294 THE ELOEAL WOELD AND GAEDEN GUIDE. 



works for that purpose, the engineers were at work on the highest 

 part of the ground boring an artesian well. Every one to his trade, 

 the landscapist must drain, drain, the engineer must bore, bore ; one 

 is getting rid of the very element the other seeks, and the proprietor 

 who pays for the work simply occupies the position of a means of 

 separation between agents who ought to work together, and accord- 

 ing to one plan, from the first. It is true that land needing drain- 

 age must be drained ; it is true that water stagnating in the soil is 

 like so much poison; but having once persuaded that water to move 

 in channels provided for it, having guided it into small pipes, and 

 thence into large mains, and thence into lakes, ponds, and outlets, 

 ought we to dismiss it at the boundary, lose it for ever, while the 

 domestics are perhaps crying out against the scanty water supply, 

 and the proprietor contemplates sinking another well in hopes of 

 the second being less in'ermittent than the first? Generally speak- 

 ing, the economy of country houses in respect of water may be 

 likened to the act of a farmer who should pay tl ffcy shillings a quarter 

 for imported wheat, and, at the same time, give the produce of his 

 own farm to the fowls of the air, and yet, after all, should persevere 

 in growing wheat, that he might continue to waste it in the same 

 manner. 



It is said that all possible ranks of industry are filled up, which 

 is equivalent to saying that human invention is exhausted. Having 

 made this quite superficial remark on the paradoxical management of 

 water on lauded properties, it must be further remarked that there 

 is ample room aud verge enough for any thoroughly competent and 

 ingenious person to make a fortune by the establishment in country 

 houses of economical water works. Iu many private houses small gas 

 works are in operation, but there are many substitutes for gas, and 

 there is no substitute for water. When you have a great supply of 

 water by surface drainage, the only question of its conversion to 

 tank water for domestic purposes is one of pure mechanism, and a 

 mere beginner in engineering could devise plans for the appropria- 

 tion of every drop at such a comparatively low rate of cost as should, 

 in many instances, render well-sinking and boring most ridiculous. 



Let us suppose a property to be completely drained, it is a 

 mechanical matter to collect the water somewhere ; a mechanical 

 '.nutter to take it from thence by means of the hydraulic ram to any 

 other higher level if there is anywhere near a moderate fall, whether 

 natural or artificial. Even the water used to aflord mechanical 

 power to the ram need not be wasted ; and, having got a ram to 

 work, the water may as well be carried to the top of a house or the 

 top of a hill or tower, as to any level midway between such ex- 

 tremes. The next business is to make this water subservient to 

 utdity and ornament at one and the same time. The quantity which 

 can be kept flowing, aud the volume of the reserve, on which the 

 works will have to rely during a long drought, must to some extent 

 determine the nature of the ornamental purpose to which the water 

 may be applied ; it may sometimes furnish a cascade, and send sil- 

 very spray through a rocky glen clothed with myriads of mosses and 

 ferns, or furnish a little spring or fountain to splash over a stone 



