294 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



than tbat grown in the shade of trees, that the short growth in a dry season 

 is more valuable per ton than the rank growth in a wet season. 



EFFECTS OF IRRIGATION". 



The speaker has had very little experience in irrigation, but briefly gives 

 the opinions and results of some experimenters, hoping thereby to set farm- 

 ers to thinking, observing, reading and experimenting on this interesting 

 subject. To conduct irrigation properly is quite an art, but it has often 

 been well done with surprising results, converting a lean, hungry meadow 

 into an oasis, Sinclair, in his famous old work on grasses, says: "Irrigation 

 is the easiest, cheapest and most certain mode of improving poor land, in 

 particular if it is of a dry and gravelly nature. The land is thus put into 

 a state of perpetual fertility, without any occasion for manures." 



To the farmers of Connecticut, J. S. Gould said: "You should sow many 

 different varieties of grasses, and by the aid of irrigation you would have 

 seven or eight times the amount of grass you now do." To the same people, 

 Solon Kobinson said he had no doubt that if the streams of Connecticut 

 were properly utilized in irrigating the soil, they would be more productive 

 in value than by turning all the water-wheels of the State. 



After experimenting on this subject, Mr. Pusey, in Jour. Eoy. Ag. Soc. 

 for 1849, said that the money spent in irrigating grass land yielded a profit 

 of 30 per cent. "All water is a weak liquid manure — the warmer the water 

 the better. A slight film of water trickling over the surface — for it must 

 not stagnate — rouses the sleeping grass, tinges it with living green, and 

 brings forth a luxuriant crop in early spring, just when it is most wanted, 

 while the other meadows are still bare and brown. A water meadow is the 

 triumph of agricultural art. The best irrigated meadows are those upon a 

 gravelly soil, with a good drainage." 



Take the results in a poor meadow in England, irrigated in an inferior 

 manner. The field trebled in value in four years. The table shows us that 

 all the better grasses have increased, if we except the poa trivialis and Hor- 

 deum pratense, in which cases there has been an increase in grasses not pos- 

 sessing the best character. Innutritions herbs in pastures are destroyed by 

 irrigation, and their places are supplied by the better grasses. Parsley and 

 narrow docks are exceptions and are increased by irrigation. In other words, 

 we conclude that the best grasses are a sign of good land or good treatment, 

 by manuring or draining or irrigation. They are the most sensitive to good 

 or bad treatment. They are hearty feeders and are the most exhaustive to 

 the soil. Sedges, rushes, mosses, the ox-eyed daisy and most other weeds 

 point to land that is out of order. 



[In this connection, the following, taken from the proceedings of the eighth annual meeting of the 

 Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science, held at New York City, wiU he of interest. 

 —Editor.] 



SOME SUGGESTIONS AS TO EXPERIMENTING WITH GRASSES. 



BY W. J. BEAL. 



As " grass is king among the crops of the earth, and the foundation of all 

 agriculture," the family deserves closer study by the husbandman. The 



