262 The Farmstead 



variable that few specific directions can be 

 given. One simple, certain and cheap way of 

 securing water for the barn is usually neglected. 

 In some sections of the South, by reason of 

 peculiar geological formations, the practice of 

 constructing pools or storage reservoirs has be- 

 come common. A slight depression or draw or 

 swale is selected and dammed by using the ear«th 

 from the bottom of the proposed pool and from 

 the higher land adjoining. No stone or wood 

 is necessary to support the dam. The only pre- 

 caution necessary is to have a broad base (see 

 Fig. 7) , and to provide sufficiently large outflows 

 or spillways, one on either end of the dam, that 

 the pool may never rise higher than within two 

 feet from the top of the dam. The surface soil, 

 if it contains much vegetable matter, should be 

 scraped off a strip three to four feet wide and 

 as long as the dam, and the depression filled 

 with earth — clay is best— that contains little or 

 no organic matter. If the bottom of the dam 

 where it meets the normal earth is constructed 

 with sods, or other material which will decay, 

 in time the water will find its way through the 

 porous earth. 



The pools of the South, to which reference 

 has been made, sometimes have an extreme 

 depth of 12 to 15 feet, and may cover a fraction 

 of an acre or several acres. I have known one 



