" The checkerboarded fields of the Imperial Valley were refreshingly green with irrigated crops. Then the highline canal stretched like a huge snake below the plane and immediately the desert took over. It was as abrupt as that. Below the highline canal irrigation had turned the desert into a rich, fertile area. On the other side of the canal there was nothing but sand and a long straight ribbon of paved highway. "

― Erle Stanley Gardner , The Case of the Amorous Aunt (Perry Mason, #69)