The Distribution of Water. 
7 
necessary to irrigate the land under it when water was scarce in 
the stream. The second section amended the act of 1868, by 
substituting one commissioner for three commissioners. The 
third section required in Pueblo County, before a commissioner 
should be appointed by the Probate Judge, that a majority of the 
riparian owners on each stream, should sign a petition, request¬ 
ing an appointment to be made, mentioning whom they preferred. 
(Session Laws, 1872, p. 144.) 
The General Laws of 1877, which was a compilation of pre¬ 
vious general statutes, as well as of those enacted by the first 
general assembly of the State of Colorado, contained the fourth 
section of the chapter concerning irrigation in the Revised Statute 
of 1868 without change, except that the words County Judge 
were substituted for the words Probate Judge. The compiler 
of the General Laws evidently overlooked the amendment of 
1870, repealing the Hardscrabble proviso. 
In the compilation known as the General Statutes of 1883, 
this important section of early Colorado law is printed with the 
amendment made in 1870, as Section 1714 thereof. It reads as 
follows: 
“In case the volume of water in said stream or river shall not 
be sufficient to supply the continual wants of the entire county through 
which it passes, then the County Judge of the county shall appoint three 
commissioners as hereinafter provided, whose duty it shall be to ap¬ 
portion in a just and equitable proportion, a certain amount of water upon 
certain or alternate weekly days to different localities, as they may 
in their judgment, think best for the interest of all parties concerned, 
and with a due regard to the legal rights of all.” 
The same section was again printed in 1890 as Section 2259, 
of Mills Annotated Statutes. 
Just how far any part of this old statute can be considered 
as now in force, may be a somewhat open question. Certainly 
the act of 1879, providing for the appointment of one water 
commissioner for each water district, constitutes an implied repeal 
of the power of the County Judge to appoint three commis¬ 
sioners ; but whether the courts will or will not hold that the 
power “to apportion in a just and equitable proportion, a certain 
amount of water upon certain or alternate weekly days to different 
localities, as the commissioner may in his judgment think best 
for the interests of all parties concerned, and with a due regard 
to the legal rights of all,” still vests in the water commissioner 
of the district, may be fairly debatable. 
Further on we will consider this subject of apportioning 
water in time to different localities under the discretionary 
powers of the water commissioner, without reference to this 
statute. From any point of view, it is interesting to note that 
there has been legislative recognition of the wisdom of such 
alternate supply under certain circumstances of scarcity. 
