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Show 50 COM~SSIONEOBR INDIAN AFF~IRs. The foregoing are all Indians who are not naturally agricultur-ists. Among the Pima, Zuni, New Mexico Pueblos, and other agri-cultural tribes there has been also marked advance with the new works and extensions provided for the irrigation of their lands. At Yakima (Wash.) Reservation practically all the land which can be supplied by the present canal system is being farmed. The total is more than 40,000 acres. Additional acres would be rapidly brought under cultivation if funds mere made available for the con-struction of the necessary diversion dam and enlarged and extended ' canal system. COOPERATIVE IRRIC+ATION. The requirements of the four reservations where the irrigation work is under the Reclamation Service have been carefully kept in view. At the end of the fiscal year 1915 about 65,000 acres of Indian allotments were provided with means of irrigation on these reser-vations, to which are attached nearly 8,000 Indians. With respect to the three Montana reservationsBlackfeet, Flathead, and Fort Peck* report covering present conditions and making recommenda-tions for future methods of cooperation of this bureau with the Reclamation Service has been prepared. These plans are being carried forward and arrangements perfected to benefit as much as possible the Indians of these reservations. The Yuma Reservation, similarly irrigated by works constructed by the Reclamation Service, has also been the subject of investigations and reports as to the changes that were found desirable in the methods of operation of the Indian unit as compared to those in force upon the remainder of the Reclamation project. WATER-RIGHTS PROTECTION. The legal aspect of the protection of Indian water rights received special attention on several reservations. These include Salt River, Pima, Papago, Yakima, Uitah, Pnh-Utes in California, Wind River, and others. The ownership and use of water differs from that of nearly any other property, on mount of the ever-present possibility of interfer-ence with that use, especially of water in flowing streams, by other irrigators at considerable distances, even in some instances in other States, and operating under various laws and practices. The cooperation and harmonizing of the various activities of the Indian Service, which I have continually endeavored to bring about, was aided by a conference at Washington, to which the five district buperintendents of irrigation were called, in December, during the period of comparative inactivity in irrigation work. Aside from the |