1835.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



401 



I begin my statements with a few examples 

 from England. 



The proprietor of an old irrigated meadow, con- 

 taining eight acres, in the vicinity of t lie viUage 

 where I was born, (South Cerney, Gloucester- 

 shire,) disposed of the produce of it, in the year 

 1795, in a way (hat was wcil calculated to ascer- 

 tain its real value. 



In order to make the most of the spring feed, 

 the grass was saved till the second day of April; 

 from which time he let it to the neighboring far- 

 mers, to be eaten off in five, weeks at the 

 ing rates: — a sheep, lOd*. per week; a cow, 3s. 6d.; 

 and a colt, 4s.; — one hundred and seven weiher 

 .sheep, one week, £4 9s. 2d.; eight cows, £1 8s.; 

 four colts, 16s.; three colts, three weeks, to be 

 added, £1 16s. The whole produce of the mea- 

 dow, £35 Is. 10d., or upwards of £4 per acre. 

 The hay crop was, as usual, about fifteen tons, 

 and was six weeks in growing. 



But the reader will perhaps see the advantage 

 of irrigation in a still stronger light, when he*is 

 told that this meadow, which was watered by the 

 stream that drove a mill, and which, at the time 

 of the foregoing statement, was occupied by a 

 miller, was a ibw years before in the hands of a 

 farmer who, living at variance with the miller, 

 was entirely deprived of the use of the water for 

 a whole winter, which unfortunately was succeed- 

 ed by a very dry spring and summer; of course 

 the spring feed was lost, and the whole of the hay 

 crop of eight acres was only three tons. 



An irrigated meadow of nine acres was laid out 

 in 1802, by Mr. Smith, engineer and mineralogist, 

 on the Paisley farm, near Woburn, belonging to 

 his Grace the Duke of Bedford, and, in 1803, pro- 

 duced as follows: — in the month of March, the 

 meadow was stocked with two hundred and forty 

 sheep, for three weeks, at 6d. each per week, 

 £18, making the spring feed worth £2 per acre. 

 In June, mowed two tons of hay per acre, at £4 

 per ton, £72. August 20 — again mowed one ton 

 and a half per acre, at £4 per ton, £36. Sep- 

 tember 16 — put on eighty fat sheep for three 

 weeks, at 4d. each per week, £4; and then it fed 

 lean bullocks, which are not reckoned in the ac- 

 count, producing £16 13s. Sd. per acre. 



I conceive it unnecessary to refer the reader to 

 more instances of irrigating grass land in England, 

 but would rather advert more particularly to the 

 benefits derived from the practice where we have 

 not only an inferior soil, but all the vicissitudes of 

 a northern climate to encounter, even where the 

 ground is'covered with snow and ice for several 

 months in the year; but even there I hope to be 

 able to show that the art of irrigation, when sys- 

 tematically attended to, is one of the greatest im- 

 provements to be found in the annals of agricul- 

 ture. 



In the year 1S08, I was employed to sjirvey, 

 with regard to draining, a larjje tract of boggy 

 land, belonging to Mrs. Grill" of Soderfors Iron 

 Manufactory, in the province of Upland, in Swe- 

 den. After having taken a general view of up- 

 wards of three hundred Scotch acres, I found 

 about eighty lying nearest the large river Dal, 

 g from the province of Darcarlia, well situ- 

 ated for irrigation; and although there was no- 

 thing of the kind in the country previously to that 

 time, the proprietress, at the first suggestion de- 

 termined, whatever the expense might be, to have 



Vol. Ill— 51 



an irrigated meadow formed, complete in all its 

 parts; for she was confident that draining, in the 

 first place, and afterwards irrigating for grass, 

 would undoubtedly be one of the greatest im- 

 provements to a country, where the summers are 

 so generally very dry, and, of course, hay very 

 scarce. 



The whole of this tract was reclaimed from the 

 bed and overflowing of the above mentioned river, 

 by a very expensive embankment, about sixty 

 years before; but the drainage had been so badly 

 executed, that what was not covered with water 

 was a perfect bog, over which it was impossible 

 for a person to walk without sinking up to the 

 knees, which made the whole crop on eighty 

 acres only eleven hundred and fifty stone. 



Forty acres were formed into an irrigated mea- 

 dow late in the spring of 1S09, which injured the 

 surface so much, that the crop was the same as it 

 had been previous to the formation. 



In 1810, the hay crop on forty acres was four 

 thousand stone; within that year the other forty 

 acres were formed into shape for a wafer meadow; 

 and, in 1811, the hay crop on the whole was ele- 

 ven thousand two hundred and fifty stone; in 

 1812, the frost damaged the crop so much, that 

 the whole was only four thousand five hundred and 

 fifty; and, in 1813, the crop was eleven thousand 

 two hundred and fifty stone, but had not the frost 

 on the 21st, 22d, and 23d June, very much dam- 

 aged the grass, the crop would have been one- 

 third more. The hay, since the commencement 

 of the irrigation, is twice as good in quality, and 

 I have not the least doubt, if the works are kept 

 in proper repair, that the crops of hay and after- 

 math are double what they were at the time of 

 the original publication of this account in 1814, at 

 Stockholm, in the Annals of the Swedish Boyal 

 Academy of Agriculture. 



The expense of forming this meadow, accord- 

 ing to the value of our money, was three hundred 

 pounds, or nearly four pounds per acre; by which 

 it appears that, although the climate of northern 

 countries is so very much against the practice, yet 

 the improvement is one of the greatest that lies 

 been introduced into a district where it is impossi- 

 ble to procure manure for making improvements in 

 any other way, and that wherever water can be 

 brought to run over grass land, the benefit will 

 richly reimburse any person for the money laid 

 out. Since the formation of this meadow, several 

 others have been made in different parts of the 

 country with greater success, they being made on 

 better land; which no doubt will, within a few 

 years, diffuse the practice through the greater part 

 of that country. 



Irrigation in Scotland. 



This species of improvement seems to have 

 been formerly practised in several places in Scot- 

 land; in the parish of Dolphington, Lanarkshire, 

 and in many places in Perthshire, traces are 

 found of water having been carried over the sur- 

 face of fhe ground/ but as to when these were 

 formed, there are no people living who can give 

 an account. However, f here is every reason to 

 believe that the practice of irrigation never went 

 farther in Scotland than a partial wetting of the 

 land, until the year 1702, when my father, Charles 

 Stevens, was engaged by the Highland Society 



