The Lucerne canal was completed in due time, and still does service in an excellent manner in the territory about L ingle ; and the original costs were so small as to be negligible.

ney, who represented the district, introduced and secured the passage of a short bill for irrigation regulation in the manner of appropriating water.

A number of filings had been previously made, and several canals built. The first from the North Platte river was the Seeberger canal at North Platte. The second was the Farmers canal, and the third the Minatare canal, both in Scotts Bluff county.

I was publishing the Ashford Advocate, about seventeen miles south of the town of Gering, when George F. ' Fairfield, who surveyed and was active in the promotion of the Minatare canal, occasionally stopped in to tell of the progress of the ditch. Ashford was then on the stage and freighting road to Kimball. One time he told of the picnic held by the Minatare folks upon the completion of the canal, and the turning in of the water. The celebration had been during the day, but the water had proceeded more slowly along the canal than anticipated, and it was nightfall before it reached the waiting people. In the classic language of the old surveyor ''the silvery moon was high overhead when the water rounded the bend above the crowd, and on it came, like a silver ribbon unrolling itself upon the prairie."

The Farmers canal contemplated far more extensive development. At first it was completed but a few miles and the undertaking farther seemed so great that progress rested for some time.