The watershed of each system is of paramount value as the source of the water supply of that system, and its preservation for that purpose is of the utmost importance. A barren, hoof-beaten shed dissipates the rainfall, while a well-covered, untrodden shed conserves the rainfall. To protect the shed is to perpetuate the system and preserve homes for the people, while to despoil the shed is to deteriorate the system and destroy the homes.

The control of irrigation systems is a manifest necessity, as without control there can be no protection and damage and confusion are unavoidable. This control should include the entire area of the watershed as well as the irrigation works proper.

It is fully understood by the people of Arizona that one of the first irrigation projects to be inaugurated under the provisions of the Hansbrough-Newlands act will be in this Territory by the construction of what is known as the dam to create the Tonto reservoir, some 70 miles above Phoenix, on Salt River.

This reservoir, when created by the construction of the dam, will cover 14,000 acres. The height of the dam will be 245 feet and the depth of the water stored at the dam will be 190 feet; the dam will be 165 feet thick at the bottom and 16 feet thick at the top. In length it will be 200 feet at the base and 653 feet at the top. When completed the Salt River dam will be the highest in the world, and the storage capacity of the reservoir will be greater than almost any three artificial reservoirs in the world, being about 1,300,000 acre-feet of water, or sufficient to cover 1,300,000 acres of land 1 foot in depth.

It is felt and understood that the creation of this artificial reservoir by the construction of this immense dam is but the forerunner of further systems of water storage in aid of irrigation in Arizona, and that eventually upon all streams in the Territory where proper sites can be found systems of irrigation works will be constructed, and that where flood-water supply is found sufficient to guarantee, more than one reservoir will be created upon a single stream, in order that control of all surplus water may be had. That this is the intention of the Government all fully believe.

In the reports on the various irrigated sections of the Territory submitted herewith will be found much general information on the subject of irrigation and agriculture as practiced in Arizona.

DISTRIBUTION AND DUTY OF WATER IN SALT RIVER VALLEY.

The following article on the distribution and duty of water in Salt River Valley by Mr. Frank P. Trott, court water commissioner of Maricopa County, will be found of much value and interest:

In submitting the accompanying statement of the semidaily average volume of water, in miner's inches, which was received by certain canals in Salt River Valley during the first seven months of the year 1903; the estimated number of acres lying under and irrigated by the same, and the average number of acres which were irrigated by 1 miner's inch of water, the writer does not intend to create the impression that the water was used on these acres in that proportion, nor does he want it to be understood that he considers 1 miner's inch of water to be a sufficiency for every particular 5 acre tract of land in the valley, regardless of its locality or character of soil. But he does sincerely believe, that 1 miner's inch for every five acres, on a grand average, would be ample to produce the best maximum results, provided the entire valley was planted to the same diversified crops (which have heretofore been raised), and irrigated according to their requirement in anything like a scientific

manner.

The duty of water under the existing conditions can not be accurately determined, nor can it be delivered now upon a fixed basis to the satisfaction of the user, or always to the satisfaction of the land itself. A careful study of the statement herewith submitted will verify the truth of this assertion; though, during this time the water was delivered to the canals, and consequently to the lands, with a greater degree of proportion to actual requirements (according to my records) than for any known corresponding period of time.

Judge Kibbey in his opinion which was rendered in the celebrated case of M. Wormser et al. . The Salt River Valley Canal Co. et. al., and entitled case No. 708, says: "The amount of water necessary for irrigation in this valley varies between very wide extremes, being affected by the character of the soil, which varies greatly, by its location, by the length of time during which it has been irrigated and cultivated, by the character of the crops, by the method of its irrigation, by temperature, by the amount of rainfall, and by the prevalence of the winds. The amount of water necessary for irrigation even on the same identical piece of land and for the same kind of a crop may not be constant. It is in evidence in this case that there are lands which produce a full crop of alfalfa throughout the year with not more than 1 inch of water to 10 acres. It is also in evidence as to other lands planted to alfalfa that it requires for the production of a full crop on them the use of half an inch to the acre.'

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When this evidence was submitted the farmers did not know how to correctly estimate the volume of a miner's inch, and none of them had had the opportunity to test its real annual value as a productive quantity. During this trial the court arbitrarily fixed the value of a miner's inch in the following language:

"A miner's inch, as used in these proceedings, is a unit of measurement of water, and while varying in different States and Territories on the coast, here is held to be an amount equal to the fortieth part of a cubic foot flow per second.”

In other words, this miner's inch flowing constantly for one year means a little over 18 acre-feet, or the discharge of a quantity of water equal to 11.22 gallons per minute.

As the object of this letter is to treat and estimate in a general way the present duty of water in the Salt River Valley, the system of distribution, with a short history of the conditions that brought it about, and to present some personal conclusions as to the duty of water under a reservoir system controlling and regulating its use, I will begin with the conditions prevailing here twenty years ago.

In 1883 the legislature of Arizona authorized Patrick Hamilton to compile and have published a second edition of the Resources of Arizona." The work was completed and given to the public in the fall of the same year. In his introductory letter he says that he personally visited every important farming settlement within its borders; that he sought the truth, and that the facts presented and statements made can be relied upon. On page 152 he gives the names of canals that were in operation in the valley at that time and their respective capacities, as follows:

Grand Canal

Salt River Canal.

Maricopa Canal

Farmers' Canal

These are on the north side of the river. On the south side there are the

Inches.

7.000

3.000

3,000

1,000

Inches.

3,000

500

500

2,000

2,000

Making a total of 22,000 inches of water appropriated. The area of land under the several canals is about 45,000 acres of which about 30,000 acres are under cultivation, leaving 15,000 uncultivated.

He also adds that "with care and economy in its use the quantity of water now brought from the river is sufficient to cultivate this 45,000 acres." Continuing, he says that "the estimated duty of water for grain is about one-half inch to the acre.” I was living in the valley at that time and know that most of the farmers advocated this opinion and believed that alfalfa required from three-fourths of an inch to 1 inch of water per acre to perfect its annual yield.

In 1887 the case No. 708, before referred to, was begun in the district court. It was a suit by canals against canals, and brought for the purpose of determining the

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rights of canals as against each other only, and such rights only were in part adjudicated. The following extract is copied from Judge Kibbey's concluding remarks: "It would be futile in this case to attempt to define the rights of the individual irrigators. It would not operate as an adjudication of their rights. The court might retain the case for the purpose of making the individual irrigators parties to it; the same result can be accomplished so readily by the voluntary action of the parties themselves, that I shall not do so. *What the future rights of the parties may be, depending as they do upon their conduct and their agreements, upon a vast number of conditions varying constantly, can not be surmised, much less adjudicated."

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This trial lasted for five years and was stubbornly and bitterly fought. The opinion was rendered in March, 1892, sustaining the findings of July 14, 1890. As this opinion has been so freely misquoted and so generally misunderstood, Í here give a synopsis of what the findings really were.

Judge Street, in a decision which he rendered in February, 1900, refers to this case as follows: "The purpose of that suit was to determine the proportionate amount of water to which each canal was entitled under the rule of prior appropriation. All of the canal companies and canal associations of the Salt River Valley taking their water from Salt River at the dam of the Arizona Canal Company, or between that point and the city of Phoenix, were parties to that suit; the relative rights of the individual water consumer were not involved, nor did they receive determination; it involved only the rights of the canals. A water commissioner was appointed to distribute the water to the respective canals in accordance therewith. Such water commissioner has ever since been retained by the court and the water is distributed with such decree as a basis."

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During the trial of this suit (No. 708) Andrew Barry and S. A. Davison, two civil engineers, were selected by the canal companies and appointed by the court to apportion the water to the canals entitled to receive it, according to the lands which were in cultivation under them, subject to such instructions and orders of the court as the court might from time to time give. They fixed this apportionment, as I understand it, on a basis of 80 miner's inches for each quarter section in cultivation, or one-half of an inch per acre, and in a general way it was carried out for the crop season of that year.

In the fall of 1889 the court appointed a permanent water commissioner, but did not then fix, nor has it since attempted to fix, the apportionment of water in miner's inches to the canals for the lands lying under them which are first entitled to its use. Some basis was, however, necessary, and as the apportionment of 80 inches was considered too high, a general or passive agreement was entered into by the canal companies at issue to fix the basis at 1 inch for every 24 acres of land. The water was to be delivered at the heads of the respective canals in proportion to the lands lying under them and entitled to its use, which might by the court be determined; but before this agreement was put into practical operation a contract was entered into between the Arizona. Grand, Maricopa, and Salt River Valley canals and the Mesa and Utah canals, dated July 10, 1890, in which they agreed that the water should be delivered to the Tempe and San Francisco canals according to the findings of the court, and that the remainder should be divided between them in accordance with the terms of their written agreement. This agreement was almost immediately put into effect, and the spirit of it has ever since been respected and enforced. It was in operation for more than one year before the Kibbey opinion was rendered, has run through the administrations of four other district judges, and is now in the hands of the fifth.

Since 1890 the records show that the water has been delivered to the Tempe and San Francisco canals at the head of their system on an apportionment of 64 miner's inches per quarter section; the remainder, as before stated, has been distributed to the other canals by the said agreement with some modifications which were made necessary by changed conditions. This method of distributing 1 inch of water to the canals for every 24 acres of land lying under them, and found by the table submitted by Judge Kibbey to be entitled to its use, has never been, to my knowledge, fully carried out by any canal. Judge Street, in his decision above referred to,

states:

"The historic condition of the canals, both on the north and on the south sides of the river, is, that they have been enlarged from time to time, that from year to year new lands have been brought into subjection beneath them, until at the present time it can be said that every acre of land lying beneath the canals which take water from the Salt River at or below the Arizona dam in the Salt River Valley, that can be cultivated and irrigated with water available for the purpose, is cultivated and irrigated." He affirms that "these circumstances and conditions inspired the action No. 708."

Most of the lands of Salt River Valley, both old and new, have bona fide settlers on them and every year these settlers attempt to cultivate more or less of their lands. The carrying capacity of the canals is great enough to accommodate all of the lands lying under them, if a sufficiency of water was always available, which is, unfortunately, not the case. But the erratic rises of the river are, as a rule, frequent enough to entice the farmers into planting more land to crops than they can at all times get water enough to mature. And as the water goes to the canals, especially to the Tempe and San Francisco, by an interpolated division table (prepared from the Kibbey table), at the apportionment of 64 miners' inches per quarter section, and as the canal companies have the control of the water after it enters the canals, the companies sometime attempt to accomplish too much with it. The old lands, though, in times of scarcity, under most of these systems are favored more than the new.

Attention is here called to the fact that the grand daily average quantity of water received by the canals mentioned in the statement submitted with this report was 22,728 miners' inches. If this water had been under perfect control, and distributed to the canals having the lands nrentioned in the Kibbey table on the basis of 64 miner's inches per quarter section, only 56,830 acres would have been cultivated, instead of the 118,500 acres estimated. This estimation of acreage may be a little too high, or it may be a little too low, but I have tried to obtain it as correctly as possible, and believe that it would not, under measurement, fall below 116,000 or go above 120,000 acres. The effect of this water (received as it was in the erratic way shown by the statement) upon the crops has been marvelous. The general consensus of opinion is that the products have been much better than for many years past, and that the condition of the growing crops on the 1st day of August of this year, was at least 100 per cent better than it was on the 1st day of August, 1902.

I contend, and do so with the utmost sincerity, that if this average of 22,728 miner's inches of water had been so handled and delivered that it would have been placed upon these 118,500 acres which were in cultivation, in a proper proportion to the requirement of the crops, the acreage would have yielded the maximum product it was capable of producing.

It is contended by some of the users of the water on the north side of the river that this apportionment of 64 miners' inches to the Tempe and San Francisco canals is too high, and that the delivery to the Mesa and Utah canals by the contract between the canals on the north side and the Mesa and Utah canals is still higher. They believe this system gives the south side more water than it is entitled to or should receive, and the lands on the north side are being deprived of a like amount of water which should by right be given to them.

This is a question that I can not here, with propriety, consider. But I think I might say something as to the main effect this method of distribution has had upon the valley as a whole. As I have before stated, the canal companies are responsible to their cus tomers for the detail distribution, the water commissioner's duties having ended when he has apportioned the supply and delivered it to them at the heads of their respective systems, according to the agreements and arrangements which they have themselves made and to which they have consented. The canal companies have never attempted to give, so far as I have been able to ascertain, any particular quarter section lying under their canals which might be entitled to water, its exact proportion on any fixed basis, in a continuous flow, or as an average. There are nine canals taking water from the river, which are affected by the Kibbey decree. They are located on both sides of the river and the lands lying under them, for which the canals receive the water, are very much scattered. These lands are not systematically contiguous as to years of allowance or location. The companies say that to deliver water to these lands on any fixed basis, under these conditions, considering the erratic supply the river affords, would be a waste of water and a practical impossibility. In tinies of normal supply and lower stages the canals rotate the water to nearly all of the cultivated lands lying under them, each canal company having adopted its own method of rotation. They say that this method largely increases the duty of water by giving to the user a "head" capable of doing some practical good; but their strongest reason for its justification seems to be that they are able to keep the products on all of the enltivated lands alive and in a fairly healthy condition until the rises come, when there is water for all.

This liberality has, no doubt, been carried to the extreme, and probably too much has been attempted during the last few years-which have been years of unusual low supply-but the fault is due more to the unexpected shortage than to the system or to the canal companies operating it.

In the year 1900 there was planted and cultivated in this valley about 115,000 acres of land, and the grand daily average supply of water, which was diverted from the river to the canals in the valley, was a little over 14,000 miners' inches, the lowest

annual supply ever known. With only this limited supply of water available there was fully two-thirds of a crop raised upon this acreage, considering it as a whole. At a delivery of 64 miners' inches per quarter section under a literal distribution of the water to the lands entitled to it, admitting that such was possible, there would have been only 35,000 acres of land in cultivation, and under this literal distribution no lands under the Arizona and Grand canals could have been cultivated, and only a few hundred acres under the Mesa and Utah, and the crops on many thousands of acres lying under the four old canals would have been an entire failure. This would have resulted in great suffering to many hundreds of families and caused a money loss to the valley, amounting to many thousands of dollars. Under the present system, the old lands of the valley that might be entitled to a sufficiency of water in times of scarcity do not always obtain it, consequently their annual yield falls below the maximum. It may be true, as claimed, that the rights of many individuals who are farming under the old canals have been affected; how seriously I do not know, but I do know that the value of water rights in every one of the old canals has advanced over 2,000 per cent in the last twenty years. Hamilton says in Resources of Arizona" for 1883: "At present a water right in any of the canals can be had at from $300 to $500." To-day the same water rights in the Maricopa canal are valued at $9,000, and in the Salt River Valley canal at $9,000. In the Tempe canal they have been sold for $7,000, and a water right in the San Francisco canal can not be bought at any price.

his "

From these facts it is contended that the general development of this valley by this system had added a value to the old settled land and water rights far beyond what might have been had the old system of selfish diversion and extravagant waste of water upon a few thousand acres of land only continued to the present time.

For more than fifteen years the farmers diverted water from the river and used it practically as they pleased, and for nearly fifteen years the water has been apportioned to the canal companies by a court decision, and these canal companies have been handling it in the manner above described. Neither of these systems have been entirely satisfactory, but they have each taught a useful lesson, though in doing so they have created such a complicated tangle that it may never be unraveled with exact justice to all. In general, the water is handled now by these companies with much economy, and is distributed with such a degree of fairness that the farmers, who control tile canals, themselves enforce the method described, and others who are not so situated, are beginning to respect it.

In 1883 the estimated duty of water per acre in Salt River Valley was about fourteen acre-feet; in 1888 nine acre-feet was estimated to be necessary; in 1890 the various canal companies unanimously agreed upon 74 acre-feet as being a sufficiency, but the average annual delivery has been considerably less.

In 1900 the supply of water available fell off fully 50 per cent, and resulted, as I have said, in the raising of only about two-thirds of a crop as a grand average on the lands irrigated. But as this acreage has been estimated at 115,000, it can be correctly figured that a full crop could have been produced with this supply of water on at least 75,000 acres, which would fix the annual duty of 1 miner's inch of water delivered to the canals for that year at over 5 acres.

Some two years ago Dr. A. J. Chandler commenced pumping water from the ground at a place about 7 miles south of Mesa, and has since been farming with the water pumped and making various tests of it in order to ascertain its maximum duty. He is now pumping about 600 miners' inches, and in a few days intends to increase this to 800 inches. He says that he has thoroughly demonstrated the fact that 1 miner's inch of water is ample for an average of 5 acres, provided the land is planted in the proportion of one-third to grain and two-thirds to alfalfa. He authorizes me to make this statement in this letter. When his supply is increased to 800 inches he will plant 4,000 acres of land in this proportion; that is, one-third to grain and twothirds to alfalfa. If he can cultivate this acreage successfully, with a constant flow of 1 inch to 5 acres, what could he do with it if he could store the water and irrigate the entire crop practically at the same time when its hours of actual requirement came? Without this means of storage he must irrigate in the winter months when the crop does not actually need it, or let his pump stand idle, and thus increase the percentage of the water's duty, or pump and create a waste, which will be erroneously charged to it as a duty.

From the latter part of November the alfalfa exists in a semidormant state, and needs but little, if any, water (in addition to the winter rains) until the warm days of February have taken the chill from the soil.

In June, 1903, Judge Kent, the present chief justice of Arizona, who presides over this judicial district, rendered a decision in a case entitled United States of America as Guardian of certain Maricopa Indians, etc., v. N. W. Haggard et al., the effect of