778 



GLEAI^IKGS IN BEE CULTUllE. 



Oct. 



With the arrangement above, whenever the 

 pond becomes too full the surplus passes 

 out directly from the coldest water in the 

 deepest portion, for cool water always set- 

 tles to the bottom, and warm water rises to 

 the surface, as you are well aware. The 

 outlet-pipe, as I have told you before, is of 

 pretty good-sized tile, depending, of course, 

 on the area of the ])ond. Friend White's 

 ponds were all of them small ones— perliajjs 

 not more than twenty or thirty feet wide in 

 the widest part, and may be fifty or a hun- 

 dred feet long, twisting about among the 

 hills, as a matter of course. For such ponds 

 as these, a four-inch tile may be plenty 

 large. In this case we should have the in- 

 let only three inches. If an error is to be 

 made, however, it is better to make it on 

 the safe side, so we will suppose our outlet 

 is our ordinary six-inch tile. This tile pro- 

 jects into the wooden chimney before men- 

 tioned. This chimney should be made of 

 H-inch i)lank; and in order to have plenty 

 of room inside, perhaps we had better make 

 the internal dimei)sions 8 x 10 inches. Now, 

 if there were nothing inside of this chimney, 

 the water would go straight through the 

 tile ; but a partition is formed, in the shape 

 of a movable gate. This gate is simply a 

 board 8 inches wide and 3 feet long— that 

 is, if you want the water to stand at just 

 three feet in depth from the lowest point in 

 the dam. If you can have four feet of 

 water, make your gate four feet long, and 

 so on. This gate is held just in the middle 

 of the chimney by a strip of wood, say an 

 inch square, nailed securely into the oppo- 

 site sides of tlie chimney, thus : a a is the 

 strip. 



Tor VIEW OK CHnrNEV. 



I wondered why the water didn't leak out 

 around the board simply laid against these 

 strips of wood ; but friend White replied, 

 "Why, bless you, friend Root, we just put 

 in a shovelful of bran, stable manure, or any 

 thing else that is handy, and this soon 

 tightens the gate up.-' Bran answers 

 nicely for such purposes, as it is carried into 

 the cracks by the watei- ; and when it swells 

 it makes a sort of paste that stops up all 

 crevices. This gate is not to be removed un- 

 til you want to draw all the water off from 

 your i>oiid. When a shower comes up, the 



water comes in at the inlet until it raises 

 the water in the pond higher than the top 

 of the gate ; then it comes down over the 

 other side. By raising the lid of this wood- 

 en chimney we can look down and see the 

 water in the chimney at exactly the same 

 level as the outside water in the pond ; but 

 whenever there is an overflow it rises so as 

 to pour ovei- the top of the gate ; and all 

 the water that gets out comes directly from 

 the bottom of the deepest spot in the pond. 

 Now. is not this ingenious, and simple too V 

 Over the mouth of the tile, on the inside of 

 the pond, is slid a cap of galvanized wire 

 cloth, the meshes being i inch square. It 

 strikes me that this cap of wire cloth will 

 be speedily covered with mud and accumu- 

 lations ; but friend White didn't mention 

 having any trouble on that score. xVs his 

 ponds are only three or four feet deep, 

 it would not be much of a task to wade in 

 and clean off this wire-cloth cap ; and while 

 I think of it, 1 believe I would have a de- 

 pression just under the end of this piece of 

 tile, in which the soft mud might drop so as 

 to clear the wire cloth. Of course, you will 

 have to scoop it out when the depression 

 gets filled up. Our carp-books talk about 

 extensive collectors to be put in right here 

 at the mouth of the inlet ; but friend White 

 said he didn't have any such thing, and 

 didn't see any use of it. 



The first pond we viewed was empty. It 

 had been drawn off some days before, when 

 he expected a big rain that did not come. 

 As the water, however, was caught in the 

 pond just below, none of it was wasted ; 

 and this lower pond must have needed it 

 badly ; for when we went down to look at 

 it, it seemed to me it was pretty nearly dried 

 up. When one of the slices of bread before 

 mentioned was thrown over into the water, 

 however, we found there were fish enough, 

 and they were certainly lively enough, even 

 in such very close quarters. They literally 

 covered the piece of bread, and scrambled 

 over it. In fact, there seemed to be thou- 

 •sands In that small compass. I asked if 

 they didn't die for want of more water. 

 Friend White replied, '' Why, friend Root, 

 there is something remarkable about this. 

 These fish seem to be perfectly healthy and 

 well. There has not been a dead one on the 

 surface of the water for weeks ; and the 

 cramping of them In such small compass 

 during this extremely hot weather seems to 

 have no bad effect at all. When the pond 

 was a good deal highei", however, they be- 

 gai) to die at one time so rapidly that I be- 



