Readily the young homesteaders assented and accompanied Andy to the west clearing, where they chopped a few trees, then harnessed the blacks and drove over to Steve’s camp and had them sawed into planks.
All that day and the next was consumed in hauling the lumber Steve sawed out for them, for the boys bought several loads rather than to take the time necessary to cut trees and draw them from their quarter.
“The first thing for you to do,” said the agent, when they returned to E 1 with the last load of planks, “is to decide where you want your dam. While the creek usually runs freely, you’ll need a reservoir to give a head sufficient to cover the fields on this side. So we’ll look it over.”
“Mr. Hopkins said the grade was just as important as the head,” Ted remarked, as they followed the edge of the stream.
“So it is. But that applies more to the laying out of the laterals, or branch ditches, than to the reservoir. The higher you have that, the greater your fall of water and the more land you can cover.”
“Then why not build the dam as close to our line as we can?” asked Phil.
“Say, you boys are ‘catching on’ like good ones,” praised Andy. “That’s just the thing to do.” And when they reached the boundary of the section, he showed them with how little work, thanks to the lay of the land, a reservoir a hundred feet long and as wide could be built.
This decided upon, they returned to the clearing, where the agent constructed a simple level to establish the grade. Taking three pieces of board, he cut one to the length of 16½ feet and another to 3 feet and 4 inches.
“The grade of the land is about 1 inch to the rod on this west side,” said Andy, “and that is the only one you will have to irrigate.” Then he drew out a table showing the number of miner’s inches a ditch carrying a 6-inch head of water would discharge. For the grade of 1 inch per rod, this proved to be 37 miner’s inches, or .93 cubic feet per second, for the ordinary-sized ditch having a 14-inch width at the bottom and a mean depth of 5 inches.
“What’s a ‘miner’s inch’?” asked Phil.