PREPARATION OF SOIL BY DRAINAGE. 89 



caught in the bridge, which would also have gone had not 

 the embankment above it given way. 



The lower part of the meadow was also under water. It 

 had been plowed, and therefore would wash readily. 

 Would any soil be left? A few moments of calm reflection, 

 however, removed my fears. The treacherous brook had 

 not beguiled me during the summer into inadequate provis- 

 ion for this unprecedented outbreak. I saw that my deep, 

 wide cut had kept the flood wholly from the upper part of 

 the meadow, which contained a very valuable bed of high- 

 priced strawberry-plants, and that the slowly moving tide 

 which covered the lower part was little more than back- 

 water and overflow. The wide ditches were carrying off 

 swiftly and harmlessly the great volume that, had not such 

 channels been provided, would have made my rich alluvial 

 meadow little else than a stony, gravelly waste. And the 

 embankment had given way at a point too low down to 

 permit much damage. 



The two swales in the front and rear of the house appeared 

 like mill-ponds. In the former instance, the water had 

 backed up from the mountain stream into which my crain 

 emptied, and, therefore, it could not pass off"; and in the 

 latter instance I could scarcely expect my little under- 

 ground channel to dispose at once of the torrents that for 

 forty hours had poured from the skies. I must give it at 

 least a night in which to catch up. And a busy night it put 

 in, for by morning it had conveyed to depths unknown the 

 the wide, discolored pond, that other\vise would have smoth- 

 ered the plants it covered. As soon, also, as the mountain 

 stream fell below the mouth of the lower drain, it emptied at 

 once the water resting on the lower swale. Throughout the 

 day came successive tales of havoc and disaster, of dams 

 scooped out, bridges swept away, roads washed into stony 



