FIRST STEPS TOWARD THE HOME 39 



system or any other patent system will not end the 

 difficulties. 



If you live on a side hill it will take you many 

 months, if not years, to discover just how to catch 

 swift showers most promptly and carry them away so 

 easily as not to be erosive of the soil. My chief dif- 

 ficulty at this point was that I lost constantly a good 

 deal of my best property, carried downhill into my 

 neighbors' fields and into the valley. Drainage does 

 not mean simply to prevent the settling of water in 

 swampy spots, but the ready catching of spring 

 thaws and cloudbursts, at the same time taking drain- 

 age from the house and the outhouses to some safe 

 receptacle. The Waring system will carry away and 

 distribute fertilizing material, provided it also has 

 an outlet in vegetation, but to fill your acres full of 

 poisonous drainage demands that it shall be taken 

 up by the foliage readily, or it will poison the air. 



I prefer tile drains that will carry the house waste 

 a safe distance and discharge it directly into compost 

 piles. These compost piles we shall talk about more 

 hereafter, but for the present understand that they 

 are to be made of barnyard manure, road waste, all 

 the coal ashes you can accumulate, autumn leaves in 

 great abundance, together with weeds and all the 

 rest of the refuse that is thrown into the street, or 

 allowed to dry up in the fields. I assure you that 

 there is a vast amount of this sort of stuff that goes 

 to waste and that it is as important a product as any- 

 thing your acres can yield. Piled up and allowed to 



