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Show 530 THE APPROPRIATEVE RIGHT is to the appropriator's advantage to have the period of use under his water right coincide with the period customarily followed in the region. If this is arranged, he gains flexibility in adapting his water supply to choice of crops and general farming requirements. Some legal questions involved in the subject of period of use of water have been discussed earlier under "Measure of the Appropriative Right."460 (7) "Irrigation use includes any application of water to the production of irrigated crops or the maintenance of large areas of lawns, shrubbery, or gardens."461 Irrigation of uncultivated land.-(I) The general rule. Irrigation of lands used variously for "wild hay," "wild meadow," "native grasses," "pasture," "grazing" was recognized in a number of cases in various States as a valid purpose for which water might be appropriated.462 "The use of water for the irrigation of pasture land, as counsel agree, constitutes a beneficial use of water."463 When there is evidence that wild hay and pasture lands are materially increased in productiveness by reason of application of water, a valid appropriation of such water may be made.464 Early in the present century, in pointing out that the evidence showed positively that by irrigation the amount of grass for pasture was greatly increased, the Montana Supreme Court stated logically that:465 If the respondent should cut the grass for hay, it would hardly be contended that the use of the water was not then beneficial, within the meaning of the statute; and if so, it can hardly be that the question whether the use is a beneficial one can be made to depend upon the particular manner in which respondent feeds the grass produced by the irrigation. As used in the division of the California Water Code relating to water rights, "useful or beneficial purposes" is not to be construed to mean "the use in any one year of more than 2Vi acre-feet of water per acre in the irrigation of uncultivated areas of land not devoted to cultivated crops."466 460Compare Harkey v. Smith, 31 N. Mex. 521, 525-530, 247 Pac. 550 (1926). 461 CaL Admin. Code, tit. 23, § 662 (1969). ^Campbell v. Ingram, 37 CaL App. 728, 730-731, 174 Pac. 366 (1918); Oliver v. Skinner and Lodge, 190 Oreg. 423, 437-438, 226 Pac. (2d) 507 (1951);/« re Silvies River, 115 Oreg. 27, 41, 237 Pac. 322 (1925); Jensen v. Birch Creek Ranch Co., 76 Utah 356, 361-362, 289 Pac. 1097 (1930); Rodgers v. Pitt, 129 Fed. 932, 942 (C. C. D Nev. 1904); Anderson Land & Stock Co. v. McConnell, 188 Fed. 818, 822 (C. C. D. Nev. 1910). Decrees sustained in Vineyard Land & Stock Co. v. Twin Falls Oakley Land & Water Co., 245 Fed. 30, 33, 35 (9th Cir. 1917);Pacific Live Stock Co. v.Read, 5 Fed. (2d) 466,468 (9th Cir. 1925). 463/« re Escalante Valley Drainage Area, 11 Utah (2d) 77, 80, 355 Pac. (2d) 64 (1960). *MRudge v. Simmons, 39 Idaho 22, 27-28, 226 Pac. 170 (1924). *6iSayre v. Johnson, 33 Mont. 15, 19, 81 Pac. 389 (1905). 466 CaL Water Code § 1004 (West 1956). |