The men who organized the Little Bel- The dam raises the water about two feet mont Company in 1889, had the pick of all and fills the canal to running- over at any lands in the valley, and as a result the holdtime of the year when water is needed or can ings which came to the present company be used. embraced some of the best lands in the state. This cost is about five dollars per acre -- a This canal eventually came into the convery small sum, and worth it in a single year trol or name of the Belmont Irrigating Canal in a case of emergency which occasionally & Water Power Company. arises. It will save everv vear a part of the maintenance cost. Belmont Contract

This company turned over its lands in

BEGINNING OF IRRIGATION Morrill county "to a colonization company.

Irrigation in Morrill county began about and offered water rights in its canal on the

1889, with the Belmont conception. Some- following terms :

time previouslv to this L. B. Carv was pub- r

lishing the Irrigation Age at Kearney, the « ATER ^°ntrac '

paper being, I believe, established by Wil- I , hereby agree to purchase

Ham E. Smythe, later of Riverside, Califor- of the Belmont Irrigating Canal & Water

nia. Carj- came to the then Cheyenne coun- Power Company, a water right on its usual

ty, and one of the first efforts there was to terms for the following described land

assist the Belmont enterprise. situated in Morrill county, Ne-