300 AN AMERICAN FARMER IX ENGLAND. 



dollars. Considering that the expense of conveyance and distri- 

 bution of solid manure is much greater in America than in Eng- 

 land, these figures are not without personal interest to us. 



The use of manure-dram ings and the urine of the cattle of a 

 farm, very much diluted with spring water, has been found to 

 have such astonishing immediate effects, when distributed over 

 young herbage, that several English agricultural pioneers are 

 making extensive and costly permanent arrangements for its dis- 

 tribution, from their stables, over large surfaces. It is first col- 

 lected in tanks, where it is retained until putrefied, and mixed 

 with the water of irrigation. This is then driven by forcing- 

 pumps into the pipes which convey it, so that it can be distribut- 

 ed, (in one case, over one hundred and seventy acres.) The 

 pipes are hard-burnt clay-pipes, an inch thick, joined with ce- 

 ment, costing here about twelve and a-half cents a-yard. The 

 pipe is laid under ground, and at convenient intervals there are 

 heads coming to the surface with stop-cocks, where a hose can 

 be attached and the water further guided in any direction. For 

 greater distances, a cart like those used for sprinkling the dusty 

 streets of our cities is used. It is conjectured that, eventually, 

 all manure will be furnished to land in a state of solution. 



I believe irrigation is only used for grass in England ; but it 

 probably would be found of great advantage to other valuable 

 crops. I have seen large fields of roots, apparently of the char- 

 acter of turnips, irrigated in China : rice, though it grows very 

 well on dry land, is so much benefited by irrigation that it is 

 hardly anywhere made a staple crop, unless there are facilities 

 for irrigation. I suspect that irrigation, and even that expensive 

 form of it that I have last described, might be profitably used, 

 for certain plants, by our market-gardeners ; for celery and as- 

 paragus for instance ; and it is well known that enormous straw- 

 berries, and unusually large and long-continuing crops of them, 





