It was not conceded on his part that this was right -- no indeed -- but the pride of achievement, the desire to finish the job. inspired to the sacrifices he was about to make.

The Gering debt seemed like a heavy load, for a time, but in the growth of years and the knowledge of what irrigation can be made to do in the fertile lands of Scotts Bluff county, the amount now seems of little consequence, a mere fraction of the vast benefits received.

Small Enterprises

Central irrigation ditch was first built by private means, and then converted into a district. At one time, Martin Gering undertook by an hydaulic method to use the canal to force water to the higher elevation of the town of Gering. Farther down the valley, Castle Rockcanal and Steamboat Rock canal are parallel systems watering the lower part of the valley in the vicinity of Melbeta and McGrew. They are old systems, built by the brawn and determination of early years. These people, like the people who built the first ditches on the north side of the river, remember the shortage of equipment. The late John Hall said that later men in yellow britches were doing some good work, but the epoch of real achievement was when men built without money, and almost without machinery.

He tells of when Anton Hiersche, Will Young, and many of the older crowd used to go to Colorado to "pick spuds" for a 'grub stake." Once they observed some discarded scrapers lying by the roadside. On returning home they secured wagons and drove back to the Greeley country, and finding no claimant for the scrapers, they loaded them on their wagons and brought them home. They were