EDITOR-S TABLE. 



settling of moisture therein during the wet season, be hardened and rendered impervious again ; 

 these lands need to be rendered porous and penetrable by roots to a greater depth because of 

 their dryness ; they need to be shielded from the pernicious effects of constant evaporation in 

 cooling the soil, and thus retarding the growth of its plants. There is very mi-.ch land not 

 worth tilling ; but there is none that will justify tillage which would not reward draining. 



" Of irrigation we in this country know but very little by experience ; but we are destined soon 

 to know more, and to be profited by our knowledge. True, there are lands that may be readily 

 drained and subsoiled that can not so readily be irrigated, owing to their elevation and a deficient 

 supply of water. I apprehend, however, that these lands are not to be found in Indiana, nor in 

 any other Prairie State, whose first peculiarities that strike a stranger are a superabundance of 

 water in the rainy season, and a scarcity thereof in the dry. The time is at hand when you 

 will here require extensive and powerful pumping apparatus, if only to raise water for your 

 heavy stocks of cattle, and convey it to the pastures wherein they will be confined ; and why 

 not raise enough of the grateful fluid to refresh pastures and cattle alike ? 



" But even though this assured and ample resource were non-existent, I maintain that water 

 enough falls on your fields every year to keep them fresh and luxuriant through the summer, if 

 it were saved and not wasted. But most of it falls during the seasons when least is wanted, and 

 is suffered to run off to the rivers and the ocean, carrying very much of the best juices of tlie 

 soil along with it, when it should be retained in ponds and reservoirs to be pumped into barn- 

 yards or drawn off to irrigate the field during the fervid heats of summer. The apparent dif- 

 ficulty of doing this would vanish, and the presumed expense be materially lessened on careful 

 consideration. 



"I know not that I have traverse! any country with more lively interest than beautiful, bounti- 

 ful, picturesque Lombardy. The dark pall of Austrian despotism enveloping it did not suffice to 

 dim its natural loveliness and luxui-iance, so greatly improved by the labor and genius of man. 

 It seems to have grown into this system of almost universal irrigation by imperceptible and 

 unmarked degrees, and to be now producing double harvests annually as the result of some for- 

 tuitous impulse, rather than of foresight and deliberate calculation. The magnificent plain of 

 Upper Italy, which has for so many centuries been the field of combat where Goth and Latin, 

 Frank and Hun, Gaul and German, have struggled for the mastery of Europe, slopes almost 

 imperceptibly from the Alps to the To, and the impetuous torrents which tear the rocky sides of 

 the snow-crowned precipices are arrested and chastened in the blue lakes which lie at the foot of 

 the mountains, smiling serenely out upon the plain. Thence the waters proceed with a more 

 gentle and measured cadence to the great river, and are drawn off and stayed from point to point 

 to fill the irrio-ating canals, and ensure a rich reward to the husbandman's labors. Let any stream 

 from heavy rains become a raging, foaming, milky torrent, and its waters have a value which the 

 pure element could not command, acd are drawn off on every side, until the canals and reser- 

 voirs are filled, and all danger of inundation precluded. Tlius the waters are most valuable for 

 irrigation just when they are most easily and abundantly obtainable for that pui-pose. The 

 water which has irrigated one fertile garden or field, far from being exhausted, has been rendered 

 more nourishing thereby, and may now be drawn off to fertilize the next field lying an inch or 

 so lower, and thence to the next, and so on to the river, enriching and gladdening all it touches 

 on its way. Irrigation is the life-blood of Lombardy; shall it be nothing, teach nothing to us? 



If there be a country on earth which one would suppose irrigation unsuited to, Great Britain 

 is that country. Iler exceedingly moist, cool climate, coupled with her compact, clay subsoil 

 (not universal, but very extensive), would seem to render a deficiency of moisture one of the very 

 last evils to be apprehended or guarded against in her agriculture. And yet her best farmers 

 are now embarking rapidly and extensively in irrigation, finding it practicable and immensely 

 profitable. Not here as in Lombardy is the natural flow of the streams, in their descent 

 the hills to the rivers, relied on; but great pumps are employed, raising water by steam or 



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