Down the creek Worth Earley and Henry Bruner each had small ditches leading from the creek, but generally the flow of water was light below the Wright ranch. For about a mile east of Ashford the bed of the creek was higher than the immediately adjoining land, and in the winter the creek would freeze and water flow over the ice until it was above the banks, when it would spread back covering sixty or seventy acres of land with a sheet of ice.

In the nineties we extended and used the old mill ditch with the ultimate intention of carrying it to the homestead where we estimated that it would irrigate about fifty or sixty acres.

"Swede" Anderson's irrigation attempt in Deuel county had run its course, but the "irrigation district germ" had been planted in my system and abode its time for development. That came in the winter of 1892-1893, when I went as chief engrossing clerk to the state legislature. This story has been told in the history of Scotts Bluff county.

Sub-irrigation always attracted attention, and the abundance of water at a shallow depth

made many speculate as to how to bring it to the surface. As stated elsewhere, it remained for the enterprise of A. E. Scott to show one way of so doing. The improvement and general use of the explosion engine has pointed out another way that will sometime extend the irrigated acreage of Banner county many fold.

Some years ago Fred Roberts, who was then manager of the power plant at Scottsbluff, examined parts of Pumpkin creek valley in company with the historian, with a view to putting in pumping motors, extending a power line and putting a transportation system to and from the cities of Gering and Scottsbluff. He sold out to the Intermountain, which company has not been able to keep abreast of the local needs, and consequently extension was out of the question.