PREPARATION OF SOIL BY DRAINAGE. 85 



poured into it and disappeared. By and by there came a 

 heavy March storm. When I went out in the morning, 

 everything was afloat. The big canal and the well at its 

 lower end were full to overflowing. The stubborn acre was 

 a quagmire, and alas ! the excavation which I had hoped 

 would save so much trouble and expense was also full. I 

 plodded back under my umbrella with a brow as lowering 

 as the sky. There seemed nothing for it but to cut a 

 " Dutch gap " that would make a like chasm in my bank 

 account. By noon it cleared off, and I went down to take 

 a melancholy survey of the huge amount of work that now 

 seemed necessary, when, to my great joy, the oblong cut, in 

 whick so many hopes had seemingly been swamped, was en- 

 tirely empty. From the box-drain a large stream poured 

 into it and went down — to China, for all that I knew. I 

 went in haste to the big canal and found it empty, and the 

 well lowered to the mouth of the drain. The stubborn acre 

 was now under my thumb, and I have kept it there ever 

 since. During the past summer, I had upon its wettest and 

 stiffest portion two beds of Jucunda strawberries that yielded 

 at the rate of one hundred and ninety bushels to the acre. 

 The Jucunda strawberry is especially adapted to heavy land 

 requiring drainage, and I think an enterprising man in the 

 vicinity of New York might so unite them as to make a for- 

 tune. The hole was filled with stones and now forms a part 

 of my garden, and the canal answers for a road-bed as at 

 first intended. In the fortuitous well I have placed a force- 

 pump, around which are grown and v/atered my potted 

 plants. The theory of carrying drains into gravel does hold 

 water, and sometimes holes can be dug at a slight expense, 

 that practically have no bottom. I have no doubt that in 

 this instance tile would have been better and cheaper than 

 the small stone drains that I have described. 



