222 OSTRICH-FARMING IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



AYith carriaofe from the coast to the Diamond Fields 

 at 21s. per hundred pounds, leaving out of the ques- 

 tion the extra cost of grinding, there would be a 

 premium of 2-^d. per lb. on all wheat grown, to the 

 credit of irrigation works up there, as against the same 

 works on the coast, which would make all the difference 

 between a handsome profit and a costly failure. But 

 the Diamond Fields can often draw their bread-stuff 

 supplies from the Free State and Basutoland, which 

 can produce them in some seasons without irrigation, 

 and being nearer, the carriage is less than from the coast. 



The dams a farmer is most generally called upon 

 to use his judgment in constructing, are ordinary stock 

 dams that are required to hold sufficient water to last 

 from one rain to another, for the stock to drink ; they 

 generally cost from £50 to £oOO. These are usually 

 made across a kloof, or in a valley, the drainage into 

 them being assisted by long furrows. For this sort of 

 dam few would think of calling in an engineer, and there 

 is no need to do so ; but the farmer should bear in 

 mind that no dam can be relied on as being water- 

 tight when first made, unless a ditch, say, four feet 

 wide, is first dug right along the centre of the site of 

 the proposed embankment, and carried down to the 

 rock or sound bottom, and is then filled in with puddled 

 clay, and this puddling is carried on up the centre of 



