120 THE AMERICAN FARMER. 



melting snow are arrested by the little platforms and ditches thus produced, and gradually 

 sink into the ground instead of running off the surface, and thus supply sufficient moisture 

 for vegetation. It has been found that even in the parched provinces of Southern France, 

 soils thus treated produce a vastly increased amount of herbage, or of other small crops, and 

 this system, as has been observed in regard to ordinary methods of irrigation, has a collateral 

 advantage of serious importance in countries subject to inundation. The water of precipita 

 tion, which soaks into the ground, instead of rushing swiftly into the tributaries of great 

 rivers, and suddenly swelling them into raging floods, is retained long in the soil, and finally 

 carried off by slow subterranean conduction, or restored to the atmosphere through absorption 

 and exhalations by vegetables, or by direct evaporation from the surface, and thus equilibrium 

 is restored. In a large part of our territory, then, and especially in that best suited to the 

 important branch of dairy husbandry, irrigation would not only be unattended with many of 

 the evils which are in some degree inseparable from it on soils of a champaign-configuration, 

 but might be introduced at a very moderate cost, and probably with very beneficial results, 

 to our agricultural and other social interests.&quot; 



Methods Of Irrigation. Various means are employed for irrigating lands, 

 depending upon the surface to be irrigated and the water-supply, the usual source being from 

 springs or streams from an elevation. Sometimes reservoirs are made where the water from 

 rains or inundations is collected and utilized. There are many localities where an adequate 

 supply of water can be obtained without resorting to streams or reservoirs. Prof. Marsh 

 states that in Italy, Spain, and many other countries, much of the land is irrigated with water 

 drawn from common wells by cheap machinery worked by horse-power. Artesian and 

 tubular wells are also largely employed for the same purpose, and copious springs are often 

 reached by driving short tunnels into hill-sides. 



In Persia, tunnels for this purpose, of incredible length and very simple construction, are 

 frequently excavated. Chardin describes these tunnels in the fourth volume of the Paris 

 edition of his travels, 1811, and states that they are carried to a distance of twenty or thirty 

 miles, and sometimes much more. This would be almost beyond belief, were not Chardin s 

 accounts confirmed by the recent testimony of Colonel Chesney. On sloping grounds in 

 Lombardy, which receive a subterranean supply by infiltration from mountain lakes and 

 streams, water is cheaply obtained by what are called fontanili. These are small reservoirs, 

 excavated to a moderate depth, and connected by open ditches extending up the slope to 

 small springs, whose water is collected in barrels sunk in the ground to receive it, and if the 

 supply is insufficient, the water from several small sources, aided, perhaps, by an artesian well 

 of little depth, is united, and the whole conducted to a common receptacle. 



Another excellent method, practiced with much success in France, is that of conducting 

 the rain and snow water from hollow slopes of grass-ground of a considerable surface into 

 cisterns, or into filtering-receptacles, consisting merely of a relatively small extent of sand or 

 porous earth laid over a pavement or bed of clay some four or five feet below the surface. 

 In this way, a large proportion of the precipitation received by the slope is retained, and 

 perennial springs are formed at a less expense than is very frequently incurred in conducting 

 water from only a moderate distance. Contributions of this sort deserve encouragement, 

 because they render the farmer independent, both of his neighbor and of the public; and even 

 if the first cost of the works is somewhat greater than that of a canal from some source not 

 his own, he will generally be, on the whole, a gainer by procuring a supply absolutely at his 

 control. 



In the irrigation of the Salt Lake valley by the Mormons, the mountain streams were 

 utilized ; canals being dug all along towards the base of the mountains, which prevented the 

 water from going into the lake until it had first permeated the soil. These canals are kept 

 full of water, and have small canals connecting them with the lands to be irrigated below, 



