Then, because previous appropriators are not compelled to record the amount of water appropriated, and those acquiring titles under the first law now invariably claim much more water than they need, in fact often appropriate and even record more water than there is flowing in the stream. This is owing to the fact that they were not at first compelled to construct their works, "with due diligence until completed," nor to make ditches of capacities capable of carrying the volumes claimed, and above all because there is no officer having the power to measure the quantities of water diverted or to see that the works are prosecuted with due diligence. Endless and unsatisfactory litigation results, hastened by the occupation of lands lower down on some stream which in a very dry season may not flow sufficient water for all the appropriators who have acquired titles, whereupon the later settlers who have recorded their appropriations claim the water, while those who diverted water before the passage of the last law claim the right to it, though unrecorded, and as a consequence the case is carried to the courts, often with unjust and always with expensive results.
During the past exceptionally dry season these conditions led to much bitter litigation, often to bloodshed, and equally often to financial ruin owing to the supply of water being insufficient to mature the crops planted.
Water being very abundant in the smaller mountain valleys has led to great wastefulness in its use, the irrigator after applying what water his crops needed, instead of turning it back into the stream for the use of settlers lower down, generally turns his ditch loose on the open prairie and allows the water to run to waste. Then wasteful methods of applying the water to the crops are employed, and owing to the cheap and hasty construction of a vast number of small ditches the loss by seepage is very great; it has been estimated that there is on an average a ditch for every 200 acres of land cultivated, making a total of about 2500 irrigating ditches in the State.
In the last two years there has been a marked increase in the interest taken in irrigation enterprises, and though this has resulted in the formation of several large companies, which intend to take water by long and expensive canals to sections now uncultivated, yet in these cases are universally seen the same crude methods employed in first beginnings, without the aid and advice of experienced engineers. Large canals are being constructed at great cost, capable of carrying many times the amount of water flowing in the stream appropriated, whereas a much smaller and less expensive one would have carried the entire water supply. Again small canals have been constructed to carry small volumes of water very long distances, often 50 to 80 miles, while in reality owing to the great percentage of loss by seepage and evaporation, little or none of the water entering at the headgates will ever reach the irrigable lands.
Such illy advised projects are to be even more deplored than the smaller operations before spoken of, since the certain ultimate failure of this class of enterprise will result in discouraging capitalists from investing in even well-planned irrigation projects, and will retard the construction of valuable and necessary works.
POSSIBLE IRRIGATION ENTERPRISES.
During the past season the author made an extensive though hurried reconnoisance of Montana, in the progress of which he rode on horseback 2,200 miles and traveled 3,700 miles by rail, examining with some degree of detail all of the central counties and making a few hasty trips into Choteau, Dawson and Custer Counties. In the course of this reconnoisance the sites for sixty storage reservoirs, having a combined storage capacity of about 3,250,000 acre feet were carefully examined, and lines of ten great irrigating canals approximately decided on. It may be well to state here that an acre-foot of water is a very convenient unit of measure adopted by the U. S. Geological Survey in speaking of the contents of large reservoirs, and refers to a body of water one acre in superficial area and one foot in depth.
In every case these proposed reservoirs are so situated, that their storage water will be convenient to large bodies of irrigable land, which, without some such provision for water supply must forever remain uncultivated, but which with irrigation from these reservoirs will ultimately become thickly inhabited and very productive regions. The same statements apply to the canals projected, though of course detailed surveys may prove the impracticability of some of these works as financial investments.
Mention will be made of a few of the more important of these projects; those which appear most likely to prove financial successes.
North of the Yellowstone and between it and the Musselshell and Missouri Rivers is an immense high bench land, traversed by a few long couleés, dry excepting in the times of melting snow or heavy spring storms, and then raging torrents for a period of a few days or hours. This bench land between the couleés is flat topped and has a regular and gentle slope to the eastward, falling about six feet per mile, a little more rapidly north of Big Timber, and decreasing in grade to the eastward. The general elevation of this bench above the Yellowstone River varies from 600 feet north of Stillwater, to 300 feet north of Miles City, and includes about 11,000,000 acres, of which at least 5,225,000 acres are of the best quality for agricultural purposes and readily accessible by the great canal. In all this vast area there is not even sufficient water for the few horses and cattle which range on it, and they are compelled to congregate near the occasional pools and springs scattered at long intervals over it.