/ GARDEN IRRIGATION. 129 



I judge so of celery and asparagus ; and it is well known that 

 enormous strawberries, and unusually large and long-continu 

 ing crops of them, have resulted from an inefficient and un 

 systematic kind of irrigation. A small experiment that I made 

 with Indian corn resulted in a great growth of stalk and in 

 small and unhealthy malformed grain. 



Irrigation is of the least advantage upon heavy clay soils, 

 and of the greatest upon light sandy loams with gravelly sub 

 soils. It is very desirable that the construction of the soil 

 should be such that the water may gradually and somewhat 

 rapidly filter through it ; and it is considered of great import 

 ance, when the water is drawn off, after the flooding, (drown 

 ing is the local term,) that it should be very completely 

 removed, leaving no small pools upon the surface. Stagna 

 ting water, either above or below the surface, is very poisonous 

 to most plants. 



I may remind those who. have a prejudice against new 

 practices in agriculture, that irrigation was practised as long 

 ago as the days of the patriarchs. In this part of England it 

 has been in use since about the beginning of the seventeenth 

 century, at which time an agreeably-written book on the sub 

 ject was published by one Rowland Vaughan, Esq. The 

 account of the way that he was first led to make systematic 

 trial of irrigation, and the manner in which he proceeded, is 

 amusing and instructive : 



&quot;In the month of March I happened to find a mole or wont s nest 

 raised on the brim of a brook in my meade, like a great hillock ; and from 

 it there issued a little streame of water, (drawn by the working of the 

 mole,) down a shelving ground, one pace broad, and some twenty in 

 length. The running of this little stpeame did at that time wonderfully 

 content me, seeing it pleasing greene, and that other land on both sides 

 was full of moss, and hide-bound for want of water. This was the first 

 cause I undertook the drowning of grounds. 



&quot;Now to proceed to the execution of my worke : being perswaded of 

 the excellency of the water, I examined how many foote fall the brooke 

 PART II. 6* 



