M E A 



THE UNIVERSAL HERBAL; 



M E A 



tribute to the healthiness of the country, instead of injuring 

 it. We are frequently asked, how it comes to pass, thai 

 although water-meadows are so useful, as to be almost indis- 

 pensable in South Wiltshire, yet in other counties, where 

 they are not known, the want of them is not felt; nay, that 

 there are even in this district many parishes who have none 

 and even breed lambs without them? To this, says Mr. 

 Davis, I answer, that the fair question is not how do other 

 countries do without them, but how would the farmers of this 

 district, who are happy enough to have water-meadows, 

 pursue their present system of sheep-breeding, if those mea- 

 dows were taken away ? A system which I do not hesitate to 

 say, is more profitable to themselves, their landlords, and 

 the community at large, than any other that could be sub- 

 stituted in its room; and perhaps this question cannot be 

 answered better, than by exhibiting the contrast between 

 those who have water-meadows, and those who have none, 

 in the same district. Every farmer who keeps a flock ol 

 sheep, and particularly a breeding flock, in so cold and late- 

 springing a district as South Wilts, knows and feels the con- 

 sequences of the month of April; that month between hay 

 and grass, in which he who has not water-meadow for his 

 ewes and lambs, frequently has nothing. The ewes will 

 bring a very good lamb with hay only : perhaps a few tur- 

 nips are preserved for the lambs, which in a very favourable 

 season may last them through March ; but if they are then 

 obliged to go to hay again, the ewes shrink their milk, the 

 lambs pinch and get stinted, and the best summer food will 

 not recover them. To prevent this, recourse is had to feed- 

 ing the grass off those dry meadows that are intended for hay, 

 the young clovers, and frequently the young wheat, in fact, 

 every thing that is green. And who will pretend to estimate 

 what is the loss that a farmer suffers by this expedient ? The 

 ray-grass, on the exposed parts of this district, is seldom a 

 bite for the sheep till near May-day. If the season should 

 permit any turnips to be kept till that time, which can sel- 

 dom be depended upon, they are not only of little nourish- 

 ment to the stock, but they exhaust the land so as to pre- 

 judice the succeeding crop. And it ought to be remarked 

 by the way, that in many parts of this district, the soil is 

 not at all favourable to the production of turnips. It there- 

 fore necessarily follows, that a farmer, under these circum- 

 stances, has no certain resource, to support his stock during 

 this month, but hay; and even in that he is sometimes disap- 

 pointed, by having been obliged, in the preceding spring, to 

 feed off the land which he had laid out for a hay-crop: he 

 is then obliged to buy hay, and that frequently at the dis- 

 tance of many miles. And, to add to his distress at this cri- 

 tical time, his young ewes are then brought home from win- 

 tering, to be kept nearly a month on hay alone. In this 

 month, which so often ruins the crops, and exhausts the 

 pockets of those sheep-breeding farmers who have no water- 

 meadows, the water-mead farmers may be truly said to be " in 

 clover." They train up their dry meadows early, so as almost 

 to insure a crop of hay ; they get their turnips fed off in time 

 to sow barley, and have the vast advantage of a rich fold to 

 manure it. They save a month's hay, and have no occasion 

 to touch their field grass, till there is a good bite for their 

 sheep: and their lambs are as forward at May-day, as those 

 of their less lucky neighbours are at Midsummer: and after 

 all, they are almost certain of a crop of hay on their water- 

 meadows, let the season be what it will. MANAGEMENT 



OF WATER-MEADOW. As soon as the after-grass is eaten 



off as bare as can be, the manager of the mead, provincially 



called the drowner, begins cleaning out the main drain, then 



he main carriage, and then proceeds to right up the works, 



that is, to make good all the water-carriages that the cattle 

 have trodden down, and open all the drains they may have 

 trodden in, so as to have one tier ar pitch of work ready for 

 drowning; and which is then put under water (if water is 

 plenty enough) during the time the drowners are righting up 

 the next pitch. In the flowing meadows, this work is or ought 

 to be done early enough in the autumn, to have the whole 

 mead ready to catch the first foods after Michaelmas, the 

 water being then thick and good, being ihejirst washing of 

 the arable land, on the sides of the chalk hills, as well as of 

 the dirt from the roads. The length of this autumn water- 

 ing cannot always be determined, as it depends on situations 

 and circumstances; but if water can be commanded in plenty, 

 the rule is to give it a thorough good soaking, at first perhaps 

 of a fortnight or three weeks, with a dry interval of a day or 

 two, and sometimes two fortnights, with a dry interval of a 

 week, and then the works are made as dry as possible, to 

 encourage the growth of the grass. This first soaking is to 

 make the land sink and pitch close together; a circumstance 

 of great consequence, not only to the auantity, but the qua- 

 lity of the grass, and particularly to favour the shooting of 

 the new roots which the grass is continually forming, to sup- 

 port the forced growth above. While the grass grows freely, 

 a fresh watering is not wanted ; but as soon as it flags, the 

 watering may be repeated for a few days at a time, whenever 

 there is an opportunity of getting water; always keeping this 

 fundamental rule in view, to make the meadows as dry as 

 possible between every watering, and to stop the water the 

 moment the appearance of any scum on the land shews that it 

 has already had water enough. Some meadows that will bear 

 the water three weeks in October, November, or December, 

 will perhaps not bear it a week in February or March, and 

 sometimes scarcely two days in April or May. In the catch- 

 meadows watered by springs, the great object is to keep the 

 works of them as dry as possible between the intervals of 

 watering; and as such situations are seldon affected by floods, 

 and generally have too little water, care is necessary to make 

 the most of the water by catching and rousing it as often as 

 possible; and as the top-works of every tier or pitch will be 

 liable to get more of the water than those lower down, care 

 should be taken to give to the latter a longer time, so as to 

 make them as equal as possible. It has been already said, 

 that the great object in this district of an early crop of water- 

 meadow grass, is to enable the farmer to breed early lambs. 

 As soon as the lambs are able to travel with the ewes, per- 

 haps about the middle of March, they begin to feed on the 

 water meadows. Care is or ought to be taken, to make the 

 meadows as dry as possible for some days before the sheep 

 are let in. The grass is hurdled out daily in portions, 

 according to what the number of sheep can eat in a day, to 

 prevent their trampling the rest; at the same time leaving a 

 few open spaces in the hurdles, for the lambs to get through 

 and feed forward in the fresh grass. One acre of good grass 

 will suffice five hundred couples for one day. On account of 

 the quickness of this grass, it is not usual to allow the ewes and 

 lambs to go into it with empty bellies; at least not before the 

 dew is off in the morning. The hours of feeding are usually 

 "rom ten or eleven o'clock in the morning till four or five in 

 .he evening, when the sheep are driven to fold, being gene- 

 rally at that time of the year on the barley fallow; and the 

 ;reat object is to have water-mead grass sufficient for the 

 ewes and lambs till the barley sowing is ended. As soon as 

 ,his first crop of grass is eaten off by the ewes and lambs, the 

 water is immediately thrown over the meadows, (at this time 

 of the year, two or three days over each pitch is generally 

 sufficient,) and it is then made perfectly dry, and laid up for 



