IRRIGATION DISTRICT OPERATION AND FINANCE. 27 
STATE SUPERVISION. 
The policy of requiring State officials to inquire into the desirability, 
from a public standpoint, of forming an irrigation district first re- 
ceived legislative sanction in Idaho. The failures of the early nineties 
had caused the California Legislature in 1897 to make more stringent 
the conditions precedent to formation and bonding of districts without, 
however, imposing outside control. But Idaho in the same year, 
1897, required the State engineer to examine and make an advisory 
report upon plans of each district prior to a bond election, and in 
1907, after having tried several different checks on the formation of 
districts, settled upon the plan now in effect. With the sole excep- 
tion of Kansas, the other States having district laws have since pro- 
vided for State supervision in one form or another. 
CHARACTER OF SUPERVISION. 
Control by the State applies in certain cases to the formation of 
the district and in others to plans and estimates formulated later. 
One theory is that no irrigation district should be organized at all 
unless there is ample indication of its feasibility and the sufficiency 
of its proposed water supply. The other thought is that the forma- 
tion of districts should be encouraged to the end that machinery may 
thus be provided for the actual investigations of feasibility and water 
supply, but that actual construction of works or issuance of bonds 
shall be subject to State approval. With reference to bond issues, 
one plan is to have the State investigate and report prior to all pro- 
posed issues, „and a further plan is to establish certain standards 
which bonds must conform to if they are to receive State approval 
as investment for certain types of funds. The usual supervision is 
advisory rather than mandatory. 
Organization. — In Idaho and California investigations and reports 
are required prior to the formation of irrigation districts, which 
reports if adverse are sufficient to prevent formation unless three- 
fourths of the landowners petition otherwise. The organization peti- 
tion in Wyoming must contain an engineering, water-supply, and 
land report bearing the approval of the State engineer. In Texas 
the State board of water engineers hears the petition for organization 
of any district lying in two or more counties and may grant or deny 
the same, its decision being final; but the county commissioners court, 
subject to appeal to the district court, has jurisdiction over the for- 
mation of districts lying wholly within one county. Districts in 
Oregon and New Mexico may be formed at will, but must go to the 
State engineer before proceeding further. In Washington the director 
of conservation and development sits in an advisory capacity with 
the board of county commissioners on the question of organization, 
the board's discretion, however, extending only to fixing district 
boundaries for which a water supply is deemed available. Montana, 
which has provided for an alternative type of irrigation district organ- 
ized and functioning under State supervision, has imposed no restric- 
tions on the formation of districts of the older class. In Utah the 
State engineer is required to make a water survey and allotment of 
water to each 40-acre tract in the proposed district, or smaller tract 
if in separate ownership, before the district may be declared organ- 
ized. In Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, North Dakota, and 
