194 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 



results. Depend on it, no man need lack fertilizers 

 who begins in season and is willing to work for them. 



And yet once more : 



From the hills which inclose this valley of the 

 upper Hudson (and from ever so many other valleys 

 as well), brooks and rivulets, copious in Spring, when 

 their waters are surcharged and discolored by the 

 richest juices of the uplands, pour down in frequent 

 cascades and dance across the intervale to be lost in 

 the river. There is scarcely an acre of that intervale 

 which might not be irrigated from these streams at 

 a very moderate outlay of work at the season when 

 work is least pressing : the water thus held back by 

 dams being allowed to flow thence gently and equably 

 across the intervale, conveying not moisture only, but 

 fertility also, to every plant growing thereon. I am 

 confident that I passed many places on the upper 

 Hudson, as well as on the Connecticut and Ammo- 

 noosuc, where 100 faithful days' work providing for 

 irrigation would have given 100 bushels of grain, or 

 10 tuns of hay additional this year, and as much per 

 annum henceforth, at a cost of not more than two 

 days' work in each year hereafter. 



Farmers, but above all farmers' sons, think of these 

 things. 



