IRRIGATION OF LAND. 245 



flume or water gate may be placed in the canal at the point where 

 the highest water of the stream is knovvn to reach, the lever of the 

 gate being so adjusted as to extend some six or eight feet up stream 

 from the gate, and attached to the head of an empty water-tight 

 barrel, standing erect between three or four stakes well set into the 

 bottom of the canal. The gate will then close as the water rises, 

 and open by the weight of the barrel as the water falls, which will 

 tend to prevent injury from sudden inundations from the stream by 

 night or day. On some fields, ditches and drains are required to 

 carry off the surplus v/ater, and this in some cases may be conducted 

 to lower elevations in the same or other fields for further irriiration, 

 or to the original stream. The labor and expense which has been 

 incurred in some cases to dispose of the surplus water when not 

 wanted for further irrigation, has been in several instances avoided 

 by letting on only a sufficient quantity for the field to absorb : this 

 method has been practiced on some of the most productive watered 

 meadows. In cases where the water is inclined to accumulate as it 

 flows over the surface, small furrows are cut to conduct it to those 

 places where it is less inclined to flow, and this is called catch loork^ 

 but the most perfect method of distributing water over the sur- 

 face is termed bed work., and consists, whenever the field is proper 

 for it, of throwing the surface into long; beds at ridit angles with 

 the main canal which is to supply the field, and is effected by sev- 

 eral plowings upon the same plow lands. Regular elevations and 

 depressions will thus be formed, the water is conducted from the 

 main in a furrow extending down on each ridge or elevation its en- 

 tire length, and is made to flow out on to the surface from both sides 

 of these furrows. As it accumulates in the dead furrows, catch woik 

 may be resorted to, to carry it to the ridges a little lower down. 

 The canals, ditches, &c , when properly constructed, will probably 

 remain for centuries, with slight repairs, in cage the field is not 

 plowed up. The repairs mainly consist in removing by the aid of the 

 plow, &c , the fine sediment which has lodged in the bottom of the 

 ditches. This has been found to be a valuable fertilizer for other 

 fields and even for gardens. Herdsgrass or timothy, Kentucky 

 blue grass, orchard grass, red top and several other varieties are 

 adapted to irrigation; white clover and a fine variety of the red 

 clover often spring up spontaneously, but it is said that Italian rye 



