no outlet except across it; if its size and shape compel your house to
stand so near your neighbor on the south that he takes all the sunshine
and gives you the odors of his dinner and the conversation of his cook
in exchange; if there are no pleasant outlooks; if it is shaded by
trees owned by somebody who will not be persuaded to cut them down for
love nor money--by all means turn it into a fish-pond, a sheep-pasture
or a public park. You can never build upon it a satisfactory home.
Perhaps it is within five minutes' walk of the post-office and on the
same street with Mrs. Adoniram Brown, and these considerations outweigh
all others. In that case there is no help for you. You must make the
best of it as it is.

[Illustration: A BURIED GRIDIRON.]

"If you have a suspicion that the ground is naturally wet, that it
contains hidden springs or conceals an impervious basin, making in
effect a pool of standing water underground, the first necessity is a
clean outlet--not a sewer--low enough to underdrain the lot at least a
foot and a-half below the bottom of the cellar. Having found the clean
outlet, lay small drain tiles, two or three inches in diameter, under
the entire house and for several feet all around it, like a big
gridiron. When this is buried under one or two feet of clean gravel or
sand you will have a permanently dry plot of ground to build upon. The
same treatment will be effective if the ground is "springy." But there
must be a "cut-off" encircling the house. This you can make by digging
a trench a foot wide, reaching down to the drain tiles, and filling it
nearly to the top with loose stones or coarse gravel, the surface of
the ground being graded to slope sharply toward the trench. The surface
water between it and the house, and any moisture creeping toward the
house from without, will then be caught in this porous trap and fall to