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Show the water ditches. Salt Lake City, Nov. 21, 1879. Editors Herald: The query has suggested itself a' times whether the city has a water master in the winter Beason In the summer there is a wat'erma-ter Boveral watermaaters are seen busy in different parta of tbe city. Last week however, there was a request from the watermaater for people to late out the ere and yellow leaves, fallen leaves, out of the ditches. This modest request argues lhat there is a water master in the winter, aa well as iD I the summer, which is all right so far. The distribution of creek water in the varioua ditohes ia not altogether (or purposes of irrigation. Winter irrigation is not the thing in this oily. Tbe winters are too severe for any thing profitable in that line of work, thounb where tbe winters are open and mild, it may be advan-tadeous advan-tadeous to soak ordinary farm lands I with water in the winter season. Xn; faot, the winter in Buch climates often consists of a raioy eason, while our winter is a Bnowy and frosty season But our water ditches are for a double purpose lor irrigation in summer, and for domestic uses in eluding etable uses, all the year round. II the ditches were for irrigation only, there would be no necessity lor running the water in them in the winter lime, for it could go in one or two main streams down to the Jordan and the Salt Lake. But while the ditches are uaed, and necessarily bo, for domestio purposes at all seasons' there exists a necessity for their being looked alter officially, aud authoritatively authori-tatively regulated, at all seasons. It doee Beem sometimes as if it was anybody's and everybody's business to turn the water this way or that way, into this ditch and out of that ditch, during tbe year outside of the irrigation season. This is liable to be I very ioconvenitnt to divers persons and lamilies who depend in any way upon tbe water in the ditches. It is liable, moreover, to contribute to overflowings of the water upon the streets in varioua placeB, thus causing a great deal of unneceseary and inconvenient winter irrigation, and especially in a hard winter, forming many sk&tine rinks in the rmhlir. thoroughfares, much to tbe deligtit ol sleighing urchins no doubt, but anything any-thing else than conducive to the pleasure or safetv of adult pedestrians, equestrians, or buggy-riding or team-driving team-driving people in general. As I look at it, the watermaster should take upon himself to regulate the flow of water, to n great extent, in most if not all of the principal ditcheo, in winter as well as in summer, for it will not be satiifao lorily attended to if left to everybody to look after, as what Sb everybody's business is nobody's business. Water is not needed in every ditch in the winter, perhaps, and if not needed, is batter not there. But in certain ditches it is needed all winter. 1 think the watermaster should designate these ditches, as the winter comes on, and regulate the wattr flowing into them, in the interest of the citizens living near them. It might be well, also, if he bad one or two assistant wateimasters, or men of some sort, to Bend here or there to regulate the water and the gates, and to remove accidental obstacles in the ditches, prevent and remedy overflows, and BUch things, which, happening suddenly and being inconvenient and damaging, leave no time to call upon citizeoa of tbo looalily to recti ly Buch matters, even if such calling would always be equitable. Leaving all such things to individual and desultory rectification is much like leaving them to rectify themselves, which is hardly consistent with the pretensions of a metropolitan municipality like this, aud in this enlightened and advanced age and country. Hugo. |