t long be troublesome. There is no musk-rat--an animal which would
do serious damage here. The tule-rat lives on roots on the land, but is
not active or strong enough to be injurious.

The levee is usually from six to eight feet broad on top, with the inside
sloping; but I was told that experience had shown that the outside should
be perpendicular. It is not unusual for parts of a levee to sink down,
but I could hear of no case of capsizing. The Levee Board of a district
appoints levee-masters, whose duty it is to look after the condition
of the work, and on the islands I visited there were gangs of Chinamen
engaged in repairing and heightening the embankments.

You land at a wharf, and, standing on top of the levee, you see before you
usually the house and other farm buildings, set up on piles, for security
against a break and overflow; and beyond a great track of level land, two
or three or five feet below the level of the levee, and, if it has but
lately been reclaimed, covered with the remnants of tules and of grass
sods.

When the levee is completed, and the land has had opportunity to drain
a little, the first operation is to burn it over. This requires time and
some care, for it is possible to burn too deep; and in some parts the fire
burns deep holes if it is not checked. If the land is covered with dry
tules, the fire is set so easily that a single match will burn a thousand
acres, the strong trade-wind which blows up the river and across these
lands carrying the fire rapidly. If the dry tules have been washed off,
a Chinaman is sent to dig holes through the upper sod; after him follows
another, with a back-load of straw wisps, who sticks a wisp into each
hole, lights it with a match, and goes on. At this rate, I am told, it
cost on one island only one hundred dollars to burn fifteen hundred acres.

When this work is done you have an ash-heap, extremely disagreeable to
walk over, and not yet solid enough to bear horses or oxen. Accordingly,
the first crop is put on with sheep. First the tract is sowed, usually
with a coffee-mill sower or hand machine, and, I am told, at the rate of
about thirty pounds of wheat to the acre, though I believe it would be
better to sow more thickly. Then comes a band or flock of about five
hundred sheep. These are driven over the surface in a compact body, and at
no great rate of speed, and it is surprising how readily they learn what
is expected of them, and how thoroughly they