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Success with Small Fruits by Edward Payson Roe
page 78 of 380 (20%)
drains that I have described.

In the rear of my place there was a third drainage problem very
different from either of the other two. My farm runs back to the rise
of the mountain, whose edge it skirts for some distance. It thus
receives at times much surface water. At the foot of the mountain-
slope, there are about three acres of low alluvial soil, that was
formerly covered with a coarse, useless herbage of the swamp. Between
the meadow and the slope of the mountain, "the town" built a
"boulevard" (marked II on the map), practically "cribbing" an acre or
two of land. Ahab, who needed Naboth's vineyard for public purposes,
is the spiritual father of all "town boards."

At the extreme end of the farm, and just beyond the alluvial ground,
was the channel of a brook (marked J). Its stony bed, through which
trickled a rill, had a very innocent aspect on the October day when we
looked the farm over and decided upon its purchase. The rill ran a
little way on my grounds, then crept under the fence and skirted my
western boundary for several hundred yards. On reaching a rise of
land, it re-entered my place and ran obliquely across it. It thus
enclosed three sides of the low, bushy meadow I have named. Its lower
channel across the place had been stoned up with the evident purpose
of keeping it within limits; but the three or four feet of space
between the walls had become obstructed by roots, bushes, vines and
debris in general. With the exception of the stony bed where it
entered the farm, most of its course was obscured by overhanging
bushes and the sere, rank herbage of autumn.

In a vague way I felt that eventually something would have to be done
to direct this little child of the mountain into proper ways, and to
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