Irrigation and Drainage [pp. 19-32]

1886.] IrrigatioiZ and Drailage. 31
engineers, the highest grade among whom is districts are remarkable. In Spain and the
the hydraulic engineer. The length of ca- south of France, and considerably in Belnals in Lombardy alone is over five thousand gium, irrigation is extensively practiced, so
miles, and there is scarcely an acre of the that it may be said that the great valleys of
Milanese that is without several intersecting the Po, Adige, Tagus, and Douro are subcanals. In round numbers there are a mil- jected to systematic irrigation, enormously
lion acresirrigatedin Lombardy. Thesystem adding to their productiveness. Such a syshas been perfecting for seven hundred years, tem is entirely impossible, where the right of
and has gone on under all changes of dynas- the land owner on a stream to own and conty and all civil commotions. It has convert- trol the water is admitted. The water is
ed a barren waste into a garden. The right conducted for miles away from the stream,
of property in all running waters, whether and from the land of the riparian proprietor.
of rivers, streams, or torrents, appertains to He may have his share on the terms of other
the government. While the government dis- users of the vital fluid; but he cannot claim
poses of the waters of all rivers and canals, a superior right because his land is nearit recognizes the claims of towns, or associa- er or better situated than another's. And
tions of proprietors, to the supplies which he has no power to determine that the wathey have enjoyed by prescriptive title for ter shall run idly by him to the sea, and lose
long periods of time. Private rights to di- nothing by non-user. Such doctrines may
vert water have grown up to such extent, do for humid countries, where water is an
that the right asserted by the State is nearly obstacle; not for arid countries, where it is
a barren one, and its enforcement has refer- the supreme blessing-the essential of the
ence rather to administration and police du- community's preservation.
ties, than to direct financial considerations. The climate, productions, and general
In exercising its right of property in waters characteristics of these countries resemble
available for irrigation, the government of strongly those of California, esp,ecially of the
ILombardy follows one of three courses. southern part of the State. A system that has
First, it disposes of the water in absolute made possible their dense populations must
property, to parties paying certain established be favorable, it must be indispensable, to our
sums for the right to divert it. Second, it prosperity. Our population is thin compared
grants perpetual leases of the water -on pay- with that of our sister States. We have a cultiment of a certain annual amount. Third, it vable area equal to New England, New York,
grants a temporary lease for a variable time and Pennsylvania, with a population of a milat a certain annual rate, the water reverting lion, while theirs is fourteen millions.' Comto the State on the termination of the lease. pared to the populations of other countries of
By far the most common of these courses is the world, which resort to irrigation, ours is inthe first, and it operates the most beneficially. significant. If we are to observe the law of