Wood was that such a bill would do in California, "where the land had a basic value, but here our lands had no value of consequence." Captain W. R. Akers came to the defense of the proposed principle, and in two years that followed it was pretty well threshed out, and practically approved. Senator Akers, who was chosen from this district for the legislative session of 1895, went into the work with thoroughness. He secured the co-operation of Senator Stewart, again there from Dawes county, and the bill became a law in April, 1895.

An Odd Aftermath One of the queer situations that arose from this story of the irrigation district bill, was that in March, 1895, about ten days before the bill became a law, William H. Wright went before the proper authorities at Lincoln, and under the existing St. Raynor law, asked for a revival of the water right which the Farmers Irrigation Company held. These had been idle, and practically dead. Their request was granted. This gave, as shown by later court records, a ten year preferential riglu to the water in the claim, and for its application to beneficial uses. For years Senator Stewart fought this appropriation and other canals claimed precedence in time, but the supreme court finally sustained it. I have often thought

if Senator Stewart. Frank Sands, Wenzel Hiersche, and other affected by this decision, and through the years opposed to the appropriation, had given the immediate time to the bill proposed in 1893, and the bill then became a law, that the story would have been written differently. The water right of the Farmers canal would have died a natural death. However, that is not important now, for all have supplemental waters from the Pathfinder dam, and the questions of priority need never be again discussed or litigated in the state of Nebraska.