THE FARMER'S MANUAL* 51 



your trenches as near to a water level as possible, 

 arid yet suffer the water to run, excepting at the turn- 

 ings, where the water descends from one trench to the 

 next below. Upon this plan, you can flow your 

 grounds even, by cutting small openings from your 

 trenches, and even obstructing your trenches occasion- 

 ally, to promote the flow through these openings. The 

 expense of this mode of irrigation is small ; but the 

 profits are doubly great, both in the quantity and qua- 

 lity of your hay ; beside, both these profits will in- 

 crease annually. No manuring will give such profits 

 upon mowing grounds as irrigation, and the expense, 

 generally, may be considered cheaper than plaster. 

 Here let me repeat my former remark ; make the most 

 of this method of tillage in the winter and spring ; it is 

 then most valuable. Be careful to keep your cat- 

 tle, horses and sheep, from your watered meadows : 

 the first will injure them by poaching, and the feed 

 will give your sheep the rot, and even their hay may 

 be unfriendly to sheep, if flowed by great rains in 

 summer. I shall close this article with a remark of 

 Sir John Sinclair ; " A productive water meadow, ic 

 probably the true mark of perfection in the manage- 

 ment of a farm." Sinclair^ Code. 



Remarks. 



1. It is the easiest and cheapest mode of fertiliz- 

 ing poor land* 



2. It promotes a perpetual fertility without the ex- 

 pense of manure. 



3. It may be made to yield the greatest possible 

 products, both in hay and pasturage. 



4. It will greatly increase the means of the farmer 

 to multiply stock, and thus enrich the other lands 

 with manure. 



5. It is within the power of almost every former 

 to derive some advantage from irrigation ; this, when 

 better understood, will be more generally improved. 



