IRRIGATION IN NORTHERN COLORADO. 19 
rate of $3,000 a second-foot, and a part of priority No. 17 was ac- 
quired by the same company for $2,500 a second-foot. But parts of 
priorities No. 52 and 66, which were transferred to the North Poudre 
Canal, cost only $150 a second-foot. Just recently the right of the 
Mason and Hottel mill race was abandoned to the river on payment 
of $2,000 per second- foot by the interested canals. 
The holding of direct irrigation water in small farm reservoirs is 
an accepted, well-established custom, due to the recognized economy 
of time and water the practice promotes. The extension of this custom 
to regulator reservoirs for the benefit of the whole stream would have 
a most beneficialeffect, but any extension to large reservoirs of indi- 
vidual companies raises the question of where the line should be 
drawn. In permitting the transfer of 26 second-feet of priorities No. 
52 and No. 66 to the North Poudre Canal the court decreed : 
That petitioner (the North Poudre Irrigation Company) may, in times of 
scarcity of water, and for the purpose of making a more economical use of said 
water, and at times when other water is not being run in its ditch in sufficient 
quantity, use Halligan Dam and Reservoir, located on the North Fork of the 
Cache la Poudre. a short distance above headgate of petitioner's ditch, for the 
purpose of temporarily catching up said water and obtaining a sufficient head, 
thence to turn the same into the headgate of the said North Fork ditch without 
injuriously affecting the vested rights of said respondents or other water users 
in district No. 3. 
In the adjudication of 1882, Warren Lake, which was then hardly 
more than a fishpond, was given a decree permitting it to draw ap- 
proximately 15 second-feet of the appropriation of the Larimer 
County Canal No. 2, but there was no general adjudication of reser- 
voir rights until a decree was handed down by the district court in 
1909. By this decree 43 reservoirs were given 57 appropriations on 
first constructions and enlargements aggregating about 6,000,000,000 
cubic feet, or 150,000 acre-feet. Because of inaccurate surveys or lack 
of surveys, there are many inconsistencies in these decrees, and very 
few of the decreed appropriations agree with the actual capacity of 
the reservoir as shown by later careful surveys or by measuring the 
inflow or outflow. Only a few transfers of reservoir rights have been 
made. When the North Poudre Irrigation Co. disposed of its interest 
in Douglass Reservoir the appropriation was retained and transferred 
to Reservoirs No. 5 and No. 6 to permit these reservoirs to fill from 
the main river through the Poudre Valley Canal. The appropriation 
of No. 6 in the North Fork was then transferred to Halligan and 
No. 15 Reservoirs. 
DISTRIBUTION FROM RIVER. 
The Cache la Poudre basin is water district No. 3, and to the water 
commissioner of the district is delegated the duty of turning the water 
in the stream to the various canals in accordance with the quality, 
