"Five-and-twenty, two," said the farmer, making an entry in his pocket-book.
"So you have come, have you?" cried Fink, laughing, to his friend. "Wait a moment; we shall soon have done." Again a certain number of leaps, observations through the telescope, and entries in the pocket-book; then the men collected their pegs, and Fink rapidly cast up the figures in the farmer's book. Then giving it back with a smile, he said, "Come on with me, Anton, I have something to show you. Place yourself by the brook, with your face to the north. There the brook forms a straight line from west to east, the border of the wood a semicircle. Wood and brook together define the segment of a circle."
"That is evident," said Anton.
"In olden times the brook ran differently," continued Fink. "It swept along the curve of the wood, and its old bed is still visible. If you walk along the ancient water-course toward the west, you come to the point where the old channel diverges from the new. It is the point where a wretched bridge crosses the brook, and the water in its present bed has a fall of more than a foot, strong enough to turn the best mill going. The ruins of some buildings stand near it."
"I know the place well enough," said Anton.
"Below the village, the old channel bends down to the new. It encompasses a wide plain, more than five hundred acres, if I can trust the paces of this horse. The whole of this ground slopes down from the old channel to the new. There are a few acres of meadow, and some tolerable arable land. The most part is sand and rough pasture, the worst part of the estate, as I hear."
"I allow all that," said Anton, with some curiosity.
"Now mark me. If you lead back the brook to its old channel, and force it to run along the bow instead of forming the arc of that bow, the water that now runs to waste will irrigate the whole plain of five hundred acres, and change the barren sand into green meadows."
"You are a sharp fellow," cried Anton, excited at the discovery.
"These acres, well irrigated, would yield a ton of hay an acre; consequently, each acre would bring in a clear profit of five dollars, or, in other words, the five hundred acres would give a yearly income of two thousand five hundred, and to bring this about would require an outlay of fifteen thousand dollars at the very outside. This, Anton, was what I had to say to you."