1905.] 



Agricultural Credit in France. 



149 



lowered down the well will serve to show any breaks of 

 diameter above water-level. 



Lowering wells, either by digging or boring, is often effective 

 as a means of increasing the supply, and in some cases it is 

 desirable to drive headings or tunnels from the sides of the well 

 into the surrounding " rock " so as to tap fresh water-sources ; 

 but before any measure of this kind is decided upon, it is 

 advisable to have the best advice, as otherwise much disappoint- 

 ment and needless expense may be entailed. Especially is 

 this caution to be urged when a new well is to be sunk. Water 

 may perhaps be " found " by a person having no geological or 

 other scientific knowledge, but it may — as is known to have 

 happened in more than one case — be quite unfit for domestic use 

 when found. 



After the site of a new well has (on the best advice) been 

 selected, a trial boring should be made, and any water brought up 

 should be submitted for analysis by a qualified analytical chemist 

 before the work is proceeded with. Wells should, if possible, be 

 not less than fifty yards away from any cesspit or thirty from 

 where animal droppings can be washed into the soil — the further 

 away the better — and every well should be steined up to at least 

 six courses above ground and protected with an oak or stone 

 cover, so as to exclude surface impurities. Galvanised iron 

 buckets and chains should in all cases be used in preference to 

 wooden buckets and hemp ropes. Windlasses should be fitted 

 with ratchet and pawl gear, so that accidents due to the running 

 down of a full bucket may be avoided. 



Above all, the well should be as deep as the water-bearing 

 stratum and money will allow. 



The co-operative systems of agricultural credit which have 

 been so markedly successful in Germany and some other 

 European countries are more usually ad- 

 Agricuftural vantageous to the small than to the large 

 in France.* farmer, though where the operations of 

 societies are on a sufficient scale even 

 substantial sums of money can be borrowed on favourable 



* See article on "Agricultural Credit Banks," May, 1905, p. 96. 



