26 THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 



we took the precaution to direct the plowman to leave a deep fur- 

 row as near the base of the hill as convenient. This was done, and 

 here was found what had seemingly been a channel for waters, or> 

 from conformation of the ground, more probably such a recepta- 

 cle as to send them in even flow along the subsoil to the stream, 

 leaving the mold in their track, and begetting our little pocket 

 of a garden. Applying the pick and spade, our ditch was com- 

 pleted, but as this in its curve described a crescent, with point ter- 

 minating in the bed of the creek up the stream, discharge of the 

 waters into the creek only took place when the ' dish ' overflowed. 

 To prevent our trench from filling with soil therefore, recourse was 

 had to filling it with stone, a quantity of which had been thrown 

 out by the plow, and so a burial spot was made for stone and knots, 

 old boots, shoes and other castaways of the household, in promis- 

 cuous minglings. Over these was cast the pure vegetable mold, 

 and thus, in descending the hillside, the w r aters dropped into the 

 trench, and thence flowed along the dip of the subsoil, until in sub- 

 terranean movement they reached the stream. In the sinking of our 

 ditch, not so much as a dream had we, that demonstration was be- 

 ing made of a method which was to ultimate in so modifying ante- 

 cedent systems of farming and gardening, as to amount to what 

 now looks like revolution. And yet so it proved in more ways than 

 one, since it was this crudely conceived and carelessly sunken 

 trench, with its surface of sponge, that told a story to be yet heard 

 all over the world. 



Not least of good fortunes was the one of emergence, at base of 

 our mountain side, of considerable numbers of minute springs, 

 even in the driest of weather, whose waters in spring, autumn and 

 winter, warmly descending from what may be fitly denominated 

 "our great dipper" on the mountain side above, supplied the 

 household with excellent water. Finding the waters lost in the 



