310 WHAT I KNOW OF FAKMING. 



Wherever a brook or runnel crosses or skirts a farm, 

 the question " Can the water here running uselessly 

 by be retained, and in due season equably diffused 

 over some portion of this land ? " at once presents 

 itself. One who has never looked with this view will 

 be astonished at the facility with which some acres 

 of nearly every farm may be irrigated. Often, a 

 dam that need not cost $20 will suffice to hold back 

 ten thousand barrels of water, so that it may be led 

 off along the upper edge of a slope or glade, falling 

 off just enough to maintain a gentle, steady current, 

 and so providing for the application of tsvo or three 

 inches of water to several acres of tillage or grass just 

 when the exigencies of crop and season most urgently 

 require such irrigation. Any farmer east of the 

 Hudson can tell where such an application would 

 have doubled the crop of 1870, and precluded the 

 hard necessity of selling or killing cattle not easily 

 replaced. 



Of course, this is but a rude beginning. In time, 

 we shall dam very considerable streams mainly to 

 this end, and irrigate hundreds and thousands of acres 

 from a single pond or reservoir. Wells will be sunk 

 on plains and gentle swells now comparatively arid 

 and sterile, and wind or steam employed to raise 

 water into reservoirs whence wide areas of surround- 

 ing or subjacent land will be refreshed at the critical 

 moment, and thus rendered bounteously productive. 

 On the vast, bleajc, treeless Plains of the wild West, 

 even Artesian wells will be sunk for this purpose ; and 



