Command of Water. 1 39 



with, they will generally furnish a sufficient supply for fa- 

 mily use ; but they are seldom adequate to the necessities 

 of a great farming establishment. If sufficient attention, 

 therefore, has not been paid to the collecting of water from 

 the roofs of the farm-buildings, wells or ponds must be re- 

 sorted to ( a53 ). 



3. Wells. In Middlesex and Surrey, they have dug wells 

 to a considerable depth, (from 100 to above 560 feet), be- 

 fore they could procure water (* 54 ). In Essex they have 

 been obliged to go as deep as 500 feet, to obtain water of a 

 good quality, and, at that depth, they succeeded. In Hamp- 

 shire they have likewise dug from 300 to 400 feet in depth, 

 through dry, cracked, or fissured chalk rock, and thus have 

 been able to supply whole villages with water, except during 

 the autumnal droughts (* 55 ). 



4. Artificial ponds. In several parts of England, as in 

 Hampshire, in Lincolnshire, and in Norfolk ( 2S6 ) 9 artificial 

 ponds have been formed with varied skill and success. In 

 Gloucestershire, such ponds are made, either of a square or 

 a circular shape, and generally so situated, as to furnish a 

 supply to four fields. Three layers of clay, free from the 

 smallest stone or gravel, are so worked in, as to form an im- 

 penetrable cement. The whole is afterwards covered with 

 sand, and finished with pavement ( a57 ). In Derbyshire, ar- 

 tificial meers, or cattle ponds, are made in their dry rocky 

 pastures, with great success. Having selected a low situa- 

 tion for the purpose, they deepen it ten or twenty yards 

 across, and spread over the whole excavation a layer, about 

 five inches thick, of refuse, slacked lime and coal cinders; 

 then they spread, trample and ram down, a stratum of well- 

 tempered clay, about four inches thick ; and upon this they 

 place a second bed of clay, in a similar manner, of the same 

 thickness ; the whole of the bottom and edges of the meet- 

 is then paved with rubble stones ; and small rubble stones, 

 several inches in diameter, are spread upon the pavement (* 58 ). 



A most ingenious, as well as economical mode of making 

 reservoirs of water, was invented about the year 1775, by 

 Robert Gardener, a well-sinker by profession, born at Kil- 

 ham, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Prior to the intro- 

 duction of his plan of making artificial ponds, many parts of 

 the Yorkshire Wolds were scarcely habitable. But by the 

 ingenuity and exertions of one individual, the difficulties 

 which lay in the way of the improvement of an extensive 

 district, have been removed ( z59 ). They are now universal- 

 ly to be met with in the East Riding, and are widely extend- 



