S6 S[/CC£SS WITH SMALL FRUITS. 



In the rear of my place there was a third drainage prob- 

 lem very different from either of the other two. My farm 

 runs back to the rise of the mountain, whose edge it skirts 

 for some distance. It thus receives at times much surface 

 water. At the foot of the mountain-slope, there are about 

 three acres of low alluvial soil, that was formerly covered 

 with a coarse, useless herbage of the swamp. Between the 

 meadow and the slope of the mountain, " the town " built a 

 "boulevard" (marked I I on the map), practically "crib- 

 bing" an acre or two of land. Ahab, who needed Naboth's 

 vineyard for public purposes, is the spiritual father of all 

 *'town boards." 



At the extreme end of the farm, and just beyond the 

 alluvial c^round, was the channel of a brook (marked J). 

 Its stony bed, through which trickled a rill, had a very 

 innocent aspect on the October day when we looked the 

 farm over and decided upon its purchase. The rill ran a 

 little way on my grounds, then crept under the fence and 

 skirted my western boundary for several hundred yards. 

 On reaching a rise of land, it re-entered my place and ran 

 obliquely across it. It thus enclosed three sides of the low, 

 bushy meadow I have named. Its lower channel across the 

 place had been stoned up with the evident purpose of keep- 

 ing it within limits ; but the three or four feet of space 

 between the walls had become obstructed by roots, bushes, 

 vines and debris in general. With the exception of the 

 stony bed where it first entered the farm, most of its course 

 was obscured by overhanging bushes and the sere, rank 

 herbage of autumn. 



In a vague way I felt that eventually something would 

 have to be done to direct this little child of the mountain 

 into proper ways, and to subdue the spirit of the wilderness 

 that it diffused on every side. I had its lower channel 



