THE COUNTRY HOME [CHAPTER 
fresh cistern water. If this water be caught on the 
roof, the gutters and the pipes as well as the roofs 
should be kept clean. A very good plan is to 
bury your cistern under ground — anywhere about 
your house, even under the driveway. I have a 
wooden cistern which has been in use twelve years. 
Opening it two years ago, I found almost no decay, 
and very little deposit; the water was absolutely 
clean. An open cistern of stone, in my cellar, gives 
me far more trouble. In fact, I do not reeommend 
a cistern inside the house under any conditions. 
But wherever your cistern is placed, the pipes 
should lead directly into the kitchen. Either di- 
rectly from the cistern or from a reservoir, water 
should also be carried to the bathroom and to the 
sleeping rooms. 
Irrigation is too generally considered as a provi- 
sion belonging only to extensive farming, and home- 
making on aridlands. It will hereafter be a method 
of supplying water for the gardens and meadows 
and field crops of intensive farming. We are grow- 
ing less and less patient with the enormous loss in our 
strawberry beds and our truck gardens, caused by 
dry spells, just in the nick of time. ‘The loss runs up 
in the aggregate to hundreds of millions every year. 
[ 68 ] 
