IRRIGATION DISTRICT OPERATION AND FINANCE. 49 
been carried on largely by individuals. The lack of interest in this 
subject is reflected in the composition of the irrigation district law, 
which was passed at a time when legislation affecting districts was 
in its infancy and which has been practically unchanged since that 
time. Radical amendments or a complete reenactment would be 
necessary before irrigation district development could take place on 
any considerable scale under present economic conditions. 
Montana. — Montana's first irrigation district law was approved 
March 4, 1907. Two years later a new law was substituted which as 
amended is in force to-day, and which is found in the Revised Codes 
of 1921. An alternative method of organization and government 
under State supervision was provided in 1919 for such districts as 
should elect to come within the provisions of the irrigation com- 
mission act. 
Development that has already taken place has been almost en- 
tirely concerned with improving and enlarging existing irrigation 
systems, and little has been accomplished by districts in the recla- 
mation of arid lands. General interest in irrigation in Montana has 
been rather spasmodic and has usually resulted from the effects of a 
series of droughts upon the dry-farming communities of the State, 
which helps to explain the fact that 36 of the 61 districts organized 
to date were formed in the two years 1919 and 1920 after a series of 
three dry summers. On the other hand, interest in irrigation is apt 
to lag in times of high market prices for grain. So it is questionable 
whether all of the projects for new development now proposed will 
be carried through in case climatic conditions and prices in the im- 
mediate future should be more favorable to the production of dry- 
farming crops. The most sustained demand for irrigation district 
development in the past has come from those sections of the State 
where farming under irrigation has been carried on for some time. 
The history of irrigation districts in Montana deals largely with 
those organized in the earlier years. Most were conservative enter- 
prises formed in response to a real demand for the district type of 
organization, and in the main they have been successful. Some have 
encountered serious difficulties which have been traceable in part to 
a divided interest in irrigation, but most districts have been able to 
pay their obligations promptly. 
Districts are scattered over many portions of the State, a large 
proportion, however, being found in Yellowstone Valley. 
Nebraska. — Although the seventh State in point of time to pass an 
irrigation district statute, Nebraska was the third to witness the ac- 
tual formation of districts and was practically the only State in which 
districts were being organized in the last five years of the nineteenth 
century. Following a series of disastrous droughts during the early 
nineties, the irrigation district law was approved March 26, 1895, 
practically contemporaneously with an irrigation code, both as the 
outcome of insistent demands upon the part of farmers in the western 
part of the State. Interest was immediate and widespread, with the 
result that nearly half of the 39 districts formed to date were organized 
in the four years following the passage of the act. But with the return 
of favorable growing seasons in 1898 and succeeding years, interest 
began to wane, particularly in the easternmost areas, so that 9 of 
the 18 districts organized up to that time were soon abandoned. 
