methods of the past, puttering with banks and channels
Out of this comes the plan of Mr. Marshall O. Leighton, Chief Hydrographer, for improving our rivers by head-water control rather than by dependence on methods of the past, which consist of puttering with banks and channels — a plan regarded as revolutionary by the custom-bound, but which, if a layman may dare to express an opinion, must win eventual adoption.
Herbert Quick. American Inland Waterways : Their relation to Railway Transportation and to the National Welfare; Their Creation, Restoration and Maintenance (1909) : 132
Harvard copy/scan (via google books) : link
NYPL copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link
—
Herbert Quick (1861-1925), writer (fiction and nonfiction), lawyer, Mayor of Sioux City, Iowa (1898-1900)
wikipedia : link