Chapter 6 MAKING BROOKS AND SPRINGS USEFUL

RECLAIMING A TROUT STREAM

"I used to ketch trout that 'ud weigh two pound in that little crick back of my pasture when I 'uz a boy."

Who has not heard old men say that? They seem to have just accepted the lack of trout as one other piece of bad luck, like wormy apples, blighted wheat, and other dispensations of Providence. The younger generation are not satisfied with this view. If good wheat can be grown by modern methods, and wormy apples prevented by spraying, why shouldn't trout be caught in grandpa's old brook? No reason in the world. In between you and grandpa there was a generation of neglect. Your father and his brothers probably went to town to seek their fortunes. Anyhow, everybody was too busy to fish, and something went wrong with the brook that needs to be righted.

Any stream that has been a trout stream once can be so again, provided that the water is not fed with poisoned drainage from some mill or factory. If the forest has been removed and natural conditions so changed that the brook that used to be perennial is now only semi-annual, going dry in time of drought, it will be necessary to build a series of dams to make sure that the water will always be deep enough for trout. A spring-fed brook is best; it is cool and constant. Lower the channel by digging where refuse has choked the natural course of the stream, but don't tidy it up enough to make it artificial.

The ideal brook, and the country is full of them, has gravelly or sandy stretches which serve as spawning beds, swift rapids where exercise is necessary, and deep pools for rest and quiet, shallow places where insects lurk in the overhanging vegetation, and once in a great while a real little waterfall where the water gets well churned and mixed with air. The brook ought to supply enough food for all, but I have seen fish so plentiful in well-cared-for streams that it was necessary to feed them. We would take great pans of specially prepared food to the water's edge; as we threw it broadcast on the surface the trout would leap entirely out of the water in their eagerness to get the morsels. We did not feed them liver because the epicure does not like his trout to have a liver flavour. The natural food of the trout should be encouraged to breed in the trout stream. You can restock your stream with the little crustaceans, insect nymphs, and similar fish food from other streams if you think it necessary. A few pails full of mud carried across will start them.

Photograph by Helen W. Cooke

Plenty of Trout in This Stream When Grandfather Was a Boy

The greatest necessity is to protect your fish from their natural enemies. Big fish will eat little fish, trout will eat trout, so will bass, pickerel, and suckers. You can keep the big fish out by screening the spillway at the upper dam.

There is good fun to be had in raising trout from the egg. This work has been regarded by most people as too complicated and too difficult for any but an expert. As a matter of fact, it is no more difficult than many of the occupations boys engage in, chicken raising, bee-keeping, and photography, for instance. Visit a fish hatchery if you have one near, get all the government bulletins on the subject, and, if you have available running water, you can try your hand at trout growing. It would not appeal to many, but it is really fascinating work.

SPRINGS FOR TROUT CULTURE

If there are constant, cold springs on your place, you are neglecting a golden opportunity for earning money in an easy and delightful way. A spring is capable of furnishing living room for a large family of trout. You can sell live trout at sixty-five cents to a dollar a pound to a first-class hotel. The big fish bring the smaller prices per pound, those weighing from half a pound to a pound being most popular.

Clean out your spring first and make a basin ten to twenty feet square, the bigger the better. Put a fine, galvanized iron netting over the overflow of your reservoir. Young fish can be bought from a fish hatchery in the form of eggs, fry, fingerlings, yearlings, or even larger. The government will stock your streams for you free, but it imposes certain conditions, which is quite just and proper. Get all the information you can from state fish hatcheries or the United States Bureau of Fisheries, before you decide finally.

RECLAIMING A SPRING

There is often a neighbourhood tradition concerning a wonderful spring somewhere near, a spring that never ceases to flow, no matter how complete the drought. The water is pure, cold, and clear; maybe the oldest inhabitant had it from his grandfather how the Indians used always to camp near it on their cross-country marches from the Catskills to the Blue Ridge. They call it "The Old Indian Spring." Sometimes they tell hair-raising tales of midnight adventures and hair-breadth escapes, till you wonder that the spring itself never turned red with the spilt blood. From stories of early pioneer days one gets a good idea of the very great importance of the ever faithful spring. With the certainty of a pure water supply for family and beasts, a man might safely carve a home in a primeval forest. Without it, he must push on yet another lap toward the wilderness.

I remember such a spring. Generations of red men, trekking from one hunting-ground to another or maybe waging their own peculiar war in the enemy's country, have depended on this spring for their success. Later generations of pioneers have passed that way and refreshed themselves with its sweet water. As years went by, the spring fell into disuse and gushed on forgotten. But forty years ago it was re-discovered by a searching party, identified as an historic spot, reclaimed, and made permanently useful and beautiful by public spirit.

Nobody knows just how to appreciate a spring except the person who discovers it, reclaims it, and makes it do his bidding. No bit of his own ingenuity pleases the householder quite as much as his spring, his piping, his reservoir, and his little hydraulic ram, yet one of the last springs I visited was in a New England pasture. Its only protection was a sort of fence of poles to keep the cattle out. To approach it you had to leap from hillock to hillock, in constant danger of losing your balance and sinking in a deep mud hole. The spring bubbled up clear as crystal in a most unromantic hole in the ground; its overflow simply spread out on the ground between the hummocks. It didn't look thrifty to me. Two days' work would have laid a basin rim of small stones about that spring with a piece of tile for an overflow pipe, and a shallow channel might have been dug to carry the surplus to the edge of the slope where another basin for the cattle might have been made, or to a trough.

The water of a spring ought to be analyzed by a chemist before it is used for drinking. Nobody knows what contamination is possible to a spring whose sources are mystery. Campers ought to be particularly careful in this, especially if their camp is near settlements.

The first step in reclaiming a spring is to dig out a basin. The chances are that the one made by the water is too shallow for practical purposes. Compute the number of gallons you want in reserve and take out enough cubic feet of soil to make a basin of that capacity. Decide next what to do with the surplus. Your basin is not designed to hold the spring's daily output. If the spring is in a ravine, nothing is simpler than to lay a tile drain from the basin down to the stream bed. By damming the stream you can make a pond for waterfowl, for trout raising, or for a swimming hole: but that is another story.

The basin should have a protecting rim. For a number of reasons this should be solid and permanent. You are sure to want to sit on it and watch the water, for one thing. Then, too, you want a protection against surface water. All sorts of decaying animal and vegetable matter must be kept out of the spring, so cover it tightly.

MAKING A SWIMMING POOL

In a country where wooded brooks are plentiful there is absolutely no good reason why boys shouldn't have a swimming pool. It needn't cost a thousand dollars, either. Every outdoor club ought to have one as a special feature. The same dam that holds back the water for the skating pond may serve in summer to make the swimming hole. It is really fun to build a dam. Your father or the other boy's father will know how. You can dig out the stream at low water, and make the pool deep enough for diving.

High banks make the place more private; trees and underbrush serve the same purpose. But if the banks are not high naturally, and the trees have been cut away you have no idea how quickly you can make a natural screen. Willows love the margin of streams and they grow tremendously. A frame of poles covered with wild cucumber or morning glory will make a good screen the first season while the permanent trees and shrubs are growing. You don't need to swim all your spare time, so you can give some time to making the pool more secluded. Move a few big bushes from the woods in winter. They will never know the difference if you transplant them while their roots are frozen in a big ball of earth.

Let me make a suggestion to you. You believe everybody ought to know how to swim, don't you? That includes your father, of course, who taught you. Does it include your sisters and the other boys' sisters? "Everybody" is a big word, now you think of it. Why it includes even your mother! Do mothers know anything about swimming? Some of them do, already, only they never get a chance to keep in practice; but they like it. It is precisely as natural for girls and mothers to enjoy the water as it is for boys and fathers. Just be generous and let it be understood that a certain day in the week is ladies' day, and turn the pool over to them. Their bathing suits may not be in the latest fashion, but you won't be there to criticize nor to see how well they really swim.

A HOME-MADE SKATING POND

The family who own a tennis court and enjoy no skating in the winter have their own want of ingenuity to blame, if they live in the Jack Frost belt. Any level piece of ground, even the grass plot in the back yard, can be skated on.

You need first to set a six-inch board on edge all round the level plot. This board should be three inches in the ground and three inches out.

As winter approaches, rig a trough from the pump to the pond-to-be or have the hose where it can be attached to the spigot at a moment's notice. Wait for a hard freeze. When it comes, and the ground is like rock, give the word "all hands to the pumps." Let on enough water to cover the surface, then let it freeze. If you get a smooth surface the first go you are luckier than most boys. Cover the first coat with a second and that with a third layer until you have smooth ice.

Then skate. On cold nights spray the worn places if you use a hose, or run on another half-inch of water.

A good skating pond can be made by boys with a little ingenuity, which in this case means engineering ability, by damming a brook until it floods a naturally flat area above its own level. Or by damming the outlet of a pond before dry weather comes on and holding the water at a higher level than it would naturally have. It is perfectly astonishing what a small dam will do, if cleverly placed. Study the work of beavers if you know of any. You can get pointers from mill-dams built by your great-grandsires, if there are any in your vicinity. In one of the books for boys, mentioned in the book list, are practical suggestions about building dams.

Sometimes boys think nature has not done as much for them as for boys who have a natural swimming pool, a skating pond, or a trout brook. Maybe if you helped her out a little, nature would do her part in your case, too.

THE STORY OF RECLAIMING A SPRING

When I was fourteen years old my father bought his property in Ithaca, N. Y., on which we live. That part of it on which there is now a fine spring was considered worthless. Through this property ran a well-wooded glen, the upper end of which was very wet and swampy. This condition was due to several small springs emerging from the ground at the head of the glen. All of these springs joined and flowed down through the glen, forming a fairly large stream. This stream flowed continually throughout summer and winter, without change of volume.

The first step in the reclaiming of this spring was to collect all the water through tile drains into a large, concrete reservoir. This reservoir, which was four feet wide, four feet high, and twelve feet long, was constructed about two feet under ground. An open spring basin was connected with this reservoir by a two and one-half inch iron pipe. This basin was made of rough stones laid in cement, and the back side of it arched over a foot or more, forming a partial roof. On the open side is a concrete seat where one can conveniently sit and get a drink. My father and I did all the work except part of the ditch digging. From this basin was laid a one and a quarter-inch iron pipe which carried the water down the glen a distance of about sixty feet to a hydraulic ram. This ram is always running, and is made to go by the constant pressure of the water from the spring basin. The water is forced through a half-inch iron pipe to a large tank in the attic of the house situated on the hill above. The tank, which holds about five hundred gallons, supplies the house with pure, cold water for all purposes. As the water is always flowing into the tank it is provided with an inch and a half overflow pipe, which carries the surplus water back into the glen. Thus, through a series of pipes and a ram, the water is conveyed from the reservoir throughout the house. By building a small dam farther down, we made a fair-sized pond on which to domesticate some wild fowl.

The ground drained by concentrating the springs was well adapted because of its fertility for the growing of shrubbery and flowers of many sorts. In the wetter places, ferns and pink and yellow lady slippers were planted, and in the dryer area shrubbery, such as the red bud and azalea. Thus, what was once a mud hole was transformed into a useful piece of ground.

John Needham

A BACK YARD SWIMMING POOL

Somewhere and somehow our boys came into possession of the idea that they could make a swimming pool. I think the original suggestion came from Country Life in America, wherein was described, with beautiful pictures, a swimming pool that cost five thousand dollars or six thousand dollars. The boys had land a-plenty, water, too, and a will to work if they were shown what to do. With the decision made that a swimming pool must be had, a council was held to decide on ways and means. The oldest boy, aged thirteen, stoutly maintained that he could do the entire work himself, while the youngest, aged four, was equally confident that the job was entirely within his capacity. It was finally agreed that I should stake out the ground and furnish the material, and the boys would do the work. With some slight modifications this plan was followed throughout. It was decided to make the pool twenty-five feet long, ten feet wide, and four feet deep. The ground was thereupon staked off and the boys fell to with a will removing the earth.

It was hard digging, but the youngsters stuck to the work and finished within a week. Earth to the depth of three feet was removed, and by piling this around the entire margin of the excavation the level was raised about one and one half feet for a distance of eight feet on all sides. This plan avoided the necessity of hauling away the earth, gave the desired depth, and provided a flat surface eight feet wide all around the pool.

The rough digging being finished, the sides of the excavation were trimmed with a spade to an angle of about forty-five degrees. Rough two by four-inch studding was then cut into lengths of four and one half feet and placed four feet apart all around the banks. Where each piece of studding was set, the earth was removed, so that the timber was made flush with the soil. The end of each piece of timber was also sunk in the earth at the bottom of the pit for about three inches, in order that it might be held firmly against the bank. Rough pine boards, free from cracks and knot holes, were then nailed to the timbers at the top only. These boards were twelve inches wide, and thus formed a border or rim all around the upper portion of the pit, one foot in width. At right angles to the twelve-inch rough boards others of the same size were nailed, the last projecting out on the level ground, thus forming a boardwalk around the excavation. The main object of these boards was to keep the waves from washing the banks and to give a clean place upon which to stand or sit while not actually in the water.

The boards being up, there was still left about three feet of the sides, and the entire bottom of the excavation, without covering of any kind. It was decided to cover the sides and bottom with cement, plastering this material directly upon the earth. The cement was mixed with sand, one part cement and two parts of sand, and was spread on with a mason's trowel. Two and a half barrels of cement and about four barrels of sand were used. Toward the last, pure cement was applied as a thin wash to the entire surface.

The cementing was a pretty tough job, but with the help of an old coloured man the work was finally done in a thorough manner, and the pit was then as tight as a jug. It was allowed to dry for two days; then the water was turned in. The water was supplied from the service pipe of our home near by, and as it is furnished by meter, we had no qualms as to the quantity used. The pool holds about eight thousand gallons and requires from twelve to fifteen hours to fill it through a three-quarter inch pipe.

The entire cost of the work, not counting the boys' time, was as follows:

12 boards, 1 × 12 × 16 $2.25

8 pieces rough pine, 2 × 4 × 16 1.05

2? barrels cement at $1.50 per barrel 3.75

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Total $7.05

The pool was located in the shade of some willows on ground slightly higher than the adjacent territory. Every few days some of the water was siphoned off through a piece of hose and fresh water run in. Once a week, however, about a handful of copper sulphate was tied up in a piece of cheese cloth and thrown into the pool, where it was whipped up and down in the general fun until all the copper was dissolved. The copper kept the water absolutely pure and sweet throughout the entire season, and not a sign of alg? appeared.

The pool was a source of constant delight, not only to our youngsters, but to those of our neighbours. All but the four-year-old learned to swim, and by the end of the season even he could make some preliminary moves in that direction. The moral of the story is that if you have some youngsters, a back yard and a city water pipe you do not need to go to the seashore for fun. Give the boys a chance to make a swimming pool and they will enjoy it all the more if it is the result of their handiwork.

Beverly T. Galloway

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