668 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



4129. Collecting rain-water from roads, ^c. in ponds, or drinking pools. Formerly, it 

 is probable, something of this art has been practised throughout the kingdom : most 

 villages, and many old farmsteads, have drinking pools for stock, which appear to have 

 been formed or assisted by art. In strong-land grazing districts, pits have evidently 

 been dug, to catch the rain-water fortuitously collected, by furrows and ditches; or by 

 landsprings. On the chalk hills of the southern counties, the art has been long estab- 

 lished, and continued down to the present time ; and, on the wolds or chalk hills of 

 Yorkshire, an improved practice has been introduced by Robert Gardner of Kilham, 

 which gained an establishment towards the end of the last century, and has spread rapidly 

 over the adjacent heights, with great profit to the country. In every dry-land situation, 

 it may be practised with high advantage to an estate, and is well entitled to attention. 



4130. The mode^ of constructing these collecting ponds h described in The Jnnals of 

 Agriculture (vol. vi.), and illustrated by a section [fig. 533.). The ground plan is 

 circular, and generally forty or 533 



fifty feet in diameter, and the exca- 

 vation is not made deeper in the 

 centre than five feet. This exca- 

 vation being cleared out, a layer of 

 clay (a, b, c) suflSciently moistened, is to be carefully beaten a1iid trod down into a com- 

 pact and solid body of about the thickness of a foot. Upon this a layer of quick -lime 

 is finely and uniformly spread over the whole, of one inch or upwards in thickness. 

 Next is another layer of clay of about one foot in thickness ((/), which is to be trodden 

 and rammed down as the former ; upon this are spread stones or coarse gravel {e) of 

 such thickness as may prevent the pond receiving any injury from the treading of cattle, 

 who would otherwise break through the body of the clay and lime, and by so doing let 

 out the water ; after this, the pond will remain five feet deep and forty-five feet diameter ; 

 the size they are usually made. 



4131. Brick-clay is by no means required for the ponds; any earth sufficiently 

 tenacious to bear beating into a solid compact body, though not approaching to a pure 

 clay, will answer the purpose very well. 



4132. The preferable situation to make the pond is a little valley, or at the bottom of 

 a declivity, or near a high road, in which situation a stream of water may be brought 

 into it after sudden showers or thaws, the object being to get it filled as soon as possible 

 after it is made, that the sun and winds may not crack the clay ; if it is not likely to be 

 filled soon, some straw or litter must be spread over it ; but in general, after it is once 

 filled, the rains that fall in the course of the year will keep it full, no water being lost 

 otherwise than by evaporation and the consumption of cattle. 



4133. The whole excellence of the pond depends upon the lime ; care must be taken to 

 spread it regularly and uniformly over the surface of the lower bed of clay ; it is well 

 known that ponds made of clay alone, however good its quality, and whatever care may 

 be exerted in the execution, will frequently not hold water ; these with the above precau- 

 tions rarely fail. By what means the lime prevents the loss of water is not exactly known ; 

 one of these two is probably the cause ; either the lime sets like terrace into a body 

 impervious to water; or its causticity prevents the worms in dry weather from penetrating 

 through the clay in search of the water ; certain, however, it is, that with lime, thus 

 applied, ponds may be made in sand, however porous, or on rocks however open, in 

 neither of which situations are they to be depended upon when made with clay alone. 

 On this mode of making ponds for the use of live stock, there are several circumstances 

 of the process more fully detailed in The Rural Econo7ny of Yorkshire. 



4134. In constructing ponds i?i loa/ny soils all that is necessary is to coat the bottom 

 over with clay or loam to the depth of eighteen inches or two feet, and then to puddle 

 or work this well with water till it becomes a homogeneous layer impenetrable to 

 that element. If clay or loamy earth cannot be obtained, any earth not very much 

 inclined to sand may be substituted, but it will require more labor in puddling. On 

 clayey soils very little more is necessary than smoothing the surface of the excavation, 

 and perhaps watering it and beating it to a smooth surface with rammers. The pond 

 being now formed, the next operation is to coat it over witli coarse gravel to the depth of 

 at least eighteen inches ; or, what is preferable, chalk and flints with gravel ; or, best of ail, to 

 causeway or pave it. It is also very desireable to pave or gravel the surface for the 

 breadth of at least two yards round the pond, in order to prevent the cattle from poaching 

 it when they come to drink. 



4135. An economical mode of fortjiing ponds is often adopted on clayey soils where 

 gravel or stone for paving is scarce. It consists in adopting the horse shoe form as the 

 ground plan of the excavation, and cutting all the sides steep, or at an angle of 45 or 50 

 degrees, excepting the part answering to the heel of the shoe (Jig. 534 :, which is well 

 gravelled or paved as the only entrance for the cattle. The excavated earth serves to raise 

 the high side of the pond (6), which is generally guarded by a fence or a few trees 



