Watering trough

“ The earth is thrown in at the upper part of the trough, and it is gradually washed down, the water being allowed to flow in some cases by night as well as by day, but commonly in the day-time only, as the troughs must be watched, to see that they do not become choked up, and the soil washed out by the overflowing water. The run goes on for six or ten days, and then the current is stopped for a cleaning-up, which occupies from half a day to a day. ”

“ Rats are fond of trout eggs, sediment will smother the embryo within the shell, and direct sunlight will kill it. In a hatching house a distributing trough should run the length of one side. If this is ten inches wide and nine inches deep, with occasional cleats on top to prevent spreading, it will be about right. The water may flow in at one end and out at the other, over a dam six or seven inches high. With hatching troughs at right angles to this and supplied by inch-and-a-half cocks or gates the flow will be regular at all times. ”

“ A mode of washing accumulations of auriferous earths by streams of water is employed where circumstances are favourable. A long inclined channel is constructed, and lined with boards; or, when the natural inclination of the soil requires it, a long trough is constructed and supported on trestles. ”

“ If a long trough, divided in the middle by a sluice or partition, have one end filled with water, and the other with quick silver, both fluids will remain quiet so long as they are divided, but when the sluice is drawn up, the heavier fluid will rush along the bottom of the trough, while the lighter, from being displaced, will rise, and flowing in an opposite direction, spread itself at the top. ”

“ Along this the song of the water thrush leads the wanderer from one limpid pool to another, a song that has in it some of the liquid prattle of the stream but more of a dominant, aggressive note that carries far. There is a touch of sunlight in the color of the water thrush’s breast, sunlight flecked with little brown shadow markings that are like the uniform brown of his back, and if it were not that he sticks so closely to the water he might suggest the oven-bird to the careless glance. ”

“ Picture the river at a low stage of the water, the pads, shriveled in the sun, hanging from the dark brown stems of the button-bushes which are all shaggy with masses of dark rootlets, an impenetrable thicket, and a stake-driver or Ardea minor sluggishly winging his way up the stream.
The breams nests, like large, deep milk pans, are left high and dry on the shore. They are not only deepened within, but have raised edges. In some places they are as close together as they can be, with each a great bream in it whose waving fins and tail are tipped with a sort of phosphorescent luminousness. ”

“ When the flowing mass reaches the drain at the foot of the bank it spreads out flatter into strands, the separate streams losing their semi-cylindrical form and gradually becoming more flat and broad, running together as they are more moist, till they form an almost flat sand, still variously and beautifully shaded, but in which you can trace the original forms of vegetation; till at length, in the water itself, they are converted into banks, like those formed off the mouths of rivers, and the forms of vegetation are lost in the ripple marks on the bottom. ”

“ As I walk along the stony shore of the pond in my shirt sleeves, though it is cool as well as cloudy and windy, and I see nothing special to attract me, all the elements are unusually congenial to me. The bullfrogs trump to usher in the night, and the note of the whippoorwill is borne on the rippling wind from over the water. Sympathy with the fluttering alder and poplar leaves almost takes away my breath; yet, like the lake, my serenity is rippled but not ruffled. These small waves raised by the evening wind are as remote from storm as the smooth reflecting surface. ”

“ You may often detect a yet smoother and darker water, separated from the rest as if by an invisible cobweb, boom of the water nymphs, resting on it. From a hill-top you can see a fish leap in almost any part; for not a pickerel or shiner picks an insect from this smooth surface but it manifestly disturbs the equilibrium of the whole lake. It is wonderful with what elaborateness this simple fact is advertised,—this piscine murder will out,—and from my distant perch I distinguish the circling undulations when they are half a dozen rods in diameter. ”

“ They sit and eat their luncheon in stout fear-naughts on the dry oak leaves on the shore, as wise in natural lore as the citizen is in artificial. They never consulted with books, and know and can tell much less than they have done. The things which they practise are said not yet to be known. Here is one fishing for pickerel with grown perch for bait. You look into his pail with wonder as into a summer pond, as if he kept summer locked up at home, or knew where she had retreated. ”

“ Thus even the meadow flood is parded, of various patches of color. Ever and anon the wind seems to drop down from over the hills in strong puffs, and then spread and diffuse itself in dark, fan-shaped figures over the surface of the water. It is glorious to see how it sports on the watery surface. You see a hundred such nimble-footed puffs drop and spread on all sides at once, and dash on, sweeping the surface of the water for forty rods in a few seconds, as if so many invisible spirits were playing tag there. ”

“ Formerly I had come to this pond adventurously, from time to time, in dark summer nights, with a companion, and making a fire close to the water’s edge, which we thought attracted the fishes, we caught pouts with a bunch of worms strung on a thread; and when we had done, far in the night, threw the burning brands high into the air like skyrockets, which, coming down into the pond, were quenched with a loud hissing, and we were suddenly groping in total darkness. Through this, whistling a tune, we took our way to the haunts of men again. But now I had made my home by the shore. ”

“ As the river eats into the hill, especially in freshets, it undermines the rocks, large and small, and they slide down alone or with the sand and soil to the water's edge. The river continues to eat into the hill, carrying away all the lighter parts, the sand and soil, to add to its meadows or islands somewhere, but leaves the rocks where they rested, and thus, in course of time, they occupy the middle of the stream, and later still, the mud of the meadow, perchance, though they may be buried under the mud. ”

“ I have no doubt that a good farmer, who of course loves his work, takes exactly the same kind of pleasure in draining a swamp, seeing the water flow out in his newly-cut ditch, that a child does in his mud dykes and water wheels. Both alike love to play with the natural forces.
There is quite a ravine by which the water of this swamp flows out eastward, and at the bottom of it many prinos berries are conspicuous, now apparently in their prime. These are appointed to be an ornament of this bare season between leaves and snow. The swamp pink's large, yellowish buds, too, are conspicuous now. ”

“ First I take an axe and pail and go in search of water, if that be not a dream. After a cold and snowy night it needed a divining-rod to find it. Every winter the liquid and trembling surface of the pond, which was so sensitive to every breath, and reflected every light and shadow, becomes solid to the depth of a foot or a foot and a half, so that it will support the heaviest teams, and perchance the snow covers it to an equal depth, and it is not to be distinguished from any level field. ”

“ One stands still and erect for three quarters of an hour, or till disturbed, on a little bit of floated meadow crust which rises above the water, just room for it to stand on, with its great white breast toward the wind. Then another comes flying past it, and alights on a similar perch, but which does not rise quite to the surface, so that it stands in the water. Thus they will stand for an hour, at least. They are not of handsome form, but look like great wooden images of birds, bluish slate, and white. But when they fly they are quite another creature. ”

“ It was inconceivable by what sort of mediation any mere landsman could hold communication with them. Would they heave to, to gratify his wishes? No, it was favor enough to know faintly of their destination, or the time of their possible return. I have seen them in the summer when the stream ran low, mowing the weeds in mid-channel, and with hayers’ jests cutting broad swaths in three feet of water, that they might make a passage for their scow, while the grass in long windrows was carried down the stream, undried by the rarest hay-weather. ”

“ An interesting kind of ditch to watch is one which is well supplied with water nearly all the year round, but may dry up during the height of summer. In such a position as this you are nearly sure to find many pond-dwellers, such as water-cress, duckweed, water parsnip, water buttercups, bulrushes, reeds, and many others, which will vary with the locality. These plants generally choose a spot where there is a permanent supply of water, but plants cannot foresee the unexpected draining of the ditch, or a summer drought, and they are sometimes left through these causes to grow on bare mud. ”

“ By the way there came up a shower, which compelled me to stand half an hour under a pine, piling boughs over my head, and wearing my handkerchief for a shed; and when at length I had made one cast over the pickerelweed, standing up to my middle in water, I found myself suddenly in the shadow of a cloud, and the thunder began to rumble with such emphasis that I could do no more than listen to it. The gods must be proud, thought I, with such forked flashes to rout a poor unarmed fisherman. ”

“ Every twenty yards along these small pipes a standard is erected about five feet high, on the top of which is a rose like that on a gardener's watering-pot. When the water is turned on at the tanks the pressure attained from its height forces it along the pipes up through the standards, and a few seconds later the whole field is being deluged with an artificial rainfall as if from a myriad fountains. Three times a day the clover crop is thus watered. ”

“ The dust settles on the fences and the rocks and the pastures by the roadside, but still the sward is just as green, nay greener, for all that. The morning air is clear even at this day. It is not begrimed with all the dust that has been raised. The dew makes all clean again. Nature keeps her besom always wagging. She has no lumber-room, no dust-hole, in her house. No man was ever yet too nice to walk in her woods and fields. His religion allows the Arab to cleanse his body with sand, when water is not at hand.
Oct. 6, 1851. 7.30 p. m. To Fair Haven Pond by boat, the moon four fifths full ”

“ The water for some time has been clear of weeds mostly, and looks cool for fishes. We get into the lee of the hill near Abner Buttrick's (?) where is smooth water, and here it is very warm and sunny under the pitch pines. Some small husky white asters still survive. The autumnal tints grow gradually darker and duller, but not less rich to my eye. And now a hillside near the river exhibits the darkest crispy reds and browns of every hue, all agreeably blended. At the foot, next the meadow, stands a front rank of smoke-like maples, bare of leaves, intermixed with yellow birches. ”

“ Irrigation, or watering land, is a practice, he observes, which at first view appears the reverse of torrefaction; and, in general, the operation of water in nature is to bring earthy substances into an extreme state of division. But in the artificial watering of meadows, the beneficial effects may depend upon many different causes, some chemical, some mechanical. It may act as a simple supply of moisture to the roots, or it may carry into the soil foreign matter, or diffuse that which exists in it more equally through its substance. ”

“ But if they do not drift into sufficiently shallow water, and are not left on the mud just at the right time, probably they perish. The mud in many such places is now green with them, though perhaps the seed has often blown thither directly through the air.—I am surprised to see dense groves of young maples an inch or more high from seed of this year. They have sprung in pure sand where the seed has been drifted and moisture enough supplied, at the water's edge. The seed, now effete, commonly lies on the surface, having sent down its rootlet into the sand. ”

“ The greater the height, of course, the less water required. But suppose a level and dry country; then hill and valley, and "eminent pond," are to be constructed by main force; or, if the springs are unusually low, then dirt and stones may be used, and the disadvantage arising from friction will be counterbalanced by their greater gravity. Nor shall a single rood of dry land be sunk in such artificial ponds as may be wanted, but their surfaces "may be covered with rafts decked with fertile earth, and all kinds of vegetables which may grow there as well as anywhere else." ”

“ The trough is usually made from half the trunk of a date-palm, hollowed out, and one end leads to the irrigation-channel on the bank. To give the beasts a better purchase in pulling up the weight of water, an inclined plane is cut in the ground, sloping away from the machine, and up and down this the beasts are driven, the skin filling and emptying itself automatically. To increase the supply of water, two skins are often employed side by side, each with its own tackle and set of beasts, and, as one is drawn up full, the other is let down empty. ”