WATER is no less necessary to vegetable than to animal 

 life. This beautiful and wonderful fluid, so familiar 

 that we forget to admire it, and so universally bestowed 

 that we fail to be duly thankful for it, is one of the 

 great blessings of existence, covering our fields with ver- 

 dure and our tables with plenty, and producing all that 

 is pleasing and picturesque in nature. According to the 

 greater or less abundance of water, a country becomes 

 fruitful or barren : according to the nearness or distance 

 of considerable streams, towns and cities rise to import- 

 ance or fall into comparative insignificance. 



Water being the great means of life and nourishment 

 to plants, it follows that a regular supply is necessary to 



