32 Fish and Game Warden. [Bull. No. 1. 



Just above the dam good posts had been set about six feet 

 apart and hog-wire fence securely fastened to them. Between 

 the embankment and the hog-wire fence brush had been 

 thrown and tramped in, and in some instances quite large poles 

 and even small logs had been thrown on the brush to hold it in 

 place. This arrangement, as observation went to show, served 

 well to keep the waves from cutting and wearing away the 

 dam at the water's edge. 



The dirt for building this dam had been taken for the most 

 part from the rather high grounds near the ends of the dam. 

 It was plowed up and moved by both large and small scrapers 

 as the conditions of the case demanded. Men were hired by 

 the day to construct this dam, and the total cost was $105. 



Another dam built by Judge Ellis was 135 feet long, 10 feet 

 wide on top and 50 feet wide at its base for the greater part of 

 its length. This dam was across a rather narrow valley in a 

 ravine and averaged about 11 feet in height but was not more 

 than 14 or 15 feet high in its deepest place. Its cost, together 

 with the hog-wire fence and brush riprapping, was about 

 twenty days' work for one man. However, this man used four 

 horses hitched to a large scraper part of the time. The build- 

 ers of the dam estimated that it would have taken five or ten 

 days longer for a man with one team to have done the work. 

 This dam held a beautiful little lake of from three to four 

 acres of water. Its general shape was that of a fish hook or 

 an old-fashioned crook-necked squash or gourd. The water in 

 this pond was clean, as most of it came from springs. Water 

 plants were growing near the shores, and groves of trees 

 shaded the water in many places. As we walked along the 

 banks we could see the wary fish, mostly black bass, dart from 

 secluded little nooks where they had been feeding in shallow 

 waters near the shore to safer retreats in the deeper water. 



Some of the embankments built by Judge Ellis and Mr. 

 Houchin have been riprapped, so to speak, with slabs of sod. 

 The sods plowed up when the foundation of the dam was 

 started and those taken from the basin of the pond cavity 

 when it was formed were saved and used for building a sod 

 wall on the sides of the embankment. This seems to make one 

 of the very best finishings for the sides of the new embank- 

 ments. This sod riprap wall not only protects the banks from 

 water erosion but in many instances the growth of grass from 

 the sods produces a permanent protection. If the erosion from 

 waves and storm waters is not too great this sod-wall protec- 

 tion can be made to take the place of the wire-fence pro- 

 tection. 



THE SAM BAILEY POND. 



Mr. Samuel Bailey lives on the uplands north of the valley of 

 the Ninnescah and about one-half mile northeast of the State 

 Fish Hatchery grounds. He has built a pond almost on a,hill- 

 top and its sole supply of water is from a well. The water is 



