82 SUCCESS WITH SMALL FRUITS. 



seemed to be no available outlet in any direction. Unlike 

 the mellow, sandy loam in front of the house, the swale in 

 the rear was of the stiffest kind of clay, — just the soil to re- 

 tain and be spoiled by water. During the first year of our 

 residence here this region was sometimes a pond, some- 

 times a quagmire, while again, under the summer sun, it 

 baked into earthenware. It was a doubtful question whether 

 this stubborn acre could be subdued, and yet its heavy clay 

 gave me just the diversity of soil I needed. Throughout the 

 high gravelly knoll on which the house stands, the natural 

 drainage is perfect, and a sagacious neighbor suggested that 

 if I cut a ditch across the clayey swale into the gravel 

 of the knoll, the water would find a natural outlet and 

 disappear. 



The ditch was dug eight feet wide and five feet deep, for 

 I decided to utilize the surface of the drain as a road-bed. 

 Passing out of the clay and hard-pan, we came into the 

 gravel, and it seemed porous enough to carry off a fair-sized 

 stream. I concluded that my difficult problem had found 

 a cheap and easy solution, and to make assurance doubly 

 sure, I directed the men to dig a deep pit and fill it with 

 stones. 



When they had gone about nine feet below the surface, 

 I happened to be standing on the brink of the excavation 

 watching the work. A laborer struck his pick into the 

 gravel, when a stream gushed out which in its sudden abun- 

 dance suggested that which flowed in the wilderness at the 

 stroke of Moses's rod. The problem was now complicated 

 anew. So far from finding an outlet, I had dug a well which 

 the men could scarcely bail out fast enough to permit of its 

 being stoned up. 



My neighbors remarked that my wide ditch reminded 

 them of the Erie canal, and my wife was in terror lest the 



