TREATMENT OF WATER. 
315 
course, and damming up the little brook artificially ; stu- 
diously avoiding, however, any formal and artificial dis- 
position of the stones or rocks employed. 
Larger water-falls and cascades cannot usually be made 
without some regular head or breastwork, to oppose more 
firmly the force of the current. Such heads may be formed 
of stout plank and well prepared clay or, which is greatly 
preferable, of good masonry laid in water cement. After 
a head is thus formed it must be concealed entirely from 
the eye by covering it both upon the top and sides with 
natural rocks and stones of various sizes, so ingeniously 
disposed, as to appear fully to account for, or be the cause 
of the water-fall. 
The axe of the original backwoodsman appears to have 
left such a mania for clearing behind it, even in those 
portions of the Atlantic states where such labor should be 
for ever silenced, that some of our finest places in the 
country will be found much desecrated and mutilated by 
its careless and unpardonable use ; and not only are fine 
plantations often destroyed, but the banks of some of our 
finest streams and prettiest rivulets partially laid bare by 
the aid of this instrument, guided by some tasteless hand. 
Wherever fine brooks or water courses are thus mutilated, 
one of the most necessary and obvious improvements is to 
reclothe them with plantations of trees and underwood. 
In planting their banks anew, much beauty and variety 
can often be produced by employing different growths, 
and arranging them as we have directed for the margins 
* It is found that strong loam or any tenacious earth well prepared by 
puddling or beating in water is equally impervious to water as clay ; and may 
therefore be used for lining the sides or dams of bodies of made water wheii 
such materials are required. 
