50 HOW TO LIVE IN THE COUNTRY 



My experience tells me that after the drill has 

 gone down one hundred and fifty feet, water is not 

 likely to be found until you have gone a good deal 

 below that. Somewhere between fifty and one hun- 

 dred and twenty feet you should find water, and the 

 whole cost of the well, including pipes and pump, 

 should not exceed from $125 to $200. I found 

 abundant water in Florida at sixty-five feet, thirty of 

 it in the rock, which almost exactly tallied with the 

 work done at my Clinton home, in New York 

 thirty feet in the solid rock, reaching abundance of 

 excellent water. My Clinton well has the additional 

 advantage of flowing. This can very rarely be se- 

 cured. 



The cost will be absolutely nothing compared with 

 the discomfort and loss of being without a pure water 

 supply for your family, your cattle, and your plants. 

 You can do nothing safely in the way of planting 

 a tree or shrub unless you can puddle the roots and 

 keep it well supplied with water when planted, and 

 for some weeks after. Cisterns should go in with the 

 house and they should not be stinted in size. Each 

 one should hold at least fifty barrels; one hundred 

 barrels would be better. Built of brick and well 

 cemented, a cistern will last nearly as long as the 

 house. In some sections it is desirable to have 

 double cisterns ; that is, a brick wall through the mid- 

 dle, through which the water for drinking will filter. 

 That is, the water is caught in one cistern, and filtered 

 through into the other. 



