108 Management of Ponds and Wells. 



want of water. Most incumbent is it, then, upon every thoughtful 

 man to try and remedy the waste which evidently must occur 

 somewhere ; and to inquire how the bountiful supply from the 

 skies may be best husbanded against a period of necessity. 



In cities and large towns the demand for water — the most 

 important, perhaps, of all the commodities of life — is such, that 

 even a slight deficiency in the usual supply causes so great 

 inconvenience to all classes, that a remedy more or less expensive 

 is sure to be applied almost as soon as the want has made itself 

 known. But in rural parishes, the case is very different ; and 

 there are two main reasons Avhy this is so. One, and probably 

 the chief, is their poverty and general inability to carry out, 

 unaided, any great enterprise ; while the other is the apparent 

 mental apathy of men bred and born in the country as compared 

 with the inhabitants of towns, Avhose energies are daily and 

 hourly rubbed up and sharpened, as it were, by intercourse with 

 their fellows. Most of us who live in rural parishes, are more or 

 less dependent upon agriculture for our daily bread and daily 

 occupation ; and agriculture in its turn is so dependent upon 

 seasons and the weather, that we country people are too apt to 

 imagine that other things are equally dependent upon the same 

 source : we think what is to be is to be ; and so, resigning our- 

 selves to our fate, we often overlook a remedy which really lies 

 within our own power. 



It is clear from the above-quoted statement of the Registrar- 

 General, that there can be but few parishes in England in which, 

 supposing that there were no waste, sufficient rain does not fall 

 to provide an ample supply of water for all agricultural and 

 domestic purposes. Our inquiry, then, should rather be directed 

 towards the ascertainment of the best means of storing up our 

 supply, than of increasing it or creating a new one. It is not 

 my present purpose to trace the origin and extent of that great 

 fresh-water ocean which is beneath our feet, or to treat of springs 

 — the overflowing of that vast bed of water, but rather to inquire 

 how a sufficient supply of water may be* obtained and kept in 

 those places where the springs are too deep to be easily or 

 cheaply available. 



■ This must be done by means of ponds or wells, open or covered 

 reservoirs. First, then, let us inquire as to ponds. Most rural 

 parishes have some of these about the farms or close to the 

 villages. But of what sort are they, in what situations, and how 

 are they treated ? Too often they are but wide shallow pools, 

 giving off plenty of damp and fog in winter, while in summer 

 they are perhaps quite dry, or at best contain but a iew inches 

 of clear water above a deep bed of slush and mud. The deepest 

 part of the pond is almost invariably the farthest from the mouth, 



