130 
GARDENING AND FARMING 
may be pumped out or scooped out as may be 
best under the circumstances. The more 
rapidly the excavation goes on, the more com- 
plete the work ; and where there is any doubt 
of the strength of the wall, let means be taken 
to strengthen it : add more soil to the outside, 
without letting any fall in ; but you may look 
for a complete supply of water up to even with 
the central and distant stream, and as soon as 
the excavation is left it will be filled. 
Another mode of treating a swamp of this 
kind is to form a double bank from the edge 
of the swamp to the stream, and to excavate 
or dig out the marshy ground between them ; 
and in this case form the ditch or watercourse 
between the two banks, and let it communi- 
cate with the excavation you have made, 
always preserving the form of bottom recom- 
mended, that the cattle may walk to the edge 
of the water and drink, even when there is 
only a gallon left. Let it moreover be per- 
fectly understood, that when the water is low 
enough to admit of the bottom being lowered 
a foot, the chance must not be lost, because 
every foot of earth taken out makes room for 
a foot of water. 
Another way of treating the swamp is to 
make a bank or roadway down to the stream 
itself,- but in all these matters the first flood 
that comes down makes a general sweep of all 
your handywork that presents any obstacle to 
the progress of the waters ; and except your 
excavation is almost at the high-water mark, 
that would fill up too with the ruins of its 
own banks. This is why we recommend the 
excavation to be made on dry land, with but 
little encroachment on the swamp ; for by 
sinking low enough you are sure to find 
water, and the river must dry up altogether 
long before your supply is gone. Channels 
dug in a swamp will not last ; they choke with 
mud and vegetation in a short time, and there 
is nothing more uncertain than a small river 
— that is, one depending on the rains for its 
chief supply ; because it is sure to fail you 
when all other sources fail, and tempt you 
with plenty when you find plenty at all other 
sources. Nothing, in short, in the way of ad- 
ditional rent is at all equal to the vast addition 
of labour in having to provide water, instead 
of finding it in abundance. Scarcely anything 
makes amends for the loss of time, money, 
comfort, and occasionally stock, when you are 
forced to locate where there is no water but 
what you dig for. Rather buy at two pounds 
an acre with every advantage about you than at 
one pound where you have not such advan- 
tages ; and rent at five shillings an acre near 
a market and near water, rather than have 
land at a gift where you are in constant dan- 
ger of dying with thirst, and of losing your 
stock when you with difficulty save yourself. 
CLEARING WOODLAND. 
There is no small labour in clearing the 
ground of wood, but this may be lessened or 
increased by the handy or awkward way in 
which it is set about. The difficulty is 
greater or less according to the size of the 
timber, which however is generally mixed. 
The tools required for this business are 
1. a cutting mattock, which has one blade or 
cutter set straight and the other transverse — 
one the way of a hatchet, the other the way 
of an adze ; 2. a pickaxe ; 3. a large axe ; 4. 
a hatchet ; 5. a bill-hook ; 6. a good strong 
but not large spade ; 7. iron-bound wooden 
beetle, and iron wedges ; 8. sledge hammers ; 
9. ropes; 10. cross-cut saws, two sizes; 11. 
hand-saw ; 12. barrows. 
Thus equipped, we will begin at the edge 
of a thick wood in which there are trees of 
all sizes, and underwood. We must first 
clear a way in between the trees, by attacking 
the underwood, which we may take off as 
near the ground as possible. We may then 
dig a trench along the outer edge of the wood, 
that is, along the side next to us, and with the 
aid of the pickaxe, or of the mattock, cut 
away bit by bit all the roots that cross the 
trench we are making ; and although this 
trench may be five or six feet from the wood, 
the roots will intercept us every foot we go. 
This trench may be three feet wide and 
eighteen inches deep. This cleared out, we 
may with the pickaxe loosen the bottom six or 
eight inches deeper. Then we begin another 
trench by the side of it, or rather three feet 
further, as if we were going to make the 
original trench double the width; but we 
throw the soil from the second trench into the 
first, and continue to chop through the roots 
with the cutting mattock, until we come to the 
large roots of larger trees, which run a con- 
siderable distance from the trees. When we 
come to roots as thick as a man's leg, we may 
leave them in the trench till we have worked 
pretty near to the main stem ; or, by way of 
getting rid of them at once, we may bare 
them to within a couple of feet of the stem, 
and cut them off there ; though with a good 
cutting mattock, hatchet, and pick, the trou- 
ble of making a cut through at every trench 
is not much, and three-feet lengths of the 
roots are more portable than longer ones 
would be. Upon the whole, you clear your 
way better by cutting all the roots out as they 
intercept you, and throwing them out in heaps 
to be gathered together afterwards for fuel ; 
or, as there will be more than can be possibly 
stowed away for domestic use, they may be 
stacked on the ground, or put in heaps to be 
burned on the spot, and the product spread on 
the land.* Of course, as we advance into the 
They should be burned to charcoal : not to ashes. 
