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Tip 4: Clean Up Your World with Water
Water is awesome enough in real life, but it’s even more fantastic in Minecraft. In addition to saving your life in a fall, water can clear an area of a variety of plant life (see Figure 8), as well as other items. Why would you want to clear an area? Lots of reasons: to build a house, make a farm, or perhaps construct that giant graven image of yourself you’ve always wanted.
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Figure 8 What a mess!
How does the cleanup process work? Simple. Instead of putting the water into a hole, put it on the open ground. Again, using your trusty bucket full of water, just place the water somewhere on the ground by right-clicking. The water will flow downhill, washing away grass, flowers, and most crops. Any remaining seeds, flowers, or harvest items will flow downhill for you to collect (if you want them).
The flow of water can be unpredictable in Minecraft, just as in real life, particularly if you’re placing water on a flat surface. Sometimes it runs in a straight path one block wide; sometimes it spills off the side. A good way to get more predictable results is by putting the water on top of a block of something (see Figure 9). Then it will spill off the block in a generally circular pattern.
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Figure 9 Whoosh—cleaning up.
What does water affect? Water will sweep away smaller plants such as grass and flowers, as well as most crops, such as wheat, potatoes, and carrots. It will also clear mushrooms and dead desert bushes—but not cactus. It also doesn’t work on larger edibles such as pumpkins or melons, and it certainly doesn’t work on trees.
Water also gets rid of cobwebs. Ever been down in a dungeon and found a spider spawner surrounded by cobwebs? Just dump a bucket of water on it, and all those sticky webs will get washed away.
To stop water from flowing, hold the empty bucket and click on the source block (in this case, where you placed the water in the first place). Now your area is all cleared out and ready for whatever plans you have, as shown in Figure 10.
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Figure 10 All cleaned up.