THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



]99 



While the grass grows freely, a fresh waterino: 

 is not wauled : but as soon as it flags, i he water 

 must be repealed for a llnv d;iys at a time, always 

 keeping lliis (undamental rule in view, " to make 

 the meadows as dry as possible after every water- 

 ing, and to take off the water ihe moment any 

 ecum appears upon the land, which shows that ii 

 has already had water enough." 



Some meadows that require the water for three 

 weeks in October, and ihe two Ibllowing monihs, 

 will not, perhaps, bear it one week in February or 

 March, and sometimes scarcely two days in April 

 and May. 



Ill ihe catch-meadowe, which are watered by 

 springs, the great object is, to keep the works very 

 dry between the intervals of watering ; and as such 

 Bituaiions are seldom afiljcled by floods, and iiene- 

 rally have loo little water, it is necessary to make 

 the most of ihe water, by catching and rousing it 

 as olten as possible; and as the upper works ol 

 every pitch will be liable to get more water than 

 those lower down, a longer time should be given 

 to the latter, so as to make them as equal as pos- 

 sible. (Davis' Agriculture of Wiltshire, p. 125-7.) 

 In Berkshire ihey first flood their water-mea- 

 dows about Michaelmas ; these are situated prin- 

 cipally on the banks of the Kennet. The first 

 flooding ihey deem the richest in quality : this they 

 keep on the land for about four days, then they 

 dry ihem (or about a fortnight, and after that the 

 water is let on for three or lour days more ; those 

 meadows which are the most readily dried are the 

 most productive. There are none more so, in (act, 

 than those which have a porous, gravelly, or 

 broken flint bottom, from which the flood-water 

 readily escapes, almost without drains. They be- 

 gin to feed their meadows with sheep about the 

 6'h of April, and continue feeding till about ihe 

 21st of May, when the meadows are again flooded 

 for a crop of hay; the land is then flooded and 

 dri>d alternately for three days until hay-lime. 



The number of acres of land in Wiltshire under 

 this kind of management has been computed, and 

 with a tolerable degree of accuracy, to be between 

 filleen and twenty thousand. Some considerable 

 additions, however, have been made to the water- 

 meadows of the district since this calculation was 

 made. (Dvivis' Wills., p. 122.) x\bout the 

 same nu iber of acres are (ormed into water 

 meadows in Berkshire, and a still larger number 

 in Hampshire. No one has aitended more care- 

 fully to his water meadows than Lord Western, 

 on some of those situated on ihe London clay Ibr- 

 mation in ihe Bhckwaier Valley in Essex, a soil 

 of all others, perhaps, from its tenacity, the least 

 adapted lo iheir successful formation, and his tes- 

 timony is very important— " There is an old 

 adage," saya bis lordship, " that water is the best 

 servant in agriculture, and the worst master. 

 Water has in itself intrinsic value, distilled throush 

 chalk, lime, or marl, it acquires a portion ol their 

 qualities, thoush preserving the most perlieci 

 transparency, and, coming down in torren'e and 

 floods, it carries along Ihe finer particles of earih 

 and manure from the mountains, or higher 

 grounds, into the valleys ; hence, of course, it is 

 that the valleys derive their (erliliiy, and ihe value j 

 ol the meadow has been originally cre;ited by an 

 accumulation of wealih from the hills." (On j 

 the Improvement of Grass-lands, pp. 5, 14, 23.) 

 " In deeceoding the Jura mountains, which di- ! 



vide France from Switzerland, the very first pas- 

 lure you find on the descent evinces the value 

 placed on the mountain floods by the inhabitants 

 of those districts ; and, accordingly, every stream 

 is sedulously directed and conducted over ihe pas- 

 tures in a most skiKiil manner. The very wash- 

 ing of the roads in hasty rains is also attended to, 

 and applied to the same purposes." This system 

 of catching the uncertain flood-waiers is known 

 amongst farmers by the name of catch-work, and 

 ihoiiah highly valuable, yet ihey deem it infinitely 

 less important to them than irrigation, which is 

 waterintr (generally five or six limes a-year) from 

 a certain and ever-accessihie head of water, as a 

 river, &c. And yet Lord Western's test mony is 

 decisive in favor of even one catch-flooding; for 

 he observes, when speaking of ihe expense of con- 

 structing the requisite little channels to disperse 

 the flood-waters over the grass — " In many cases 

 it will he trifling, in some cases considerable ; but 

 when the farmer reflects that one winter's flooding 

 will do more in man5% I may say in most cases, 

 than ihirly loads an acre of the best roiien dung 

 manure that can be laid upon his grass lands, he 

 can hardly shrink (rom some considerable expen- 

 diture." If, then, the effects even of a catch-flood- 

 ing with water are so great, how infinitely supe- 

 rior are the advantages capable of being derived 

 from a regular constant supply of the enriching 

 foul waters, like those issuing from Ihe drains of a 

 large city, which is even now most successfully 

 employed near Edinburgh, but worse than wasted 

 in the case of London. Whatever may be the 

 value, in an agricultural point of view, of the solid 

 contents of the London sewers, yet, lo me, the 

 absolutely liquid portion, lor the purposes of irri- 

 gaiion, appear at least equally important. 



There is no agricultural question, therefore, of 

 more consequence in a national point of view, 

 than that of the improvement of the soil by the 

 practice of irrigaiion ; (or, in its prosecution, all 

 the rich organic and other matters difl'used through 

 the rivers, which would otherwise be carried into 

 the sea, are saved to agriculture. This is not, 

 therelbre a question like that attending most other 

 modes of fertilizing ihe soil, merely transposing 

 manure from one field or district lo another: but 

 it is the absolute recovery, as it were, from the 

 ocean, of a mass of finely divided enriching sub- 

 stances, constnn;ly draining from the land. It is 

 the effectual diversion of a stream which is ever 

 steadily impoverishing all cultivated soils, and 

 whicii unnoticed, and in too many instances 

 deemed worthless, gliding into the ocean, is al- 

 most the only drawback to the steadily increasing 

 fertility of our country. 



From the Genesee Farmer. 



Josiah Bordwell, of South Hadley, Mass., has 

 four acres of pasture ground, and applies to it an- 

 nuall}' one thousand pounds of j/ypsum. The 

 same application, and at the same rate, has been 

 made 35 years in succession. On ihis lot he pas- 

 tures annually one large yoke of oxen, one horse, 

 two cows, and some years three cows. Prior to 

 the use of plaster, Mr. B. says it required at least 



