The power and finance of the United States were put behind the building of systems that before were too large or complicated for the undertaking of private enterprises.

The North Platte valley was singularly fortunate, and Scotts Bluff county most favorably located to invite the building of a vast federal project. After the work of seventeen years, there is yet a tremendous development ahead. Upwards of ten million dollars have been expended in government canals, dams, dikes, reservoirs and systems of laterals, and several million more will be needed to complete the works in this territory.

Caney French's Ditch

The work of his father on the Mitchell canal and the work of his own under the tutelage of John Kellums who had repair and enlargement work on the same canal, imbued the younger French with the spirit of irrigation enterprise. Caney French looked about and found a place where he could take from the North Platte river through a rock bound headgate the water necessary to supply about sixteen hundred acres on a flat south of Hem v. a part of which is in Wyoming and the major part in Nebraska.

Here he put in a number of years in building an independent irrigation project which he has completed, and owns a lot of the land thereunder. About one-half of the sixteen hundred acres covered by the ditch belongs to Mr. and Mrs. French, her homestead being a part of the watered tract.

The permit is taken from the river in Wyoming, but Mr. French secured his rights by proper procedure before the Nebraska authorities, thereby making his appropriation doubly