Irrigating Pasture Laud 



285 



fully into the elevation, climate, and character 

 of our district, or the direction, slope, or ex- 

 posure of its various parts, involving by 

 altitude diminution of heat, dryness of air, 

 and a scarcity of those substances which are 

 produced by the decomposition of organic 

 bodies in high places, the rains, as Avell as 

 waters of the springs dissolving and washing 

 them off as they run away to the valleys, which 

 makes the poor uplands gradually poorer to 

 enrich the lower in some degree, but not to 

 the extent of the loss to the uplands ; the 

 utilizing, therefore, of the water from springs, 

 drains, and rains constitutes the art of irriga- 

 tion. This art, which is of great antiquity 

 in all known countries, instead of being fur- 

 ther developed, has everywhere been more 

 or less neglected, with the exception of Swit- 

 zerland, entailing an enormous loss upon the 

 inhabitants, and gradual deterioration of high 

 lands already suffering from thinness of soil 

 and its accompanying aridit)^ 



IRRIGATING GRASS LAND IN HILLY DISTRICTS. 



Unfortunately, the hilly parts with which 

 we are surrounded are by climate and posi- 

 tion rendered inferior to other more favoured 

 situations, the herbage being more scant than 

 in a low place or valley, which entails upon 

 it a number of both consequent and ac- 

 companying disadvantages. Its grass lands 

 yield a less succulent and nourishing herbage, 

 and are slower in reproduction, and earlier 

 exhausted in the autumn. Its cereal crops 

 bear less plump grain, run more to slraw^ are 

 longer in ripening, and more liable to acci- 

 dents. Its soils are more seriously washed 

 away by heavy rains, and more deprived of 

 their finest particles after every process of 

 tilling and pulverization. Its facilities of 

 obtaining extraneous manures are much 

 fewer, and its obstacles to every description 

 of horse and steam labour more numerous 

 and stubborn. Its lands are colder, more 

 denuded of argillaceous and calcareous 

 powders, more gritty, gravelly, and stony, 

 and less fitted in both mineralogical and 

 mechanical condition for producing wheat 

 or the other valuable grains. On such 

 lands in high and occasionally humid situa- 



tions the principal obj ects ought to begood grass 

 for pasture and the ample supply of winter 

 food for live stock ; and the attainment of 

 these objects ought to be sought by the im- 

 provement of grass lands, the wise manage- 

 ment of hay meadows, and the cultivation of 

 lands fit for producing turnips and other green 

 crops for cattle. In aid of these objects, I 

 consider irrigation a most valuable and rarely 

 failing adjunct in this country, and one which, 

 if practised where practicable, Avill be found as 

 profitable in high and sloping groundsas drain- 

 ing ever has been in wet and impervious soils. 

 The methods adopted in India, Arabia, 

 France, Peru, China, Spain, Italy, and at a 

 still earlier date in Africa, have been con- 

 ducted since the age of the earliest histories 

 of those countries, and have been conducted 

 on the most extensive scale by means of 

 diverting rivers by dams, and conducting to 

 tanks and channels, sometimes under and 

 sometimes above ground to the cultivated 

 land which it was destined to irrigate ; but I 

 propose a more simple, more general, and 

 inexpensive mode for our climate, which is 

 of a vastly more humid character. When it 

 is remembered that water, either in summer 

 or winter, is led across a field naturally 

 dry either by itself or with the assistance of 

 what sewage might be obtained, or the addi- 

 tion of lime or sal ammoniac in small quan- 

 tities, the effect is quickly seen ; and even 

 when nothing but the natural salts which all 

 water, however pure, contains, the cattle, 

 who are the best judges, eat it with great 

 avidity, and when left for mowing the crop is 

 increased by five or six times the amount, 

 and the effect is very lasting as may be 

 noticed by what is called the " Cae odan 

 Ty," or the field under the house on hillside 

 farms. There is scarcely a farm in this 

 country so situated that may not be rendered 

 much more profitable at a very small ex- 

 pense ; at any rate one or two meadows 

 might be so made from such a source in ad- 

 dition to their natural meadows already exist- 

 ing. The cheapest way to do this is to make 

 small furrows with the plough, running with a 

 gentle fall across the sloped field or pasture, 

 damming it up with a little wooden or iron 



