80 AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 



was extensively introduced. Damascus is one of the most 

 ancient cities on record, (for it is mentioned in Genesis as 

 existing nearly 4,000 years ago); and notwithstanding its 

 numerous successive masters, and its frequent plunder and 

 devastation, it is still a nourishing city, -though in the midst 

 of deserts. This is no doubt owing to the waters derived 

 from the " Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus," which 

 are conducted above the city, where they gush from the 

 fountains, and thence overspread the gardens and water all 

 the adjacent plain. Had it not been for irrigation, Damas- 

 cus would doubtless, ages ago, have followed Palmyra, the 

 Tadmor of the wilderness, into utter abandonment and ruin. 

 On no other principle than a systematic and extensive prac- 

 tice of irrigation, can we account for the once populous 

 condition of Judea, Idumea, and other vast regions in the 

 East ; many of which, to the eye of the modern traveller, 

 present nothing but the idea of irreclaimable sterility and 

 desolation. The possession of the " upper and nether 

 springs," was as necessary to the occupant, as possession 

 of the soil. 



In those countries where the drought is excessive, and 

 rains are seldom to be depended upon, water is led on to the 

 fields containing all the cultivated crops, and is made subser- 

 vient to the growth of each. But in the United States, and 

 in the middle and northern part of Europe, where the vege- 

 tation ordinarily attains a satisfactory size without its aid, 

 irrigation is confined almost exclusively to grass or meadow 



All waters are suitable for irrigation, excepting those 

 containing an excess of some mineral substances, deleterious 

 to vegetable life. Such are the drainage from peat swamps, 

 from saline and mineral springs, and from ore beds of various 

 kinds ; but those are most frequent, in which iron is held in 

 solution. Of the spring or ordinary river waters, those are 

 the best which are denominated hard, and which owe this 

 quality to the presence of sulphate or carbonate of lime or 

 magnesia. Such 'waters as are charged with fertilizing sub- 

 stances, that have been washed out of soils by recent floods, 

 are admirably suited to irrigation. Dr. Dana, estimates the 

 quantity of salts in solution, and geine or humus (vegetable 

 matters), which were borne sea-ward past Lowell, on the 

 Merrimac River, in 1838, (a season of unusual freshets), as 

 reaching the enormous amount of 840,000 tons ; enough to 

 have given a good dressing to 100,000 acres of land. Turbid 



