“ This court has stated that what is a public use may frequently and largely depend upon the facts surrounding the subject, and we have said that the people of a state, as also its courts, must, in the nature of things, be more familiar with such facts, and with the necessity and occasion for the irrigation of the lands, than can any one be who is a stranger to the soil of the state, and that such knowledge and familiarity must have their due weight with the state courts. ”

“ They understand the situation which led to the demand for the enactment of the statute, and they also appreciate the results upon the growth and prosperity of the state which, in all probability, would flow from a denial of its validity. These are matters which might properly be held to have a material bearing upon the question whether the individual use proposed might not in fact be a public one. It is not alone the fact that the land is arid and that it will bear crops if irrigated, or that the water is necessary for the purpose of working a mine, that is material ”

“ These rights have been altered by many of the Western states by their constitutions and laws, because of the totally different circumstances in which their inhabitants are placed, from those that exist in the states of the East, and such alterations have been made for the very purpose of thereby contributing to the growth and prosperity of those states, arising from mining and the cultivation of an otherwise valueless soil, by means of irrigation. ”