Part 49

"Pardon me?"

"Colonization, you know, hundreds of Russian Jews out there raising sugar-beets for the sugar-beet factory, happy as larks."

"To be sure--I had forgotten." Mr. Prescott reached for a prospectus upon the table at his elbow and looked at the picture of a factory with smoke pouring from myriad chimneys and covering nothing short of an acre.

"The soil is deep then--strong enough to stand sugar-beets?"

"Rotation of crops--scientific farming," explained Symes, "gives it a chance to recover."

Prescott nodded.

"I see. The length of the ditch is----"

"Thirty-five miles and a fraction."

"What is the normal width and what amount of water does it carry?"

"Sixty-five feet and it carries six feet of water."

"What is the slope?"

"Two and a half feet per mile."

"How much water to the acre is applied in your State?"

Symes was showing some surprise. For a man who was not familiar with irrigation projects Prescott was asking decidedly pertinent questions, but Symes answered glibly--

"A cubic foot per second to each seventy acres."

"And the yardage? What are your engineer's figures on the yardage?"

Symes cleared his throat--a habit which manifested itself when he was nervous--

"It can be moved for ten to fifteen cents a cubic yard."

"C-cheap enough." Prescott looked at him with interested intentness. "And the loose rock?"

"Twenty-five to thirty." Symes stirred uneasily in his chair.

"And the cuts? the solid rock?"

"Fifty to sixty cents," Symes replied after an instant's hesitation.

"Ah, soft rock. These are your engineer's figures, of course?"

"Of course," Symes answered curtly, and added: "I should say that you had a good deal of practical knowledge of such matters, Mr. Prescott."

Prescott answered easily--

"Superficial, v-very superficial, just a little I picked up in railroad construction."

There were more questions as to loss of water by seepage, air and subsoil drainage, drops, earth canals, character and depth of soil, possibilities of alkali, all of which questions Symes answered readily enough, but which at the conclusion left Symes with the exhausted feeling of a long session on the witness stand.

"There are still something like $150,000 worth of bonds in the market, I believe?"