61 
consumers thereunder of water they actually needed. Thej would 
probably not have the assurance to cause any loss of crops, but they 
could considerably inconvenience and embarrass the users and sell the 
surplus to some needy canal. For some unaccountable reason and 
contrary to all previous practice, ili<' pitches injuriously affected 
accepted this interpretation and suffered in Spartan silence so tar as 
appeal for redress to either the Mate engineeror the courts were con- 
cerned. In another division the superintendent assumed an exactly 
opposite position, and ordered his commissioners to recognize no notices 
of transfer. The courts have not been able to pass on tin- const itution- 
alitv of the act. and it seems that this superintendent was equally in 
error with the one already mentioned.. The three other superintend- 
ents who had occasion to pass upon the law agreed that in its workings 
it was of the greatest benefit in the saving of crops and in the eco- 
nomical use of water. As no complaints were made of the exchanges 
in these divisions, we may assume that the user- were pleaded with the 
section. 
Some law is necessary, so long as human nature is as it is, to enable 
those in authority to prevent the selfish from playing the "dog in the 
manger." To he sure, there is a law prohibiting waste, hut it is not 
to the public interest for a man to use water to irrigate stubble land 
to bring up wild oats, or to wet the land for the next season's plow- 
ing when an orchard, the result of years of labor, is in danger of 
being ruined: and if a man in a neighborly spirit sees lit to abandon 
his third crop of alfalfa and loan his water for the purpose of saving 
crops, it is public policy to allow him to do so. The law properly 
interpreted and executed can he of great benefit and at the same time 
not interfere with vested rights. If the conditions recited in the sec- 
tion are adhered to. and if the broad principle of noninterference with 
the rights of others is kept in mind, no one can object: to get any ben- 
efit, however, from the law one must he just and reasonable in deter- 
mining the rights of others. Theoretical and inconsequent damage 
should not be allowed to prevent the good which might be done. 
The condition specifically stated in the section that the loan is made 
for the purpose of saving crop- should be rigidly adhered to. The 
loan is not for the purpose of making crops, but for saving those 
already practically matured. To he saved an article must necessarily 
be in existence. As already pointed out. the exchange may result in 
a great saving of water, and when a loan or exchange i- made, if it is 
a loan or exchange contemplating a return in like amount, gifts and 
sales of water are excluded. Again, the loan is for a limited time. 
This clause is, I admit, indefinite, and might be expressed more clearly 
a The supreme court of the State has recently upheld the constitutionality of the 
art. New Cache la Poudre Irrigating Company u. Water Supply and Storage Com- 
pany, 08 Pac., 781. — Ed. 
