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Show DRAINING FIELD AND RANCH Successful Operation Has Developed Necessity of More Extended Work I to Secure Outlets. The successful drainage of the field and ranch has developed the necessity of making more extended work to secure se-cure outlets which are adequate to receive re-ceive the water from the several farms. Irrigated land has few, if any. watercourses, so that drainage water must be delivered through artificial ditches, usually to the same stream from which the water was originally diverted. The construction of such outlet drains requires the co-operation of the owners of land which is to be benefited. This Is secured under the provisions of the state drainage laws, which permit owners of land to form a corporate district and distribute the cost of the work among the several sev-eral owners in proportion to the benefit bene-fit each will receive. The assessments so apportioned are collected as taxes and the proceeds applied to pay for the cost of such work as has been agreed upon. Each landowner within the district then has a right to use the outlets and participate in all of the benefits which will accrue from the work. It is quite often the case that little or no field drainage can be successfully success-fully done until outlets have been mane, uisiricts oi tins cnaraciei cuu- j taining 10,000 acres or more have been I inaugurated in the states of Washing- j ton, Utah and Colorado, but none has as yet been completed. This feature : of drainage, which has but recently 1 been forced upon the people in certain j sections, is new and brings up some j troublesome questions concerning the I location of such drains as will prove of common utility, and also concern- ; ing the equitable assessment of their j cost upon the several tracts of land for which they provide drainage. There are at least 800.000 acres of irrigated land which now require draining in order to make them profitably profit-ably productive, the larger part of which will require the construction of outlet drains in which more or less co-operation of property owners will be required. After the land which is drained has become fairly free from alkali, with which it is often highly charged, the water flowing from the main drains becomes highly valuable for irrigation. Such water then becomes be-comes an asset, since it may be used to irrigate lands occupying a lower level. These questions have not yet been adjusted satisfactorily in connection connec-tion with drainage projects. In fact, they are only broached when the necessity ne-cessity for public drainage districts requires re-quires their consideration. It is quite certain that drainage districts must soon be as much a feature of irrigated farming as they now are of agriculture agricul-ture in the humid sections. I |