CHAPTER XX 



OF FISH-PONDS, AND HOW TO ORDER THEM 



[jfiftb H>as] 



Pise. Doctor Lebault, the learned Frenchman, in his 

 large discourse of Maison Rustique,* gives this direction 

 for making of fish-ponds ; I shall refer you to him to 

 read it at large, but I think I shall contract it, and yet 

 make it as useful. 



He adviseth, that when you have drained the ground, 

 and made the earth firm where the head of the pond 

 must be, that you must then, in that place, drive in 

 two or three rows of oak or elm piles, which should be 

 scorched in the fire, or half-burnt, before they be driven 

 into the earth ; for being thus used, it preserves them much 

 longer from rotting : and having done so, lay faggots 

 or bavins of smaller wood betwixt them, and then earth 

 betwixt and above them, and then having first very 

 well rammed them and the earth, use another pile in 

 like manner as the first were : and note, that the second 

 pile is to be of or about the height that you intend to 

 make your sluice or flood-gate, or the vent that you 

 intend shall convey the overflowings of your pond in 

 any flood that shall endanger the breaking of the pond- 

 dam. 



Then he advises, that you plant willows or owlers about 

 it, or both, and then cast in bavins in some places, not 



* This book, translated into English by Richard Surflet, and 

 corrected by Gervase Markham, is extant, under the title of The 

 Country Farm. London, 1616, folio. 



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