58 CALIFORNIA VEGETABLES. 



voir after shaping may be cemented. In parts of the State 

 where asphaltum is abundant this material is very satis- 

 factorily used, the asphaltum being melted, mixed with 

 sand and spread on hot and smoothed down well with hot 

 shovels and hoes. 



Cement can be used in the form of a mortar made of 

 six parts sharp clean sand to one part Portland cement. 

 Apply two coats, and then brush over with a whitewash 

 of clear cement and water. It is not necessary to make 

 walls of brick or stone on which to cement. Cemented 

 directly on the earth, even if it be sand or gravel, answers 

 perfectly. As we have no earth-freezing such work is 

 safe. If there should be cracks, give a coat of clear cement 

 and water and it will close them up. 



The use of clay puddle is also very satisfactory. The 

 following is the plan of construction followed by Mr. Ed- 

 ward Berwick, of Carmel valley, Monterey county, in 

 building a reservoir which has stood thirty years of con- 

 stant use : 



"My reservoir is eightly feet in diameter and made on 

 land with a slope of say one in forty. I drove a peg in 

 for a center, took a forty-foot line and marked a circle. 

 I dug a trench eighteen inches in width, say three feet 

 deep where the land level was lowest and five feet where 

 it was highest, so that the ditch bottom was level. I filled 

 the ditch with puddled clay, well tamped, then excavated 

 a width of perhaps ten feet, just inside the clay ring, to 

 the level required for the reservoir bottom. I lined this 

 ten feet of floor with clay, being careful to unite the clay 

 of the ditch ring with this floor. Then began clearing out 

 the middle of the reservoir and banking up on this ten- 

 foot floor, and also on outside, at the same time adding 

 clay to the ditch ring as the embankment grew. 



"When the required excavation was made, cleared up 

 well to the edge of the ten-foot wide floor, I put in the 

 clay for the rest of the bottom, uniting it, of course, with 

 the ten feet already laid, but now covered with the inner 



