59 
irrigation officials and to those looking up titles t<» water for lands in 
that vicinity, and amends in sonic degree the lack of such filings in 
the early days. The necessity for obtaining a transfer decree before 
the change is made makes it possible to ascertain many matters of 
fact, and so affirm or deny statements made foror against the transfer. 
The question of the capacity of the old ditch is not the least impor- 
tant of these, affecting the amount which in justice might be trans- 
ferred. The old ditches could seldom carry their full decrees, and so 
a measurement on the ground during the existence of the old ditch is 
certainly necessary. In many of the old transfers, by the time a suit 
was brought to set it aside or limit it the old ditch had so filled up 
and changed that its original capacity could not he determined. The 
determination of seepage water, which contributed to till the old ditch, 
can likewise he determined accurately only at the time of transfer, 
and not some years Later. 
The principal objection urged against these sections is that they are 
too severe in their requirements for notification and entail a consid- 
erable expense. This is probably true, hut transfers are serious mat- 
ters, and not to be lightly entered into, but after due consideration, 
soberly, and in the fear of litigation. There appears no way to secure 
perfect right of either original decree or of transfer excepting to make 
all persons who could possibly have a claim on the water parties t<> 
the suit, and the matter of cost is nothing compared with the feeling 
of perfect peace engendered by the knowledge of unassailable title. 
It has recently been enunciated by one of the district judge- that 
the above law simply states a method of procedure which was the only 
legal way of making a transfer before, and is only in accordance with 
the law passed in L881 prescribing the procedure for obtaining decrees. 
It is a great pity that this fact has transpired only after twenty years 
of costly litigation, and that the above law was necessary to call the 
attention of the legal profession and of learned judges to these now 
obvious facts. 
A valid objection against a law which puts obstacles in the way of 
transfer is that all such changes tend to more economical use of water, 
or to its application to more productive land, and should be encouraged. 
Any legitimate transfer has one of these for its object. The abandon- 
ment of the old bottom lands and the redemption of warm, productive 
mesas is of benefit to the community as a whole. The application of 
water to more productive land, producing as it does a greater return, 
enhances the value of the water, and the more valuable the water the 
more carefully and economically it is used, and the greater its duty. 
By transfer several ditches can be consolidated into one; the cost of 
repairs and maintenance diminished, as well as the loss by seepage and 
evaporation. This saving by lessening seepage and evaporation is 
more considerable than appears at first glance, for not only is the 
