34 BULLETIN 1177, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
The water users' associations were mutuai stocK companies com- 
posed of settlers on reclamation projects, designed as instruments 
through which the Reclamation Service could deal with the settlers 
and through which the settlers could eventually operate the systems. 
While successful in some cases, the associations failed generally, from 
the standpoint of the Reclamation Service, to give complete satisfac- 
tion. Voluminous bookkeeping was involved, for every landowner 
had a separate contract and required a separate account. Further- 
more, the only remedies in case of nonpayment of charges were 
individual suits, and there was no means of compelling lands within 
projects which had not applied for water rights to contribute their 
share toward operation and maintenance. On the other hand, 
disadvantages to the settler lay in his inability to secure a Federal 
farm loan even on private land while the water-right contract remained 
a first lien, and in the necessity of including the contract in any 
abstract of title. 
For these reasons the Reclamation Service came to favor the 
irrigation district as the more serviceable organization through which 
to deal with project settlers. The irrigation district plan offered one 
contract in place of many. The Government would no longer be 
concerned with individual accounts, and collection of charges would 
become a part of the district or county machinery provided for 
collection 01 taxes. Furthermore, the Reclamation Service was able 
to call the settlers' attention to the greater ease and cheapness of 
making collections through the irrigation district machinery after 
they should have taken over the control of the irrigation system. 
To this end the policy has been pursued in recent years of securing 
amendments to the State laws providing for contractual relations 
between irrigation districts and the United States, and of urging 
settlers on many of the projects to adopt the irrigation district in 
place of the existing water users' association. The result has been 
that all of the States except Kansas that have irrigation district laws 
have now authorized districts to cooperate with the United States, and 
that districts have been organized on many of the Federal reclama- 
tion projects. The only districts that have taken over the man- 
agement and control of the project systems are Minidoka irrigation 
district, Idaho, and several small districts operating as independent 
units of the Yakima project, Washington. The functions of the 
other districts consist solely, at the present time, in guaranteeing 
and collecting charges due the United States, or in representing the 
project settlers prior to the execution of contracts for the repayment 
of existing or future charges. 
While the forms of contract between these districts and the United 
States have varied, the essential features of agreements for complete 
substitution of irrigation districts have been tne dissolution of water 
users' associations where they have previously existed, the discharge 
of liens contained in stock subscription contracts, and the assumption 
by the irrigation districts of all indebtedness due the United States, 
the charges to be collected by the districts under their general taxing 
power. In actual practice thereafter the Reclamation Service deter- 
mines the annual amounts due for various purposes and the district 
levies assessments to meet such charges and turns the money over 
to the United States at the times provided in the contract. 
