164 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



In 1854, the land under inigated meadows was 

 1,292,329 acres, which is equal to nearly half the land 

 under clover and artificial grasses. The manure which 

 comes from the live stock fed upon these meadows 

 enriches the arable land, and, saying that in England 

 and Wales the proportion of land under corn and under 

 grass is as three to one, we have the three acres of corn 

 land enriched by the one acre of meadow, folding being 

 common upon this system. In France the proportion is 

 as nine to one, so that the manure from the one acre of 

 meadow has to suffice for nine acres of arable ; and, 

 knowing that the average produce of wheat per acre in 

 England is double what it is in France, we must recog- 

 nize the importance of attention to irrigation as a grand 

 means of increasing the general production of our soil. 

 There is some sense in the fear that hnd would sustain 

 loss through the sale of its marketable commodities ; but 

 M. Boussingault assures us that, where the system can 

 be introduced, its advantages will be found to preponde- 

 rate over any ill effects. 



These advantages may be described as many. We 

 have an account from Mr. Smith of the result of a 

 water-meadow which he laid out near Woburn, for the 

 Duke of Bedford — 



In March, 240 sheep, for 3 week^, at 6d. each 



per week £18 



la June, mowed 18 tons of hay, at £4 per ton 72 



In August, mowed 13^ tons 54 



lu September, 80 fat sUeep, for 3 weeks, at 4d.* 4 



£148 



It then fed lean bullocks (the feeding not valued) equal to 

 £16 13s. 6d. per acre. 



Mr. Pusey compares the result with the feed afforded 

 in Lincolnshire by a thoroughly good crop of turnips, 

 said to keep 10 sheep an acre for five months, and with 

 pood grass land, which fattened 7 sheep per acre in the 

 five summer mouths. Admitting the 7 fattened sheep 

 equal to 14 of his kept merely in store order, the ac- 

 count would stand thus comparatively — 10 sheep on an 

 acre of turnips, 14 on an acre of superior grazing land 

 unwatered, and 36 to an acre of moderate land watered. 

 Mr. Pusey's investment in irrigation in one of the dry 

 inland counties has yielded 30 per cent, on capital sunk. 

 These authorities could be added to, but we will not 

 adduce more ; we will merely say that there are four 

 ways of irrigating — 1st, Bed-woric (the most efficient 

 and costly) ; 2nd, Calch-ivorJc (suited to both level and 

 uneven ground) ; Zti, Subterranean (from water being 

 supplied upward to the surface through drains in the 

 subsoil) ; and 4ih, Warping. The meadows we viiitcd 

 were an example of the Bed-work system. 



There are certain requisites to a perfect system of 

 irrigation. The fall must not be less than 2 feet in 300 

 yards : the field must be thoroughly drained, unless the 

 subsoil is chalk, sand, gravel, or fissured rock. No 

 part of the water-meadow should be upon a dead level, 

 and every drop of water while irrigating should be kept 

 constantly in motion. In the construction of a water- 

 meadow, the drain which brings the water from the river 

 should be of a size depending on the quality of water 

 wanted ; its bottom, at the junction with the river, 

 being as low as the bottom of the river, in order to 

 carry away as much mud as possible. The stuff taken 



* lu Wiltshire these meadows are never fed with sheep after 

 the hay crop, but with ciwg. 



out of the conductors to be employed in equalizing its 

 banks and filling up irregularities in the meadow. We 

 have then, as necessary to this system, a dam, sluices to 

 conductors, conductors, feeders, small drains, main 

 drains, and stops in conductors in fee ders. The land 

 by being thus intersected by drains, is thrown into a 

 series of beds differing in width according to the tenacity 

 or porosity of the subsoil — the tenacious ones requiring 

 from 15 to 30 feet, and the porous ones 40 feet. A bed 

 of 200 yards in length requires a feeder of 20 inches in 

 width at its junction with the conductor, and it should 

 taper gradually to the extremity, which should be 1 foot 

 in width. The taper retards the motion of the water. 

 Those small drains which discharge into the mains are 

 the reverse of the feeders — their tapering ends lying up 

 the slope, and their wide ends open into the main, to 

 accelerate the departure of water. Stops are always 

 found to equalize the flow of water and break up the 

 meadows into a series of levels ; but where the sjiirit 

 level has worked truly and the spade truly followed it, 

 there is no heed of them. 



The reader may now join the inspecting corps, v/hich 

 surrounds Mr. Rawlence's hospitable house, where its 

 members have been directed lo meet. Everybody is 

 wanting to know the name or title of his neighbour, 

 and the bearded presence of several foreigners ex- 

 cites a friendly, not an obtrusive curiosity. Well, 

 the gentleman on your right is Mr. Rawlence, a 

 tenant upon the Pembroke estate ; his, on your left 

 Mr. Squarry, who reads the paper on Irrigation to- 

 night ; Mr. Coombs, too, the greatest authority on the 

 subject, and by whose peripatetic lecture we are to 

 benefit presently, stands, somewhat bent with age, a 

 little ahead. There M. Barrel, the editor of a French 

 agricultural magazine ; M. Mazier, inventor of the 

 French reaping machine, chatting fluently ; behind is 

 Mr. Druce, ftJr. Bullock Webster, Mr. T. D. Acklandj 

 and the Right Hon. Sidney Herbert is now alighting 

 from the carriage in which are seated Lord Willoughbj'- 

 D'Ert'sby and Lord Walsingham. The veteran Coombs 

 leads the way : let us follow. Here we are on the Bul- 

 bridge Water-meadows. There are, we believe, 98 acres, 

 stretching along by the side of the river Nadder, whose 

 pure waters, taking their rise at the base of the chalk 

 hills and flowing out of the green s;ind formation which 

 underlies the ciialk, are guided by science to ca«t beauty 

 and abundance about tliem. This stretch of land is 

 enclosed on the reverse side by a great catch drain, and 

 from this to the river are cut mains which intersect this 

 plot in five different places, furnished with tluicts, and 

 cutting it up into so many fields ; from these mains run 

 at right angles conductors, and from these also at right 

 angles feeders, as already described. The ground is not 

 under-drained, being of one of the porous classes for 

 which we claimed exception. These meadows were 

 formed two hundred years ago by the Pembroke family, 

 with a few modem additions, moditications, and im- 

 provements ; their value has been at the lowest calcu- 

 lation quadrupled, and in many instances much more 

 increased in comparative value even than that. The 

 system of management, so far as we can ascertain, is 

 this : On the 1st of November remove all stock, and 

 commence winter irrigation, which may be resorted to 

 two days in six, i. e., cover them two days, draw off" the 

 water six. On the 1st of March all the ewes and lambs 

 are to be put on the first piece that comes in course, 

 and, after feeding that for a week or ten days, moved on 

 to the second and fourth, and so on till they have gone 

 the round and are shifted to the clovers that are then 

 ready ; the meadows are then irrigated two days in two 

 or three weeks, and a crop of hay is mowed successively 

 from them, averaging li tons, when they are again 

 irrigated, and fed off with cows during the autumn. 



