Page:J Allan Dunn--The Girl of Ghost Mountain.djvu/208

190 a present underground outlet which must be plugged. It is not far below the surface. I have filed on the acreage, taking in the lake and the necessary margins and leads. No dam needs to be built, no tunnel run. A suction pump and a simple siphon will bring the water to a natural watercourse in this box canyon. Thence it must be flumed, a covered flume to prevent evaporation, or a pipe, to the main canal or ditch. That will be dredged without trouble in our soft soil, along this line. Most of it runs through my property."

He changed back to the first map.

"Laterals will be run as the cattlemen come into the scheme. I have traced the doubtful as well as probable lines of the ditches. The soil contains alkaline salts that will readily be diffused and will prove, in moderation, excellent as fertilizers, though this soil, as my own patch proves, will grow alfalfa without stimulus for the present. But these salts, in too great quantity, will make the land sour. There is a slight dip to the mesa, running transversely. As the water goes on the salts will leach to the bottom lands. We must have a drainage system, a canal. It is marked in red, approximately.

"I believe we can put water on the land at five dollars an acre, with a maintenance charge of fifty cents, that may be taken out in labor. That will be the charge to those who come into the original plan. Others, and later comers and buyers of the relinquishments and such properties under the ditch that the company may be able to acquire, will pay a greater price. Their money will go for extensions,