canal, and my wife was in terror lest the children should be drowned
in it. Now something had to be done, and I called in the services of
Mr. Caldwell, city surveyor of Newburgh, and to his map I refer the
reader for a clearer understanding of my tasks.

Between the upper and lower swales, the ridge on which the house
stands slopes to its greatest depression along its western boundary,
and I was shown that if I would cut deep enough, the open drain in the
lower swale could receive and carry off the water from the upper
basin. This appeared Tobe the only resource, but with my limited means
it was like a ship-canal across the Isthmus of Panama. The old device
of emptying my drains into a hole that practically had no bottom,
suggested itself to me. It would be so much easier and cheaper that I
resolved once more to try it, though with hopes naturally dampened by
my last moist experience. I directed that the hole (marked B on the
map) should be oblong, and in the direct line of the ditch, so that if
it failed of its purpose it could become a part of the drain. Down we
went into as perfect sand and gravel as I ever saw, and the deeper we
dug the dryer it became. This time, in wounding old "Mother Earth," we
did not cut a vein, and there seemed a fair prospect of our creating a
new one, for into this receptacle I decided to turn my largest drain
and all the water that the stubborn acre persisted in keeping.

I therefore had a "box-drain" constructed along the western boundary
of the place (marked C) until it reached the lowest spot in the upper
swale. This drain was simply and rapidly constructed, in the following
manner: a ditch was first dug sufficiently deep and wide, and with, a
fall that carried off the water rapidly. In the bottom of this ditch
the men built two roughly faced walls, one foot high and eight inches
apart. Comparatively long, flat stones, that would reach from wall to