IRRIGATION MEANS AND ENDS. Y7 



bad engineering flung me ; and I have never since 

 had the heart (or the means) to revise and correct its 

 errors. 



My next attempt was on a much humbler scale, 

 and I engineered it myself. Toward the north end 

 of my farm, the hill-side which rises east of my low- 

 land is broken by a swale or terrace, which gives me 

 three or four acres of tolerably level upland, along 

 the upper edge of which five or six springs, which 

 never wholly fail, burst from the rocks above and 

 unite to form a petty runnel, which dries up in very 

 hot or dry weather, but which usually preserved a 

 tiny stream to be lost in the swamp below. North of 

 the gully cat down the lower hill-side by this stream- 

 let, the hill-side of some three acres is quite steep, 

 still partially wooded, and wholly devoted to pastur- 

 age. Making a petty dam across this runnel at the 

 top of the lower acclivity, I turned the stream aside, 

 so that it should henceforth run along the crest of 

 this lower hill, falling off gradually so as to secure a 

 free current, and losing its contents at intervals 

 through variable depressions in its lower bank. Dam 

 and artificial water-course together cost me $90, which 

 was about twice what it should have been. That 

 rude and petty contrivance has now been ten years 

 in operation, and may have cost $5 per annum for 

 oversight and repairs. Its effect has beeqgto double 

 the grass grown on the two acres it constantly irri- 

 gates, for which I paid $280, or more than thrice the 

 cost of my irrigation. But more : my hill-side, while 



