278 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Thousands of acres of the most beautiful irrigated plains were 

 in sight, perfectly loaded with the crops of summer, and teeming 

 with luxuriance. Down the dry sides of the hill on which we 

 stood vineyards clothed the ground. Tiie village itself, from 

 which the battle took its name, is small, old, and unattractive. 

 But the roads are good, excellent. From Lonato, where we 

 loft tlie railway, to Solferino, nine or ten miles, the road was 

 superb. There were no fences on either side. 



I spoke on a former page of the system of irrigation adopted 

 on tlie farm of Alderman Mechi. Tiptree Hall is familiar, by 

 name at least, to most farmers in this country. It may be well 

 to allude to his system, for a moment, also, in this connection. 

 There is this difference between his practice and the system of 

 irrigation in Lombardy and elsewhere. He uses water as a 

 means of dihiting and carrying his manure to his land and 

 crops. His is the application of liquid manure, the solid drop- 

 pings of his cattle being as it were dissolved and washed by the 

 application of a strong jet of water to the stalls, to a cistern not 

 far off, from which it is forced through pipes, by steam-power, 

 out upon the land. 



The most of the irrigation here in Lombardy consists of the 

 application of pure water to growing crops, generally to grass. 

 The use of sewage water around Milan is of course an excep- 

 tion. It must be evident that the success of ^lechi's system, as 

 well as any other system of irrigation, will depend very much 

 upon the character of the soil, whether light, porous and well 

 drained, or licavy and stiff. On clay lands straw and other 

 coarse manures are needed, not merely to add fertility or furnish 

 food to ])lants, but also as a means of correcting and improving 

 the physical texture of the soil. The straw itself becomes 

 therefore an important part of the manure, and if it were 

 applied without first having been used as litter, and becoming 

 incorporated with other substances, it would still possess very 

 considerable value on stiff lands. Water on s\ich lands, unless 

 they were exceedingly well drained, would be a damage. 



So, too, it would depend somewhat on the crop it was 

 intended to cultivate. Any crop like grass, where it is desirable 

 to get a juicy, succulent growth, throughout its period of vege- 

 tation, will be improved by a large quantity of water, especially 

 on a porous soil ; but if the object is to cultivate a crop for its 



