OHAPTEB in, 



THE ECONOMIC, .PHILOSOPHIC, PATRIOTIC AND SANITARY REASONS FOB 



CARP CULTURE. 



For years our American farmers in the pursuit of systematic economic 

 farming have vied with each other in applying labor, experience, intelli- 

 gence and capital to make their lands most productive with the least out- 

 lay. Their attractive homes and the comforts that surround them bespeak 

 their successful efforts. Still there is a branch of economic and success- 

 ful farming to which they have not applied themselves. One which is of 

 more importance in its relation to the value of farms and the other 

 branches of agriculture than appears possible on a superficial view. And 

 this branch is 



WATER FARMING, 



There are not many farms without either sheets of water, natural 

 ponds or pond sites, of which we will treat in due time. Money has been 

 ipent freely in ditching, tiling and underdraining to make such spots blos- 

 som as the rose. Where these efforts have succeeded, unaccompanied by 

 ague and malaria, the ground has been dearly purchased, the remainder 

 of the farm has been injured and the beauty of the landscape has been 

 marred. The cost of ditching, tiling, underdraining and redeeming will 

 be a big price for tho land. The farm has been injured by being robbed of 

 its water reservoir, and the face of the landscape has a black eye instead 

 of the silver sheen of water. How much better to mold the swail, morass, 

 or bog into a thing of beauty, give it banks and limits, if so it will con- 

 tribute equally well to our revenues while adding greatly to our comforts 

 and pleasures. 



The water resources of every farm should be taken under as complete 

 and perfect control as it is possible to get them, aside from the purpose of 

 water farming. The following editorial article, taken from the October 

 number of the National Journal of Carp Culture, 1887, covers the thought 

 we wish to present: 



** The present long, continued and very widespread drouth, accounts of 

 which have come to us from several States relating the exhausted con- 

 dition of small streams, springs, ponds, and even wells that never went 

 dry before and that now are as dry as the middle of the highway, has at 

 length reached Ohio. Beginning in the southwestern part of the State 

 and traveling north and east drying up ponds and streams and exhausting 

 wells until in many places water for household purposes is being hauled 

 several miles. Those who had ponds, whether natural or artificial, 



