Irrigation and Education, III

Irrigation and Education

By Prof. O. W Israelsen, of the' Utah Agricultural College .

III. Place

Necessary as it is to have begun early and to have clearly decided upon a definite Purpose in order to properly acquire a water right or an education, an early beginning and definiteness of Purpose are insufficient. Reasonable adherence to a chosen Place is a vital necessity. To obtain a right to the use of water for irrigation the pub- lic wisely requires individuals to specify the place at which it is proposed to divert water from the source of supply. The legal subdivisions of land upon which he proposes to use the water which he asks permission to divert must also be specified. Fur- ther, the Place chosen must make "beneficial use" of water pos- sible, since "beneficial use" is declared to be the "basis, the meas- ure, and the limit" of all water rights. For example, an irrigator cannot acquire a right to a stream of 10 cubic feet of water per second, if half of the stream is' lost by seepage from a canal built in porous gravel near the point at which the water is diverted from its natural channel. It is also impossible to acquire a right to the use of a very large quantity of water for the irrigation of lands in low-lying places which are naturally moist. Acquiring an education is, in the same way, dependent on one's choosing a Place and keeping it. But this Place must be so chosen that he can use, to best advantage, his natural powers, if he expects pleasure, satisfaction and success to attend his efforts. Many good blacksmiths could have been developed from farm boys who have ruined their possibilities by leaving the farm and attempting to become efficient office clerks. About five years ago a friend of the writer sold a dry-farm which for ten years had barely paid his expenses, and on which he learned only one lesson; namely, that a dry-farm was not his Place. He is now a prosperous mechanic and is already recognized as a master automobile workman. Of his time, "beneficial use" is now being made. Upon rare occasions advantage is found in changing the Place of diversion or use of water for irrigation, and under proper limitations the public permits a transfer. One of Utah's

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best irrigators recently found that he could purchase water at a very low cost, which had been stored during the flood season, and that by pumping it only fifteen feet high he could irrigate a 40-acre tract of alfalfa land in the valley bottom. But he had a vested water right to the alfalfa land which had been irri- gated since 1865. He had also a 40-acre dry-farm near the valley foot-hills for which he could not afford to buy stored water, since the cost of raising it to the higher land would have been excessive. By building a short canal, however, he found that he could divert the water from the creek which had always supplied the bottom land, at a point higher up in the stream than the point of diversion in use, and thus irrigate the dry-farm very cheaply. By so doing, and also by purchasing stored water for the bottom-land alfalfa farm, he contributed to his own welfare and to that of his community. The public properly permitted him to transfer the old water right to the higher land. Likewise under some conditions a change of one's Place in educational endeavor is a mark of Progress, but stepping stones to real success are not found in the life of a nomad. Fundamental changes in soil, and therefore in the water- needs of plants, have frequently followed a few years' prac- tice of irrigation. Some choice soils once porous and open, thirsting for water, have been irrigated in abundance till the ground water table has been raised to a point which threatened to smother productive plant roots. The points of maximum soil productivity and of gravest danger to plant life have in many Places been reached at the same time. And then, to insure the permanence of soil fertility and to avoid the dangers of over- irrigation, the public has asserted that "beneficial use" of excessive quantities of water could not exist, and that perhaps other Places must be permitted to use part of the water sup- ply. The underlying basis of rights to the use of water thus lends itcelf to the needs of the hour. Similarly, fundamental changes in human ideals, and there- fore in the educational needs of men, have followed a few generations of self-government. In centuries past, favored classes of men thirsting for knowledge were highly educated till class distinction threatened to smother tendencies toward self-gov- ernment. The periods of the highest educational development among the few, and of the gravest danger to the perpetuation of democracy, were in many instances reached at the same time. And then to insure the perpetuation of self-government and to avoid the dangers of over-centralization of education, far-sighted statesmen declared that opportunity to obtain an education should be the birthright of every American citizen. Today col- leges and universities which were once open only to the favored few are doing all in their power to design courses of study suited