444 APPENDIX. 



M. IRRIGATED MEADOWS IN ITALY. 



In the Journal de V Agriculture (2nd Feb., 1889) the 

 following was said about the marcites of Milan : 



" On part of these meadows water runs constantly, 

 on others it is left running for ten hours every week. 

 The former give six crops every year ; since February, 

 eighty to 100 tons of grass, equivalent to twenty and 

 twenty-five tons of dry hay, being obtained from the 

 hectare (eight to ten tons per acre). Lower down, 

 thirteen tons of dry hay per acre is the regular crop. 

 Taking eighty acres placed in average conditions, they 

 will yield fifty-six tons of green grass per hectare that 

 is, fourteen tons of dry hay, or the food of three milch 

 cows to the hectare (two and a half acres). The rent 

 of such meadows is from 8 to 9, 12s. per acre." 



For Indian corn, the advantages of irrigation are 

 equally apparent. On irrigated lands, crops of from 

 seventy-eight to eighty-nine bushels per acre are ob- 

 tained, as against from fifty-six to sixty-seven bushels 

 on unirrigated lands, also in Italy, and twenty-eight 

 to thirty-three bushels in France (Garcia, Les Cereales). 



N PLANTED WHEAT. 

 The Rothamsted Challenge. 



Sir A. Cotton delivered, in 1893, before the Balloon 

 Society, a lecture on agriculture, in which lecture he 

 warmly advocated deep cultivation and planting the 

 seeds of wheat wide apart. He published it later on 

 as a pamphlet (Lecture on Agriculture, 2nd edition, 

 with Appendix. Dorking, 1893). He obtained, for the 



