN COLORADO. 13 
Canal. With the exception of Black Hollow, the reservoirs of the 
Water Supply & Storage Co. below the canyon are also low and 
their outlets are arranged so that water from them may be turned 
into the Larimer and Weld Canal or the river. Below the Larimer 
and Weld Canal is the Windsor Reservoir, which has a capacity 
of 17,000 acre-feet aiid discharges into the Greeley Canal No. 2. A 
few of the rights in this reservoir are held under the Greeley Canal 
No. 2, but the great majority are owned by farmers under the Larimer 
and Weld Canal. The exchange is operated by taking advantage of 
all these conditions. 
Except during high-flood periods the rights of the Greeley Canal 
No. 2 may entitle it to practically the entire flow of the North Fork, 
but instead of allowing this water to flow down the channel of the 
river to be taken directly by the canal, the water commissioner per- 
mits the North Poudre Canal to divert it for use, and directs that 
an equal amount be turned from the Windsor Reservoir to the Greeley 
Canal No. 2 when the drop in the river reaches that canal. If, for 
instance, a flow of 100 second- feet has been taken for 10 days, the 
North Poudre Co. then owes the Windsor Reservoir 1,985 acre-feet, 
or 87,000,000 cubic feet, as it is expressed locally, and to secure the 
debt that amount of water is held in the North Poudre Reservoir No. 
6. In other words, Windsor Reservoir water to the amount of 1,985 
acre-feet has been transferred upstream for delivery to rights under 
the Larimer and Weld Canal, and the North Poudre Co. has been 
able to use in its main canal 1,985 acre-feet of the water stored in its 
low reservoirs. While channels are available through which the 
water in Reservoir No. 6 could be delivered direct to the Larimer and 
Weld Canal, this is never done. Instead, the w T ater is delivered to the 
Larimer County Canal Co. at any time on demand of the Water 
Supply & Storage Co., and in exchange this company holds sufficient 
water in its low reservoirs to deliver 1,985 acre-feet to the Larimer 
and Weld Canal to supply the demands of the holders of Windsor 
Reservoir rights. It will be noted that while the Greeley Canal No. 
2 has been left undisturbed in its rights, the use of 1,985 acre-feet of 
its appropriation has served to exchange nearly 6,000 acre-feet of 
water stored in low reservoirs. 
WATER RIGHTS. 
The development of irrigation was so rapid in the Cache la Poudre 
basin that the problem of an equitable division of the water in the 
stream arose earlier than in any other section of the State. The 
need became pressing with the construction of large canals in the 
late seventies, and the efforts of the people of the valley to solve the 
problem resulted in the inauguration in 1879-1881 of the present 
system of water administration. The first general adjudication of 
water rights in the Cache la Poudre and its tributaries was held 
immediately after, and with few exceptions the rights decreed then 
