IRRIGATION. 



IRRIGATION. 



scription, and many of the best on the banks 

 of the Wiltshire Avon have a mass of broken, 

 porous flints for a subsoil. Those near Edin- 

 burgh, irrigated by the city drainage, rest upon 

 the sands thrown up by the sea. 



It is evident, therefore, that it is as impor- 

 tant an object in the construction of these 

 meadows to secure a ready and rapid exit for 

 the flood-waters, as to procure, in the first in- 

 stance, a copious and fertilizing supply. 



The farmer is generally well aware of the 

 injurious effects to his meadows of suffering 

 the water to remain too long on them. He 

 watches, therefore, with much care, for the 

 first indications of fermentation having com- 

 menced, which is evinced by the rising of a 

 inoss or scum to the surface of the water pu- 

 trefaction is now beginning in the turf, and he 

 knows very well that if the water is not speedi- 

 ly removed, that his grass will be either mate- 

 rially injured, or entirely destroyed; he hast- 

 ens, therefore, to open his water-courses. 

 There are some soils in the vicinity of Standen, 

 in Berkshire, however, of so porous a quality, 

 that they need not any drains to empty the 

 water-courses ; and, in fact, in many instances, 

 the farmer does not even require them : after 

 a few hours all the water is absorbed by the 

 soil ; and yet these lands, with hardly 6 inches 

 of mould above the gravel, are amongst the 

 richest of water-meadows ; the roots of the 

 grasses penetrate readily into the gravel, and 

 the earliest and sweetest grasses are produced 

 MI them. 



Almost any description of grass will flourish 

 under proper management in water-meadows. 

 Those whose soils consist of peat resting on 

 sand, or on sandy loam, with a substratum of 

 chalk or gravel, generally produce the meadow 

 foxtail (jilopcairus pratensis), the brome-grass 

 (Bromus arvcnsis), and the meadow-fescue 

 (Festuca pratensis), on the tops and sides of the 

 ridges. The furrows and sides of the drains 

 are usually tenanted by the creeping-bent, the 

 hard-fescue, the rough-stalked meadow-grass, 

 and the woolly soft-grass. In those water- 

 meadows whose soil consists of a sandy loam 

 on a clay subsoil, the chief grasses are com- 

 monly the creeping-rooted soft-grass, the crest- 

 ed dog's-tail, the meadow barley, and the 

 sweet-scented vernal-grass. But some grasses 

 change their appearance in a very remark- 

 able degree, when exposed under favourable 

 circumstances to the influence of the flood- 

 waters. This fact is strikingly exemplified in 

 the case of two small meadows situated at 

 Orcheston, six miles from Amesbury, in Wilt- 

 shire, denominated, from their great produce, 

 " the long grass meads." These, says Davis, 

 "contain together only two acres and a half, 

 and the crop they produce is so immense, that 

 the tithe hay of them was once sold for 5 gui- 

 neas." Much discussion took place amongst 

 the Wiltshire farmers as to the nature of the 

 crop of these meads, before it was at last 

 shown that the greatest part of their herbage 

 consisted of nothing else than the black-couch, 

 or couchy-bent, the jj^rostis stolonifera, one of 

 he worst of the grasses or weeds which haunt 

 ^ poor ill-cultivated arable soils. 



It is a very general, as well as correct con- 

 674 



elusion of the English farmers, that the gras 

 and hay of water-meadows is not so nutritious 

 as that of the permanent pasture lands. The 

 difference, however, is not so great as is com- 

 monly supposed. The late Mr. George Sin- 

 clair determined this experimentally, and he is 

 no mean authority with regard to all that re- 

 lates to the grasses. 



He obtained from the rye-grass (Lolium pe- 

 renne), at the time of flowering, taken from a 

 water-meadow that had been fed off with sheep 

 till the end of April, of nutritive matter 72 

 grains ; and from the same weight of this 

 grass, taken from a rich old pasture, which 

 had been shut up for hay about the same time, 

 92 grains. From the same grass from the 

 meadow, that had not been depastured in the 

 spring, 100 grains. And from the same grass 

 from the pasture which had not been fed off, 

 120 grains. All the grasses, in fact, where 

 their growth is forced by the application of 

 either liquid or solid manures, are found to 

 contain nutritive matter in diminished quanti- 

 ties : this, too, was determined by Sinclair. 

 From 4 ounces of a very rankly luxuriant 

 patch of rye-grass, on which a large portion of 

 cow-dung had been deposited, he obtained of 

 nutritive matter 72 grains. From the same 

 quantity of the same grass growing on the soil 

 which surrounded this luxuriant patch, he ob- 

 tained 122 grains. 



And, in a second trial, the same species of 

 grass, on a soil entirely destitute of manure, 

 afforded of nutritive matter, 95 grains. On the 

 same soil, excessively manured, the grass af- 

 forded only 50 grains. In these experiments 

 the plants were of the same age, and were ex- 

 amined at the same stage of their growth. 

 (Hortus Gram. 384.) 



With regard to the construction and man- 

 agement of water-meadows, there are many 

 practical works of the highest authority to 

 which the farmer has ready access ; and, in 

 the following observations, therefore, I shall 

 merely very briefly paraphrase the accounts 

 given by Mr. Davis and others, of the practice 

 of irrigation in the southern counties. In 

 this, however, even since the time that Davis 

 wrote, there has been a great and steady im- 

 provement. The land is better levelled, the 

 slopes more evenly preserved, the water-way, 

 aqueducts, and hatches, better constructed, and 

 in many of the more recent improvements, in 

 the valley of the Itchen, in Hampshire, the 

 sliding-water doors are regulated by a cogged 

 wheel turned with a movable winch, so as to 

 render them safe from alteration during the 

 absence of the meadow-keeper. 



The management of the Wiltshire and 

 Hampshire water-meadows, as well as it can 

 be briefly described, is as follows : In the au- 

 tumn the after-grass is eaten off quite bare, 

 when the manager of the mead (provincially 

 the drawner} begins to clean out the main 

 drain, and the main carriage, and to " right up 

 the works," that is, to make good all the car- 

 riages and drains which the cattle have trod- 

 den in, so as to have one tier or pitch of work 

 ready for drowning. This is immediately put 

 under water, whilst the drowner is preparing 

 the next pitch. 



