Management of Ponds and Wells. Ill 



required. It remains to see what is the best situation lor such 

 a pond, and then how lar its construction may be modified by its 

 situation. 



Our forefathers appear to have adopted, the plan, in very many 

 parts of England, of digging their ponds in the middle of the 

 field ; and as a consequence each farm was provided with almost 

 as many ponds as fields. To their ideas, a pond, evidently was 

 a pond, and they fancied that the more ponds they had, the 

 better were they supplied with water. The last two seasons, 

 however, have shown the fallacy of this reasoning, and we have 

 discovered to our cost that the title of pond was too often an 

 empty one. 



Now-a-days every pole of ground is so much more valuable 

 than it was in the time when these old ponds were dug, that 

 few farmers can afford a pond to every field. It is, there- 

 fore, an object to make the same pond serve for two or even 

 four fields. If for the latter, it must of course be in the corners 

 of the fields ; and when we reflect on the great and constantly 

 recurring inconvenience arising from a pond in the centre of 

 a ploughed field, it will be seen that, ceteris paribus, the corner 

 is the best place for a pond, even where it is required for one 

 field only. It is impossible to plough quite into a corner, there- 

 fore the space may as well be occupied by a pond as become a 

 receptacle for weeds and rubbish. In a field of good permanent 

 pasture, which is never likely to be broken up, there would be, of 

 course, no more land wasted by a pond in the centre than by 

 one in the corner ; but my previous remarks upon shade and 

 fences prove, I think, that the corner is, in this case also, the 

 best site. 



There are several matters, however, besides convenience, which 

 the digger should take into consideration before he commences 

 a new pond. He should ask himself whether, in the first place, 

 the spot selected is likely to gather a sufficient supply of Avater ; 

 and, if so, then whether it is likely to hold what it has 

 gathered ? 



Now it is well known to scientific men that a rain-guage 

 placed upon the ground gathers more water than one raised a 

 few feet from the ground ; in fact, that the higher the guage is 

 placed, the less rain docs it gather. The reason of this is that 

 every drop has, in its descent, to pass through a very humid atmo- 

 sphere, and by the law of attraction is continually aggregating to 

 itself moisture from this atmosphere until it reaches the ground. 

 It is clear, therefore, that the nearer to the clouds each drop is 

 arrested, the smaller in proportion it will be. It follows from this 

 reasoning, that the lowest part of a field will gather the most rain ; 



