IRRIGATION OF LAND. 141 



of Europe, we have the most perfect method of combining the effects 

 of heat and moisture, and applying them to a crop \vhich requires a 

 very large amount of both, while at the same time, whatever fer- 

 tility the*water may contain, is in the best possible condition to be 

 useful. It is placed all around and in direct contact with the roots 

 for their immediate absorption and elaboration. The great success 

 attending the practice of Alderman Mechi, of England, who reduces 

 his manures to a fluid state, fully demonstrates the utility and im- 

 portance of this m*ethod of supplying crops with their required nutri- 

 ment or fertility. 



From the great growth which grass attains under irrigation it 

 may be inferred that water is a great natural fertilizer to the grass 

 crop when properly applied, and that the usual quantity of moisture 

 which this crop receives from rain, dews, &c., is much less, even in 

 seasons of profuse and frequent rains, than is requisite to enable the 

 crop to reach its full capacity. Ilay to the amount of three or four 

 tons per acre is often obtained simply by the aid of water, and while 

 the grass attains a hight in some cases of four or five feet, a re- 

 markably thick ^roictlt of the plants is always observable, which 

 tends to render the stems of the plants small and fine, and more pal- 

 atable to stock of all kinds. Indeed the spontaneous growth of grass 

 plants induced by water is almost a phenomenon. Where white 

 weed, Johnswort, &c., had nearly overrun a field to the exclusion 

 almost of grass, it was found that after two or three years of water- 

 ing, these noxious plants were exterminated by the ver^^ thick growth 

 of the best variety of grasses, when no grass seeds had been sown. 

 Mr. Flint in his "Treatise on grasses and forage crops," states that 

 1798 grass plants were found by actual count on a square foot of 

 sod " from an irrigated meadow, while a square foot from the richest 

 natural pasture, capable of fattening one large ox and three sheep to 

 the acre," contained but 1000 plants, which would make a differ- 

 ence of over thirty millions of plants to the acre in favor of the irri- 

 gated land. A similar comparison in another instance showed a dif- 

 ference at the rate of thirty- seven millions of plants to the acre in 

 favor of the watered portion, over that beyond where the water 

 reached, the distance being only nine feet. Wherever irrigation 

 has been properly applied in this country, especially on grass lands, 

 its effects appear to be as remarkable as in foreign countries. Among 



