If the owner or owners of lands, where a new ditch for an acequia is to be made, should ask an exorbitant price as a compensation therefor, which shall not be satisfactory to the owner or owners of such acequia, it shall be the duty of the probate judge of the county in which it may occur, to appoint three skillful men of well-known honesty, to make an appraisement thereof and fix the compensation.
NMS § 73-2-2