82 AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 



for a time. In very dry weather, this may be done with 

 advantage every night. Continued watering under a bright 

 sun, is an unnatural condition with upland grasses, and 

 can never be long persisted in without proving fatal to 

 them. Neither should the water be applied after the grasses 

 have commenced ripening. Nature is the proper guide in 

 this, as in most of the operations of the farmer ; and it will 

 be seen, how careful she is, in ordinary seasons, to provide 

 an affluence of rains for the commencement of vegetation, 

 while she as carefully withholds them when it approaches 

 maturity. Immediately after the grass is cut, the water may 

 be again let on as occasion requires, till the approach of cold 

 weather. Pastures may be irrigated from time to time, as 

 the weather may demand, throughout the entire season. 



THE MANNER OF IRRIGATING. 



This must depend on the situation of the surface and the 

 supply of water. Sometimes, reservoirs are made for its 

 reception from rains or inundations ; and at others, they 

 are collected at vast expense, from springs found by deep 

 excavations, and led out by extensive subterraneous ditching. 

 The usual source of supply, however, is from streams or 

 rivulets, or copious springs, which discharge their water on 

 elevated ground. The former are dammed up, to turn the 

 water into ditches or aqueducts, through which it is con- 

 ducted to the fields, where it is divided into smaller rills, 

 till it finally disappears. When it is desirable to bring more 

 water upon meadows than is required for saturating the 

 ground, and its escape to fields below is to be avoided, other 

 ditches should be made on the lower sides, to arrest and 

 convey away the surplus water. 



The advantages of irrigation are so manifest, that they 

 should never be neglected, when the means for securing them 

 are within economical reach. To determine what economy 

 in this case is, we have to estimate from careful experiment, 

 the equivalent needed in annual dressing with manures, to 

 produce the same amount of grass as would be gained by 

 irrigation ; and to offset the cost of the manure, we must 

 reckon the interest on the permanent fixtures of the dam and 

 sluices, and the annual expense of attention and repair. 



The quality of grass from irrigated meadows is but 

 slightly inferior to that grown upon dry soils ; and for pas- 

 turage, it is found that animals do better in dry seasons upon 

 the former, and in wet, upon the latter. In Europe, where 



