256 



American Institute — Drainage. 



Vol. XII. 



having been made at great cost, and of prop- 

 er materials, with sufficient descent, &c. 

 Upon examination I found ttiey had not sub- 

 Eoiled their land, the consequence was the 

 clay subsoil being retentive, held the water 

 in almost a stagnant state, which was abso- 

 lutely poisonous to all vegetation above it. 

 The only benefit the farmer derived from his 

 drains was an improvement in the soil di- 

 rectly contiguous to them. Whereas it is 

 indispensably necessary that the whole field 

 drained should be subsoiled as deep as pos- 

 sible, the hard pan must be broken up, when 

 the water will readily find its way to the 

 drain, and through it to the level sought by 

 the cultivator; you must not therefore con- 

 sider the work accomplished until your land 

 is perfectly tilled, and the air admitted to all 

 the pores recently filled with water. Most 

 farmers not bearing this fact in mind, con- 

 struct their drains so shallow, that it is im- 

 possible to subsoil; and consequently they 

 have deprived themselves of all the advan- 

 tages to be attained by its adoption, and their 

 drains are comparatively speaking almost 

 useless, draining and deep ploughing go hand 

 in hand together, and it is by combining their 

 effects, — that the greatest improvement to 

 the soil is accomplisiied. 



Mr. Pell said that irrigation, is another 

 subject, before the club this morning for dis- 

 cussion ; and although of vast importance, is 

 not as necessary for us in my estimation, as 

 drainage ; for the reason that our climate is 

 blessed throughout the growing season with 

 an abundance of water, except in a few iso- 

 lated instances. It is the art of watering 

 lands in an artificial manner by means of 

 channels, with a view of increasing their 

 productiveness. In Eastern countries the 

 heat of the climate is such, that without 

 flooding, lands which now yield most abund- 

 antly, would be completely sterile. The 

 simile made use of by Isaiah to indicate de- 

 solation, is "a garden that hath no water." 

 Cato 150 years before the birth of our Saviour 

 requested the Italian agriculturists to " make 

 water meadows if they had water." The 

 principal rivers in northern Italy, the Tagli- 

 amento, Po, and Adige, are used for the 

 purpose of irrigation, and all the country 

 contiguous to them from Turin to Venice, is 

 capable of being overflowed; they find it 

 necessary to irrigate not only for grass, but 

 for corn and vines. The waters of all these 

 rivers belong to the States through which 

 they pass, and no man can use them without 

 paying the state a price regulated by the 

 quantity of water required. Lands capable 

 of being irrigated in northern Italy, rent 

 nearly for one half more than lands which 

 are not. In all the hot countries in Asia, 



and in all tropical climates irrigation is car- 

 ried to a great extent as the most effectual 

 mode of producing fertility. It is a fiivorite 

 system of agriculture in Hindostan, Arabia 

 and Persia, as well as in the empire of Chi- 

 na. I noticed a statement made in the Jour- 

 nal of Commerce yesterday, by a gentleman 

 who had resided many years, 1400 miles up 

 the River Ganges in India, that millions of 

 people had died of famine, rain not having 

 fallen for six months, and that the British 

 government were now constructing a canal 

 from the mountains in which the Ganges 

 rises, 700 miles in length, at a cost of $50,- 

 000,000, for the purposes of irrigation. I 

 was shown lands in the vicinity of the city 

 of Edinburgh, Scotland, belonging to Earl 

 Moray, that had been irrigated by the street 

 water from the city, and thus made superior 

 to any other land in Great Britain, yielding 

 six crops of grass in a single year, which is 

 sold for the purpose of being fed to milch 

 cows, for £29 sterling per acre, and has been 

 sold as high when grass was scarce as j£55 

 per acre. Forty-two acres of poor sandy 

 soil near the city was irrigated at an expense 

 of j£900, and in 1833 when I was there, 

 rented for £19 per acre, about S84,36. 



There are on Long Island within a few 

 miles of this city, large tracts of sandy soil, 

 now worth perhaps $5 per acre, which I am 

 confident might be made worth .$150 by a 

 proper and judicious mode of irrigation. Ad- 

 joining many of these lands there are exten- 

 sive ponds, which by the use of proper steam 

 machinery, might be made to irrigate them.- 

 The first expense in many instances, would 

 be great, but the profits would be far greater. 

 I would respectfully advise some of the Long 

 Island millionaires to try the experiment on a 

 small scale. It only requires the success of a 

 single individual, to induce every inhabitant 

 to follow his example, and Long Island would 

 soon become the garden of New York. 



In Switzerland the mountain torrents as 

 they descend in the fall are conducted over 

 the vallies, which are flooded, and in many 

 instances remain so during the winter; one 

 winter's flooding is considered of more value 

 to the grass, than 29 loads of the best rotted 

 stable manure. Such being the case, how 

 inconceivably valuable is the water, which 

 daily finds its way into the river, and thence 

 into the ocean, from this great city of New 

 York, how effectual would be the improve- 

 ment of our impoverished lands — if their 

 valuable substances could find their way to 

 them, instead of the ocean. By what our 

 City Fathers call their improved plan of 

 drainage, all the rich excrementitious mat- 

 ters now find their way to the ocean like- 

 wise. These substances if they could be 



