28 o 
for Agricultural Purposes. 
tiictfe, but it is a fact well known to practical agriculturists 
that in many districts ponds can be made water-tight without 
expensive puddling. Thus Major Staveley on his Royal Prize 
Farm on the Chalk Wolds in Yorkshire, finding it difficult to 
get sufficient water for his stock to drink in a district where 
wells have to be sunk from 1 80 to 240 feet deep to obtain it, 
formed an inexpensive pond, at a convenient spot where the 
ditches of four fields met and could be made to discharge them- 
selves, at a cost of only 30/. As recorded in the Journal, 
Yol. II. 3rd Series (1891), p. 5G2, his method was after 
digging to the required depth to spread a coating of lime ; then 
one of clay well worked ; then another layer of lime, on which 
some straw was spread ; and over all a thick stratum of chalk. 
A pond thus constructed he found could be made quite water- 
tight, and would be capable of collecting a considerable quantity 
of rainfall and surplus surface water ; a fact worth noting by 
those who suffered so severely last summer in having to fetch 
water long distances for their stock, which unfortunately was 
the case in numerous instances. 
When the provision of drinking water for stock is the sole 
object a better and perhaps a cheaper way under certain 
circumstances would be that of pumping up water from a lower 
level to an upland farm. Thus the late Earl Bathurst effected 
a grand improvement at North Cerney, Gloucestershire, about 
eighteen years since, whereby the greater part of that village 
and the large hill farm of Mr. T. R. Hulbert, consisting of 
about 1,400 acres, were fully supplied with ample pure drinking 
water for human kind and for cattle, sheep, and horses. Advan- 
tage was taken of there being a deep well close to an old grist 
mill on the stream just below the village, and its water wheel 
was utilised to work pumping machinery to send water from 
the well to the upper part of Mr. Hulbert’s land, some 500 feet 
above the level. A reservoir of solid masonry was then con- 
structed whence water was conveyed by piping to cisterns placed 
in every field, as well as to all the houses in the village requiring 
it. As the entire undertaking only cost about 1 ,000/., a surcharge 
of Is. per acre per year on the land alone would have given 
5 per cent, interest on the capital expended ; and no doubt if 
no portion of the water supply had been required for human 
consumption, a much greater volume might have been pumped 
up from the stream itself sufficient to have irrigated con- 
siderable areas. As the case stands, however, Mr. Hulbert 
derives some ulterior benefit from the supply other than a 
perennial source of drinking water for stock. He is enabled 
to use a water-drill in depositing turnip, mangel, cabbage, and 
VOL. v. T. s. — 18 U 
