No. 105.] 227 



of our rivers and brooks, contain one part of gypsum. If therefore, 

 every square yard of common meadow soil absorbs only eight gallons 

 of water, more than a hundred weight and a half of gypsum per acre 

 is thus diffused through the soil. 



It would be hardly possible to convince the community of the enor- 

 mous amount of wealth lost to the country yearly, by a neglect to 

 secure the liquid manure with which it abounds. The quantities which 

 are every year swept from our fields and farm yards, and carried 

 through our lands, unapplied, in running streams, into our rivers, and 

 lakes, and into the sea, might safely be estimated at millions. The 

 sewers of towns and villages, alone, carry off a vast amount of manure. 

 A meadow near Edinburgh, belonging to the Earl of Moray, which was 

 watered for several years by drainage from the city, yielded so heavy 

 a crop of grass that it was cut six times a year, and the whole yearly 

 crop was sold at one hundred and twenty to a hundred and fifty dollars 

 per acre. 



But even throwing the manuring process, strictly speaking, out of 

 the question, who can estimate the beneficial results of judicious irriga- 

 tion, if generally applied through the country, wherever running water 

 is accessible '? During hot and dry summers, our parched and withered 

 grass fields, and our diminished and stunted ruta baga and potato 

 crops, might in many situations, be at once stimulated into freshness 

 and vigor, and doubtless be double in product. The artificial improve- 

 ment of supplying manure to the soil, is universally practised and 

 commended, and considered the first and last requisite in successful 

 culture ; while the artificial application of water, which, unlike manure, 

 costs nothing, nor requires the labor or expense of cartage, but is often 

 equally if not more important, seems to be nearly unknown. Why 

 should the Yankees be behind other portions of the world in this par- 

 ticular 1 We do not lack proofs, sufficient to every observing mind, 

 even in the rough and wild manner in which it is performed by the 

 inundation of the flats of creeks and rivers, nor has such proof been 

 wanting, from the overflowing of the Nile in ancient days, down to the 

 present age of the world; but the artificial process possesses this 

 eminent advantage — that while the former is uncontrollable and uncon- 

 trolled — the latter may be applied or withheld at pleasure, as the crop 

 suffers from drought, or becomes injured by too heavy a flooding. 



