84 WHAT I KNOW OF FABMING. 



breeze will be employed in pumping water into the 

 ponds or reservoirs so located that water may be 

 drawn therefrom at will and diffused in gentle 

 streamlets over the surrounding fields to invigorate 

 and impel their growing crops. And, when all has 

 been done that this paper faintly foreshadows, our 

 people will have barely indicated, not by any means 

 exhausted, the beneficent possibilities of irrigation. 



The difficulty is in making a beginning. Too 

 many farmers would fain conceal a poverty of 

 thought behind an affectation of dislike or contempt 

 for novelties. " Humbug ! " is their stereotyped 

 comment on every suggestion that they might wisely 

 and profitably do something otherwise than as their 

 grandfathers did. They assume that those respected 

 ancestors did very well without Irrigation; where- 

 fore, it cannot now be essential. But the circum- 

 stances have materially changed. The disappear- 

 ance of the dense, high woods that formerly almost 

 or quite surrounded each farm has given a sweep 

 to the heated, parching winds of Summer, to which 

 our ancestors were strangers. Our springs, our 

 streams, do not hold out as they once did. Our 

 Summer drouths are longer and fiercer. Even 

 though our grandfathers did not, we do need and 

 may profit by Irrigation. 



