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Show 243 wide and one and a half feet deep was completed for nearly half a mile. The dam across the creek was also built to a heighth of seven feet. Water was now running in the ditch, but there was still over a mile to dig. Monday morning brought more of the same. While most of the men were working on the ditch, a few men with three teams began hauling in pickets for a public corral one hundred feet in diameter and capable of holding one hundred horses. During the evening of the 31st all the men drew lots to determine which plots of ground they would farm. Tuesday was the first of June, and still it would be a week before the ground would be prepared for sowing. James H. Martineau, with Colonel Dame's help, began the work of surveying the field and staking out twenty lots-one for each wagon mess of three men. These lots were originally five acres each-twenty rods by forty rods. But clearing a five acre lot proved to be too big of a task if crops were ever going to be planted this season. The number one lot had been drawn by Samuel White, Nephi Johnson, and Joseph Hunter. After much hard work they were able to strip only one third of an acre of its native brush, and the men voted to have the lots reduced to only three acres. On the 2nd Martineau resurveyed the field, laying it off in three acre parcels measuring twelve rods by forty rods. The field was heavily covered with sage and greasewood, and clearing it was a difficult task. Each man had one acre to clear by himself before plowing could begin for a total of sixty acres-about the same size as the Snake Creek farm. But because of the position of the ditch it was possible to irrigate almost twice as much land as had been laid off in the survey. Despite the considerable labor involved in clearing the land, several of the men asked for and received permission to extend their lots into this unsurveyed area. On Thursday, June 3, the men began clearing their lots, while a few contin- |
