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Show PRESCRIPTION 423 enjoyment measures the extent of the right. Furthermore, the right gained is always confined to the right as exercised during the full period required by the statute of limitations * * * . This being so, it is essential that he who seeks to establish such a right must show definitely what right he has enjoyed, the extent of it, and that it has been continuous in that relation for the statutory period. Quantity of Water Diverted From the foregoing it follows that the prescriptive right cannot exceed the quantity of water actually diverted and put to beneficial use.874 "In the absence of a finding of the actual diversion of some definite quantity of water, sufficiently supported by evidence, the plea of prescriptive right to take water * * * must necessarily fail."875 The prescriptive right extends only to the quantity of water taken during the prescriptive period, and does not include the taking of an additional quantity in the future.876 Furthermore, in California it has been held that even for public use a prescriptive right cannot be acquired for water to be used in the future in excess of that used during the prescriptive period.877 With respect to California municipal water supplies, therefore, the growing needs of a city-which may be taken into consideration in acquiring appropriative rights-nevertheless do not measure the city's prescriptive rights:878 The future need of the city is not a measure of the servitude upon the lands represented by plaintiff. The right of these lands cannot be made to decrease with the future increasing needs of the city. The only safe rule is that defendant be restricted to the maximum amount of water heretofore actually diverted and beneficially applied during a given period of time. In other words, the extent of its previous beneficial use is the measure of its exsiting right. ""Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. v. Wailuku Sugar Co., 14 Haw. 50, 62 (1902); Turner v. East Side Canal & Irr. Co., 169 Cal. 652, 655-658, 147 Pac. 579 (1915); Eden Township County Water Dist. v. Hayward, 218 Cal. 634, 638-639, 24 Pac. (2d) 492 (1933). Hence, "The fact that one has a ditch running through his land which he keeps full of water diverted from a stream does not give him any right to such water as against others who have rights therein," for the right extends only to the quantity actually put to a beneficial use. Northern Cal. Power Co., Consol. v. Flood, 186 Cal. 301, 304, 199 Pac. 315 (1921). The use of a given quantity of water, no matter how long continued, would give no right to the use of a greater quantity. Hall v. Carter, 33 Tex. Civ. App. 230, 234, 77 S.W. 19 (1903, error refused). ™ Logan v. Guichard, 159 Cal. 592, 597, 114 Pac. 989 (1911). 876San Bernardino v. Riverside, 186 Cal. 7, 25, 31, 198 Pac. 784 (1921). ^Turner v. East Side Canal & Irr. Co., 169 Cal. 652, 657, 147 Pac. 579 (1915). The taking of water into a canal, where it is allowed to run to waste pending the finding of customers who will use it at some future time, does not constitute a present benificial use of the wasted water so as to initiate the period of prescription therefor. S7*Eden Township County Water Dist. v. Hayward, 218 Cal. 634, 638, 24 Pac. (2d) 492 (1933). |