On the Theory and Fractice of JVater- Meadows. 469 



a labourer for two years. The labourer broke it up, grew two 

 crops of potatoes for himself, smoothed it, and actually cut the 

 gutters, so that the farmer had converted moorland into rich 

 grass at the cost only of a good dressing of lime which was given 

 it. Many a hill -side in Cardiganshire, or Argyleshire, or Kerry, 

 might be thus transmuted, if one energetic landowner would lead 

 the way. Catch-meadows have been successfully formed in 

 more level counties by the Duke of Portland, and by Lord 

 Hatherton, who possessed natural slopes. But most English 

 streams are sluggish, flowing through level tracts. It is dis- 

 tinctly stated in one of our best and handiest agricultural works, 

 '' The Dictionary of the Farm," by the late Mr. Rham, that 

 " catchwork is only applicable where there is a considerable fall 

 of water, and a gentle declivity towards the river." If this pre- 

 vailing opinion be sound, a large part of England must remain 

 without increase of its irrigation. 



This opinion, hov/ever, is a mistake ; for in Devonshire — the 

 classic land of catch-meadows — catchwork has been lately applied 

 to levels as flat as the banks of the Cherwell, and is spreading 

 rapidly on such levels. At Killerton, near Exeter, Sir Thomas 

 Acland has two wide catch-meadows, each of about 60 acres, with- 

 out perceptible fall, called *^ Wish meadows ' and ' Beer-marshes' 

 (in Devonshire a meadow means a water-meadow ; a low unwatered 

 grass-field is called a marsh), and Lord Poltimore, on a farm 

 occupied by Mr. Norris, has a catch-meadow 3 furlongs long, with 

 a fall in that distance of only four inches and a half; what is 

 important, the land is irrigated in the line of this fall, that is, 

 by cross gutters. For there are two falls we have to consider 

 in catchwork, as in the quotation from Mr. Rham, the fall of the 

 stream onwards and the fall of the land towards the stream side- 

 ways. The fall of the stream is required for diverting its water 

 to a point from which it may run over the land : the fall of the 

 land is required for carrying the water off from the land into 

 a lower part of the stream. A stream might have but a slight 

 fall, say a foot, in passing through a water-meadow a quarter of 

 a mile long, yet if the neighbouring land shelved towards the 

 stream, and if the meadow v/ere but 200 yards broad with the 

 stream in the middle, there would be a side fall for the water re- 

 turning over the land into the stream equal to 1 foot in 300, 

 though the fall of the river is assumed to be only 1 foot in 1320. 



