Dyche. — One Year's Work at Kansas Hatchery 79 



lash the banks continually and washed some of them to 

 their tops and did a good deal of cutting into their sides. 

 Early in April the water was lowered from a foot to 

 eighteen inches and it was found that the waves had 

 washed the dirt from the banks so as to make a fine nat- 

 ural beach around each pond; it was also found that 

 there was plenty of earth remaining to finish the embank- 

 ments and make good roads over them anywhere through- 

 out the pond system. 



PROTECTING THE NEW BANKS. 



Experience had taught us that banks protected with a 

 growth of swamp grass withstood the action of the water 

 best. It so happened that there were a few acres of 

 swamp grass on the hatchery grounds. Swamp grass 

 sod was turned up with a sod plow in strips sixteen 

 inches wide and cut in pieces from sixteen to twenty 

 inches in length. When the water in the ponds was at 

 normal height the sods were laid and tramped into the 

 mud just above the water line. This made a band or 

 border of sod sixteen inches wide around each pond. It 

 took about twelve miles of this sod band to encircle all 

 the ponds and, like fixing the gopher holes, used up much 

 time and labor. During the summer the grass has grown 

 in many places as much as two feet in height and has 

 begun to spread some. By next spring we think that the 

 banks will be fairly well protected. In other ponds where 

 the grass was planted three years ago, it has grown to 

 three or four feet in height, and is a fine protection to 

 the banks and incidentally to the schools of young fish 

 that feed near the water's edge. Waves do not seem to 

 make any headway cutting the banks where this grass 

 has a good start. However, this variety of grass does 

 not grow well on pond banks in a dry climate except for 

 a distance of about two feet above the water line. Thus 

 far, we have not found a good grass for the top of the 

 embankment. Bermuda grass answers the purpose, but 

 it winter kills in our climate. The natural grasses 

 that grow on the banks are fox tail and sandbur grass. 



