THE FARMER AT HOME. 225 



IRRIGATION. The importance of water to vegetation is known to 

 every farmer, yet very few are the instances in which this natural want 

 is supplied by artificial means. . In most cases, by a wise dispensation 

 of Providence, showers supply the requisite moisture, and of all water 

 that can be applied to plants, rain water is found the most suitable ; 

 but there are some soils and some crops which require more water 

 than others, and which are greatly benefited by artificial supplies 

 Thus the drifting sands of Arabia are .arrested and covered with vege- 

 tation by water ; the rice fields of India and the South, are flooded to 

 secure a crop, and irrigation, or an occasional flowing of water from 

 brooks, rivers, or springs, over meadows, is found to add much to their 

 productiveness. All water contains more or less matter essential to 

 plants. The soluble salts, the finely divided organic matters, and the 

 richest parts of all soils are continually passing away in the streams 

 by which our fields are watered, arid it is t^is cause which forms one 

 of the drawbacks on their 'fertility. 



To arrest and detain these matters from passing away and being lost 

 to the soil, is another important end of irrigation. The more foreign 

 matter any water contains, the more valuable it will be for irrigation ; 

 thus river water is better than that of springs, and rivers below large 

 towns, are found to act more efficiently than those above. Of this 

 there is abundant evidence in the use of the Thames' water below and 

 above London, and particularly the celebrated Oraigintinny meadows 

 below Edinburgh. Water generally contains sulphate of lime, at 

 least all hard waters do, and a single flowing of a meadow with such 

 water for a few days, besides the other materials it deposites, will leave 

 more of this sulphate or plaster, than is usually applied per acre by 

 farmers. Some of the best meadows and lands of England, have been 

 formed by flowing them and increasing the deposit until poor lands 

 have become like the richest alluvion. In this country, few instances 

 of irrigation have as yet been attempted, but where it has been done by 

 system, and with reference to permanent results, they have proved most 

 successful ; and the practice, as the soils become older, and other 

 methods besides manuring become proper to promote fertility, will 

 doubtless be common. 



ISINGLASS. This substance is almost wholly gelatin ; one hun- 

 dred grains of good dry isinglass containing rather more than ninety- 

 eight of matter soluble in water. Isinglass is made from certain fish 

 found in the Danube, and the rivers of Muscovy. Willoughby and 

 others inform us, that it is made of the sound of the Beluga; and 

 Nuemann, that it is made of the Huso Germanorum, and other fish, 

 which he has frequently seen sold in the public markets of Vienna. 

 Mr. Jackson remarks, that the sounds of cod, properly prepared, afford 

 this substance ; and that the lakes of America abound with fish from 

 which the very finest sort may be obtained. 



Isinglass receives its different shapes in the following manner : 

 10* 



