422 Report on the Agriculture of Cumhcrland, 



excellent plan is to winter sheep upon the land with cake and tur- 

 nips, by means of which the hay crop may be quite doubled, 

 and the feeding^ properties considerably increased. Irrigation is 

 sometimes practised to a limited extent, but it cannot, by any 

 means, be said to be common. Here and there may be seen a 

 patch irrigated with sewage ; other plots by the use of flood-gates 

 or courses, by which the muddy water is thrown over the mea- 

 dows at the time of high water ; and a very few fields and mea- 

 dows are watered by the ordinary ridge-and-furrow method. 

 There is not the slightest doubt that irrigation might be carried 

 out much more extensively than it now is, and that too with 

 profit ; for it is a notable fact that our county is intersected with 

 streams and rivulets like a network, as if inviting the skill of 

 man to apply the waters to some useful purpose. Some noted 

 agriculturists aver that artificial waterings could without diffi- 

 culty be given to grain and root crops ; and while in this case 

 there might be danger of the water washing away the soil, it 

 does not seem that there would be much difficulty in watering 

 pasture land and meadows. In many parts of Hindostan, where 

 agriculture is of the rudest kind, the soil is rendered exceedingly 

 fruitful by the overflowing of the rivers ; and as a provision in 

 times of emergency, water is preserved by means of tanks and 

 artificial ponds, or wells, which are numerously formed in all the 

 cultivated districts. In Egypt, too — once the granary of the 

 Roman Empire — wherever water can be had, there is abundance 

 of vegetation, so that the chief care of the cultivator is bestowed 

 on the irrigation of the soil. At the periodical overflowings of 

 the Nile, great pains are taken to supply with water, by artificial 

 means, those portions of the land which the inundation fails to 

 reach. Canals are cut in every direction, into which the water is 

 forced by wheels, called sakiahs, which, though rude and simple 

 in their construction, propel the water forward into ponds, ditches 

 and channels, constructed for its reception, and where it is pre- 

 served or distributed as occasion may require. Is it not, then, a 

 thing to be regretted, that with all their eminent agriculturists, 

 their skilful engineers, their powerful engines, locomotive as well 

 as stationary, the landed proprietors and farmers of Britain should 

 suffer themselves to be eclipsed by people whose knowledge of 

 agriculture is in the earliest stage of infancy ? For many years 

 the utmost care has been taken to remove all superfluous moisture 

 from the soil, by drawing it off" into ditches and rivers ; and 

 what a comfort it would be to the farmer in times of drought 

 like the summers of 1868, 1870, or 1874, to be able to give his 

 fields a copious supply of water, and so revive the languishing 

 plants, in place of seeing them daily withering away before his 

 eyes, without having the power to lift his hand and save them ! 



