THE FARM STREAM 33 



seven-by-nine lot, a bit of lawn with a peony in the front 

 yard, and a view of an asphalt pavement. 



Before the surveyor came along, lines were laid down 

 according to the law of gravity. The land was divided and 

 subdivided, not by fences, but by streams. 



Chief among the agencies that have shaped our farms is the 

 power of moving water. By it the soils have been mixed and 

 sifted and spread out. Water runs down hill, and the soils 

 move ever with it. With every flood, a portion is carried a 

 little way, to be dropped again as the current slackens, and 

 another portion is carried farther, to mix with soils from 

 various distant sources and form new fields at lower levels. 

 Small fields are forming now in the beds and borders of every 

 stream. And there, even as on land, some of them are ex- 

 posed, shifting and barren, and others are sheltered and set- 

 tled and productive. 



The rain descends upon the fields and starts down every 

 slope, gathering the loosened soil particles, collecting in rills, 

 increasing in volume, and cutting gullies and picking up 

 loosened stones, and pouring its mixture of mud and stones 

 into the creek at the foot of the slope. Then what does the 

 creek do with this flood-time burden ? Go down to its banks 

 and see. See where it has dropped the stones in tumbled 

 heaps at the foot of the rapids; the gravel, in loose beds just 

 below; the sand, in bars where the current slackens; the 

 mud in broad beds where the water is still; for its carrying 

 power lessens as its flow slackens, and it holds the finest 

 particles longest in suspension. 



It will be evident that, of all these deposits, the mud flats 

 are least subject to further disturbance by later floods. Here, 

 then, plants may grow, least endangered by the impact of 

 stones and gravel and sand in later floods or by the out-going 

 ice in spring. So here are the creek's pleasant fields of green, 

 its submerged meadows, whereas the beds where the current 

 runs swiftly appear comparatively barren. 



