BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 31 



or wet it docs not pack well. The best packing is secured by building 

 with a scraper and two mules. The mules pack as you go. When you 

 have ascertained the elevation of water which you desire, make your 

 banks about eighteen inches higher and finish up on a perfect level. 

 Have the top of embakment broad enough for a walk — say from four to 

 six feet wide. The sides should slant at about forty-five degrees. The 

 Burmuda grass makes a firm sod. One of our oldest-inhabitant rains 

 ran over my dams covered with Bermuda lately and never fazed them. 

 Willow holds the dam against floods, but they become trees, and make 

 the lake filthy and impure with rotting leaves. Plant no deciduous 

 trees about lakes. Plant only such vegetables as fish eat for food, and 

 these should be water-plants. 



Some use a square wooden or a round iron pipe or tube for the con- 

 duit. Some place this conduit about the desired water level and others 

 place it almost or quite down to the natural bed and turn the lower end 

 up to the desired level of the lake surface. In either case the same 

 objection obtains — the fish escape. If a wire gauze or network be placed 

 over the tube it soon clogs up with moss, and the lake runs over, washes 

 down, and fish escape at last. Another objection is that the least jar 

 or. wrench of the tube makes a break in the dam, and the consequences 

 are ruinous. Here is my plan : I make a solid earth dam as aforesaid, 

 and at the side which suits the purpose best, and in the natural ground 

 I dig a ditch large enough for escape of water, very slightly inclined, 

 along the declivity of the hillsides, which shall discharge its water grad- 

 ually all along its mossy or grassy edge until it wastes entirely away. 

 ]So misfortune ever can happen to such an exuent of the waters and no 

 fish, old or young, escape in the running season. Very little engineer- 

 ing is required for this construction. Once in about two months moss 

 and water rice, or other aquatic growth, should be cleaned out of the 

 ditch. J used two little ditches on either side of the lake for this pur- 

 pose and that of watering a strawberry patch and a summer garden in 

 the valley between them. 



Some prepare for this by laying a pipe in the bottom of the lake and 

 dam, and through this turn off the water when necessary, which is very 

 seldom. This is all nice; but I still contend for the solid banks. The 

 pipe is foreign matter and resists the settling of the earth and leaves 

 just under it a loose stria and perhaps an open fissure where a break 

 may commence. Also, when you turn off the water the fish, little and 

 big, may escape, unless you get down to the mouth of the discharge 

 pipe at the bottom and cover it with a wire screen. This soon gets 

 filled with moss, mud, and trash, which requires another dive, &c. On 

 the solid bank system use large hose on the syphon system. Muzzle 

 the entrance with wire gauze. Get up on the dam midway; throw 

 the hose into the lake and fill with water. Thus filled, and while it is 

 in the water, stop the end intended for the exit and draw it over the 

 bank and lay it in the ravine below. Unstop it and the discharge com- 



