io8 — How to Make the Garden Pay. 



water-tight box or pan containing about an inch of water, and 

 letting it remain until thoroughly saturated from the bottom up, 

 then taking out and replacing by others. The water application 

 in this method is a thorough one, and yet it does not disturb the 

 surface of the flat, damaging plants or washing out seeds, as 

 overhead sprinkling often does. 



Aquaculture, or the New Agriculture. — Reports of 

 wonderful crops produced on slopes of soil by no means rich, 

 under a new system, called by the inventor (A. N. Cole) "aqua- 

 culture " (water culture), or new agriculture, at one time at- 

 tracted considerable attention ; but since this method is quite 

 expensive, and possible only under certain conditions, namely, 

 on a slope with impervious clay subsoil, it is not of general 

 utility nor excessively meritorious. Mr. Cole gave the follow- 

 ing description of it : "A ditch is opened on a water level along 



Slope Subirrigated after Cole's Method. 



the hillside or slope, say a yard wide, and from three to five feet 

 deep. At the bottom of this ditch are loosely placed cobble and 

 blocky stones, for a foot or two, then flat stones are laid over 

 these, then a quantity of smaller stones ; these are covered over 

 with weeds, briars, brambles, fine brush, straw, corn stalks, or 

 other available material, to prevent the fine earth from falling 

 among and filling the crevices between the stones. A heavy 

 coating of manure may follow, and then the excavated soil is 

 spread over it, and a terrace is graded if desired. Whatever 

 course the trench may take, the surface of the hard pan at the 

 bottom of the ditch must never vary from a water level. A series 

 of such ditches, one above the other, are dug a rod or so apart 

 and similarly filled, over as large a surface as is to be improved, 

 each forming an elongated reservoir, which will be filled by the 

 watercourses cut off, or by the melting snows and early rains; 



