28 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



But why can't it be drained? asked Greenhorns. 



Because there's no fall! replied collective 

 "Wisdom. 



Has it ever been tried with a Spirit-level? 



Now this was not a fair question. Spirit-levels 

 (if they had any meaning or existence at all) were 

 unintelligible, mathematical-looking instruments of 

 purely professional nature, only seen (if ever) in the 

 hands of road-surveyors' assistants and people of 

 that sort. They had nothing whatever to do with 

 farming. The question was unfair : it contained an 

 ambiguous term. 



Picture to yourself, however, the following con- 

 clusion from it. A bleak, foggy, November day : a 

 long rambling space, marsh or meadow, as you 

 might choose to call it, of some twenty acres in 

 extent, and about the third part of a mile in length, 

 with a narrow, thick plantation of rushes, sedges, 

 and brook-lime, and such aquatic vegetation, thread- 

 ing its way in one long dank line from end to 

 end, by such fantastic meanderings, that it looked 

 as if the hidden channel of choked moisture it 

 concealed had been making a continued series 

 of experiments from time out of mind in search of 

 an outlet ; and after centuries of struggle and disap- 

 pointment, had at length arrived, quite by accident, 



