18 LIFE ON THE FARM. 



It reminds one of the delta of the Nile or the Mis- 

 sissippi. Farther down the road are hundreds of 

 tongues of sediment a few inches wide and several 

 feet long. They have left little gullies from 

 which the earth has been washed. The main 

 ditch, which receives all this water, from both east 

 and west, is about six feet deep and ten feet wide. 

 The muddy water is rushing wildly down its chan- 

 nel this morning, and will be in the Wabash before 

 many hours. In some 'places the banks are so low 

 that some of the water flowed out into the open 

 fields and there, becoming quiet, left a thin sedi- 

 ment of fine mud. A wide board, which happened 

 to be lying in a pasture close by, was covered with 

 a sediment of soil about half an inch thick. The 

 force of gravity impels the water onward to the 

 larger streams, and draws it down into the earth, 

 but at the same time it is pulling still harder on 

 every particle of the heavier- earth and brings it to 

 rest whenever the water slackens its speed. 



Not only is the earth from the cultivated fields 

 and the open roads thus torn loose and carried 

 away, but the banks and beds of the small streams 

 themselves lose their share. During some rainy 

 seasons, this amounts to nearly a foot each month. 

 A small elm tree which stood in firm soil a 

 month ago on the bank of the ditch just men- 

 tioned, was so undermined by the action of last 

 night's freshet that only a few roots on one 

 side are holding it to the soft mud. It is not able 



