the said Plaintiff could pay said assessment theretofore levied by the said Young Ditch Company and release said stock of the lien placed upon it by reason of said assessment. That on or about the 16th day of April, 1952, Plaintiff, having received no reply to its demand upon the Defendants that they pay the said assessment of the Young Ditch Company in order not to have such stock sold at public auction and thus lose said appurtenant stock, paid to the said Young Ditch Company the sum of $2,856 in payment of said assessment."


7
Paragraph (10), as to the Old Channel Ditch Company, is identical in form. Does the stipulation mean that Metropolitan paid the assessments to "release said stock of the lien" and "in order not tohave such stock sold at public auction and thus lose said appurtenant stock" or does it mean that these were self-serving statements of Metropolitan in its written demands on the Pierces? We do not know.


8
We think paragraph (13) of the stipulation states the stock of the companies transferred to Metropolitan was stock that was appurtenant to the land when the text thereof says, the assessment was for the benefit of the land here exchanged and also for the benefit of "the other properties to which stock in said ditch companies was also appurtenant."1


9
Returning to the basic contract in which the parties agree to "exchange" the Los Angeles property for the Nevada property (approximately two thousand acres legally described therein) and after the Nevada description, the contract said "subject