194 



THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



and it is estill carried on with a zeal and care 

 worthy of the art they practice. M. P. Cato, tiie 

 earliest of the Uonian wriiers upcn agriculiure, 

 (150 years before Christ,) in his ninth chapter, 

 told the Italian lariners lo " mnke water meadows 

 ifyou have water, and il'you have no water, have 

 dry meadows." The directions ol" Columella 

 seem lo have all the (i-oshnees of a modern age 

 about them. He was the first who noiiced the in- 

 ferior nutrition afforded by the hay from water 

 meadows. " Land," says he, " that is naturally 

 rich, and is in good heart, does not need to have 

 water set over it ; and it is belter hay which 

 nature, of its own accord, produces in a juicy soil, 

 than what water draws from a soil that is over- 

 flowed. This, however, is a necessary practice 

 when the property of the soil requires it ; and a 

 meadow may be'lbrmed either upon a siitf or free 

 eoil, though poor when water may beset over it ; 

 neither a low field with hollows, nor a field 

 broken with steep rising ground, is proper ; the 

 first, because it contains too long the water col- 

 lected in the hollows ; the last, because it makes 

 the water run too quickly over it. A field, how- 

 ever, that has a moderate descent may be made a 

 meadow, whether it be rich, or so situated as to 

 be watered ; but the best situation is where the 

 surface is smooth, and (he descent so gentle, as 

 to prevent either showers, or the rivers thai 

 overflow it, remaining too long ; and, on the other 

 hand, to allow the water that comes over it 

 quietly to glide ofl'; therefore, if in any part oCihe 

 field intended for a meadow, a pool of water should 

 stand, it must be let off' by drains, for the loss 

 is equal either from too much water or too little 

 grass." (Co/, lib. ii. c. 16). Pliny tells us that 

 " meadows ought to be watered immediately after 

 the spring equinox, and the waters resirained 

 whenever the grass shoots up into stalks" (^Nat. 

 Hist. lib. xviii. c. 27). When, after the fall of ihe 

 Roman empire, agriculture, in common with all 

 other sciences, rapidly declined, a very remarkable 

 exception lo this melancholy result of slavery and 

 despotism was presented in the case of irrigation, 

 which was carried on and extended through the 

 long period of the dark ages with equal zeal 

 and success. This was more especially the case in 

 Lombardy, where it was certainly prosecuted on a 

 very bold and profiiable scale long before 1037. 

 The princes of Lombardy patronized and followed 

 the example ol'lhe various religious establishments, 

 which then monopolized all the wealth and learn- 

 ing of the land, in extending the employment of 

 water in all possible directions. The monks of 

 Chiazevalle, in particular, were so celebrated for 

 theirknowledge of this branch of agriculture, and of 

 hydraulics in general, that the emperor, Frederick 

 the First, in the thirteenth century, very gladly 

 sought their advice and assistance. This eysiem 

 has ever been zealously and carefully extended 

 and improved, in every possible way. The waters 

 of the chief rivers of the north of Italy, such as 

 the Po, the Adige, the Tagliamento, and of all the 

 minor streams, are employed in irrigation. There 

 is no other country which possesses an extent ol 

 rich water meadows equal to that of the Lom- 

 bards. The entire couniry Irom Venice to Turin 

 may be said to be formed into one great water 

 meadow ; yet the irrigating system is not confined 

 lo grass lands ; the water \a conveyed into the 

 huUuwB between the ridges in corn lands, into the 



low lands where rice is cultivated, and around the 

 roots of vmes. From Italy the practice extended 

 into the south ol France, imo Spain, and then into 

 Britain. In the states of Lombardy, the water of 

 all the rivers belongs to the state; in those of 

 Venice, the goverrmient extends its claims to that 

 of the smaller spring?, and even to collections of 

 rain water, so highly, for the use of the cultivator, 

 is water of every kind valued in ihe north ol Italy. 

 It is necessary, therefore, in Lombard)', to pur- 

 chase Irom the slate the water taken from the 

 river; this may betaken, by means of a canal, 

 through any person's grounds, the government 

 merely requiring the payment of ihe value of the 

 land to the proprietor, and restraining him 

 fi-om carrying his canal through a garden, or 

 within a ceriain distance of a mansion. The 

 water is sold by the governmental a certain rate, 

 which is regulaied by the size of the sluice, and 

 the time the run of water is used ; this is either 

 by the hour, half-hour, or quarter, or by so 

 many days at ceriain periods of the year ; the 

 right to these runs ol' waier is regularly sold like 

 other property. Arthur Younn; gives an account 

 of the sale of an hour's run of water through a 

 sluice near Turin, which produced, in 1778, 1500 

 livres. The rent of the irrigated lands in the 

 north of Italy is, upon an average, more than one- 

 third greater than the same description of land 

 not watered. ( Com. Board of Jlgr. vol. vii. p. 

 189;. 



In Bengal, wells are dug in the highest part of 

 their fields, and from this, by means of bullocks 

 and a rope over a pulley, vvaier is raised in buckets 

 and conveyed in liitle channels to every pan of 

 the field. No attempts at culiivaiion are here made 

 without the assistance of water, obtained by some 

 mode or other. 



The art of irrigation was not confined to the old 

 world. The Mexicans practised it long beiore the 

 days of Columbus ; they collected the mountain 

 torrents, and conducted their waters to their lands 

 in proper channels, vviih much care and address. 

 It was only towards the termination of the seven- 

 teenth century that water-meadows were con- 

 structed in Briiain upon any thing like a regular 

 sysiem. Of these, those in Wiltshire, which are 

 amongst the most celebrated in England, espe- 

 cially those in the Wylev Bourn, were made be- 

 tween 1700 and 1705. Those of Hampshire and 

 Berkshire were constructed about the same period, 

 but they were at first formed ver}' inferior to the 

 modern waier-meadow lands of those counties. 

 Great improvements were made towards the con- 

 clusion of the eighicenih century, through the 

 puhlications of G. Boswell on meadow watering 

 in 1780, and of the Rev, T. Wright, ol Anid, in 

 Northamptonshire, whose writintrs appeared al in- 

 tervals from 1789 to 1810. It is noticeable thai the 

 water em[)l(>yed for these celebrated southern 

 meads is perhaps the most clear and swift flowing 

 of all the English rivers: issuing from ihp chalk 

 formation, it is equally copious and transparent. 

 Some of the chief advantage?, therefore, of irri- 

 gation may evidently be derived from almost any 

 descripiion of water ; for it is proved by the good 

 eff'ecis produced by the brilliant chalk-vvaters of 

 the south o!' England, and the still greater fertiliz- 

 ing eflects of those surcharged with organic 

 matter, as in ihe Craigintinny meadows near 

 Edinburgh, that there is no water loo bright or 



