16 
of this plan. Nebraska and Oklahoma follow the present' California 
plan, while Texas provides for taxation of all property in the dis- 
trict — real, personal, and mixed — and Kansas all real estate depend- 
ent upon the works for irrigation. Assessments may be apportioned 
in accordance with the benefits in California in case of payments to 
be made to the United States, and in Texas in case of districts elect- 
ing to become "conservation and reclamation districts." 
Some of the California and Nebraska districts have made *n ap- 
proach to assessment according to the full cash value of the land, 
but the valuations arrived at are in most cases not proportionate to 
the market values. That is, although higher valuations are some- 
times placed upon lands close to cities and towns and along impor- 
tant highways, nevertheless nominal valuations are customarily 
assigned to lands lying above the ditch system or impregnated with 
alkali, thus following to this extent the benefit method of appraise- 
ment. Many districts in these two States adopt only two or three 
classifications, and some value all farm lands alike. 
Uniform rate per acre. — In Oregon, Colorado, Montana, Arizona, 
and New Mexico all lands within an irrigation district are assessed 
at the same rate per acre. In Oregon, however, reclamation of the 
lands may be by units and the assessments apportioned accordingly, 
provided the State engineer approves such plan. This has not yet 
been put into effect in any Oregon district. Another exception to 
the Oregon rule, and one which has been satisfactorily put into opera- 
tion, permits assessments, except for operation, maintenance, and 
drainage, against any tract which has an appurtenant water right 
not yet acquired by the district to be in the same proportion to a 
full assessment as the additional water right to be supplied by the 
district bears to a full water right. In Montana, furthermore, in 
case of pumping to different elevations, maintenance and operation 
assessments may now be levied at a different rate for each elevation. 
According to benefits. — Assessments are apportioned according to 
the benefits received in Idaho, Washington, North Dakota, South 
Dakota, Nevada, and Wyoming, and in California and Texas under 
the circumstances above referred to. The Idaho plan involves a 
single apportionment of benefits after a bond issue has been author- 
ized, which apportionment is subject to confirmation by the court 
and which as finally confirmed is the basis of all future assessments 
to pay the principal and interest of the bonds or assessments levied 
in lieu of such bonds. The Washington apportionment, on the other 
hand, is made annually. The Nevada plan follows that of Idaho, 
but allows a reapportionment in particular cases in later years pro- 
vided the security for the bond issue is not thereby decreased. 
The application of the benefit principle in the many operating irri- 
gation districts in Idaho and Washington has been far from uniform. 
In some districts it has been assumed that ail irrigable land is 
equally benefited and that nonirrigable land receives no benefit, with 
the result that all of the cost has been assessed at a uniform rate per 
acre against the irrigable land. In other districts it has been decided 
that all district land, whether irrigable or lying above the canal 
system, is benefited either directly or because of the enhanced value 
of the community as a whole, in which cases the construction cost 
has been apportioned against irrigable and unirrigable lands in the 
ratio of, say, 10 to 1. Sometimes, but not often, several grades of 
