226 GRASSES AND FORAGE PLANTS. 



of husbandry with which they arc not acquainted. This may 

 bo so, but the testimony of those who have tried this method is 

 uniformly in its favor. I have had some experience and con- 

 siderable observation in sheep husbandry, and my attention has 

 been called to the changes wrought by sheep upon rough pas- 

 tures covered with bushes and briars in part, and it appears to 

 be a practicable method of improvement, while the raising of 

 sheep and lambs for the shambles, is destined to be a profitable 

 branch of farming. 



Irrigation. — Another practicable means of improving our 

 grass lands is by irrigation. Every casual observer, even, is 

 familiar with the fact that lands are fertilized by irrigation, and 

 especially that the grass by running streams shoots earlier in 

 spring and makes a far more thrifty growth than lands on the 

 same kind of soil which have not the advantage of running 

 water. The introduction of the hydraulic ram among the 

 implements of the farm, offers facilities for irrigating grass 

 lands, not hitherto known, and it will unquestionably become 

 hereafter an important means of guarding against our severe 

 summer droughts, and of increasing vastly the production of 

 our lands. 



It would be impossible to state with any detail the different 

 methods adopted to effect the objects of irrigation, since it 

 would require a distinct treatise upon the subject, and it is 

 sufficient to allude to the simplest mode employed with suc- 

 cess, and the advantages offered. 



Superficial irrigation, which is, perhaps, the oldest and the 

 most common form in which water is artificially applied for the 

 purpoi-e of increasing the growth of grass, was undoubtedly 

 suggested by observing the wonderful effects arising from the 

 overflow of rivers. Remarkable examples of this arc familiar 

 to many, as the annual or periodical overflowing of the Nile, 

 where the water without being left to stagnate upon the surface, 

 is moving gently over it, depositing whatever alluvial matter it 

 may hold in suspension. The extraordinary richness of the 

 Valley of the Mississippi, and on a smaller scale, of the Valley of 

 the Connecticut and other rivers, is mainly due, also, to this 

 kind of irrigation ; and this is imitated in our attempts to con- 

 duct the water over grass land by a system of shallow, open 



