vol . XXI. XO. 8- 



AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER 



61 



Kroin llie Farmer'a Monthly Visitor. 



DR.\INAGE AND IRRIGATION. 



Water is a necessary agent in the production of 

 vegetation: the redundancy of water is scarcely 

 less deleterious than the entire absence of it on any 

 piece of cultivated land. Where the water stands 

 a larf'C part of the year upon and near the surface, 

 the production will he little or nothing. Lands 

 drowned in time of rain and wet, often in time of 

 drought suffer as much for want of wet as the most 

 dry and porous soils. The difficulty with much of 

 this land is that there is no action of the soil but 

 upon a very thin surface, because the standing wa- 

 ter in spring and fall hardens all to the surface; and 

 as soon as tlie dry weather succeeds, the corn and 

 potatoes droop, and so.iictimes wither and die. So 

 in any sunken swamp which may not be flowed and 

 drained at pleasure, the water stands a part of the 

 season, leaving only a chance for the growth of 

 wild grasses, while the continued absence of rain 

 in the summer months leaves thfe swamp itself high 

 and dry, and the growth of the poor vegetation is 

 weak and stunted. 



The land thus rendered little better than waste 

 possesses the elements of more fertility than much 

 of the upland. Drainage and submersion are the 

 two great principles to be brought into use on such 

 land. 



1. Drainage. — There are many swamps in most 

 towns that may be very easily drained by ditches 

 deepening the natural passage of the water. In 

 some cases a single ditch will carry off all the wa- 

 ter that msiy be required. Lowering the water one 

 foot in some instances may be sufficient: the mud 

 in swamps that have been submerged forages may 

 he brought into action as the best of soil, yielding 

 hay and other vegetable productions for a long time 

 almost without the aid of manures. If cold springs 

 come in near the edges, these may be cut off and 

 carried away by means of ditches filled in with 

 rocks that are often found near at hand ; or where 

 rocks are not to be found, the logs and stumps dug 

 from the swamp may be used in the place of stones, 

 leaving apertures in the drains for the water to pass 

 off. Large swamps are by these means reclaimed, 

 and a vast quantity of the richest soil brought into 

 use. 



Of the hard lands continually suffering from sur- 

 face water, there are thousands of acres that may be 

 changed entirely by drainage: when an under- 

 drain cutting off cold springs and receiving the 

 ■water from the surface is once made, the ground or 

 subsoil may be stirred below ; and the deeper we 

 go less than eighteen inches or two feet, the great- 

 er will be the capacity of the ground to produce. 

 Even stiff clayey soils may be drained so as to be- 

 come light and permeable. The action of stimula- 

 ting manures upon such grounds often brings out of 

 the ground giant vegetable productions. 



In the cultivation of lands, whether they be wet 

 or dry, the stiring of the subsoil or deep plowing is 

 always of great advantage. The ground cannot be 

 stirred too deep. It is true the turning up of mere 

 cold sand, or gravel, or clay upon the surface, and 

 the burying deep of the vegetable mould already 

 upon the surface may injure present crops; but the 

 Stirring of under-soil, while the vegetable mould is 

 kept above, will always be of advantage to the 

 crops. In some instances crops are doubled simply 

 from the moving of the under soil: this is often 

 done in gardens by trenching, taking care to keep 

 the mould upon the surface. 



Whether the ground be dry and porous sand or 

 gravel, or whether it be stiff clay or loam or grii- 

 velly pan, the moving of the ground is always ad- 

 vantageous. It leaves an ample field for the roots 

 of the crops. If the season be very dry, the roots 

 seek the moisture deep in the stirred ground: if it 

 be very wet, the superabundance of wet settles off 

 at once into the deeper stirred ground — so that 

 vegetation in ground thus prepared better stands 

 both drought and wet. 



2. Iriugation. Strange as it may seem, that 

 although cold water kills and destroys the crop if 

 suffered to stand long, so it invigorates and stim- 

 ulates when it passes over or lays for a short time 

 upon the surface. The effect of the wash of roads 

 and from other sources upon mowing grounds is 

 often seen. Tons of hay are produced in a suc- 

 cession of years where little or nothing would grow 

 without this wash. F.very good farmer will take 

 advantage of all these sources of gain. The idea 

 generally is that the increase of production results 

 not so much from the water as from the fr'Jctifying 

 materials brought along with it — the droppings of 

 cattle, sheep, swine, &c. But if we reflect a mo- 

 ment we will perceive that the amount of these 

 droppings, &c. is by no means equal to the effect 

 produced. The simple cold water running from a 

 spring flashed over ground in the spring and fall 

 will have nearly as great effect as water wasliod 

 from roads. The washings from the melting snow 

 or from the spring or fall rains is as good and as 

 strong a stimulant as the earth will at any time re- 

 quire. 



The hilly grounds of New England, the lands of 

 small rocks and hard pan, as well as the lands of 

 deeper, richer mould, are very favorably situated for 

 irrigation. Every part of a man's farm may be 

 overflowed where there is a high spring near it, or 

 where water from the melted snow or rains may be 

 collected into a stream above. At little expense 

 the water in the spring may be flashed over an ex- 

 tensive side hill: where this can be done annually 

 there will be little need of frequent plowing and 

 manuring ; and whenever either or both are resort- 

 ed to, the flashed water coming in aid of the other 

 stimulants will have its greater proportionatie ef- 

 fect. 



Extensive meadows drained in the manner we 

 have described, by means of a dam, might be sub- 

 merged for a short season in early spring or alter 

 the crops come off in the fall for a few weeks to 

 great advantage ; the complete drainage afterwards 

 will leave such ground in the very best condition 

 for the growing of crops. 



In the month of April last, while on a journey 

 through Massachusetts, our attention was attracted 

 to a conical field belonging to Doct. Nathaniel 

 Pierce of Ashburnham : the frost had not yet been 

 extracted from the ground; but this little hill was 

 clothed in living green much in advance of the 

 grounds around it. We went early in the morning 

 to ascertain the cause of the difference. A brook 

 run down a valley at the foot of the hill, where the 

 effect of the superabundance of water had been the 

 injury in the lowest ground rather than the benefit 

 of the grass crop. Doct. P. with very little labor 

 had turned the course of this stream, which was al- 

 ways nearly dry in summer, to a point as high as it 

 could run upon the conical field. In several chan 

 nels one below the other winding round the hill, 

 the water was carried. The channel was such a 

 one as might be made with a common sward plow 

 with the furrow turned upon the lower side : through 



the bank at short distances small crevices were 

 made for the leakage of the water. With very lit- 

 tle labor these were slopped up and now ones made 

 at pleasure, so that the ivater by thi.s extra atten- 

 tion was made to do its work over the whole sur- 

 face. 



The field on which this experiment was in op- 

 eration wo were acquainted with from a child — be- 

 fore wo know the State of New Hampshire. In the 

 rough point of '.hat town which is very stony like 

 most of the higher ridge towns between the Merri- 

 mack and Connecticut rivers, it was one of the fer- 

 tile hills which might be cleared of rocks and plow- 

 ed . Fields thus cleared embracing only a small 

 portion of the whole land have generally been kept 

 under the plow for the longer portion of the time. 

 Now and then they are laid down to grass and con- 

 tinued for two or three years. With sp:ue manur- 

 ing, they cannot long be kept profitably in grass. 

 Doct. P. informed us that this field had not been 

 plowed for about ten years; that he had irrigated 

 it partially for the last seven years, and that the 

 crop of hay had been doubled. This season the 

 prospect of the crop was as good as it had been in 

 any previous year. 



Doct. Pierce, so well pleased with his first exper- 

 iment, was extending the water spout upon this cone 

 to mowing fields below with great success. This 

 pure cold water process as far as it was carried on 

 made abundance of hay, and of itself created a ma- 

 terial for making manure that would soon bring a 

 farm to its highest point of cultivation. 



In whole countries in South America the agri- 

 culturist depends entirely upon irrigation, there 

 being no rain through the growing season. Where 

 the waters of the rivers can be taken out and flash- 

 ed over the ground immense crops of grain, rice, 

 &c., can be procured — where no water can be 

 brought, the grounds are barren. This we have 

 been told, is the condition of the countries in Peru 

 and Chili from the feet of the high Andes to the 

 western or Pacific ocean. 



In the United States we are happily not reduced 

 to that position: we have here alternate rains and 

 shines ; but we do not doubt the time approaches 

 when irrigation will be here introduced among 

 those grand agricultural improvements which the 

 spirit of the times call into action. 



Roynl Agricultural Society of England. 



" At a meeting of the Royal Agricultural Socie- 

 ty of England, on the 18th of May,' in London, on 

 motion of the Duke of Richmond, seconded by Earl 

 Spencer, Prof. Justus Liebig of Giessen, Germany, 

 and Mr Henry Colman, Agricultural Commissioner 

 of Massachusetts, were unanimously elected hono- 

 rary members of this Society." 



Mr Colman gratefully appreciates this distin- 

 guished honor ; an honor much higher than any to 

 which his ambition had ever aspired ; and the more 

 highly valued on account of the eminent friends of 

 agriculture at whose instance it has been confer- 

 red. Viewed aright, it can serve only as a new 

 stimulus to render oneself deserving of it; and 

 quicken efforts, however humble, to be useful in a 

 cause deeply and inseperably connected with the 

 physical comfort and the moral welfare of mankind. 

 — JVew Genesee Farmer. 



The annual consumption of poultry and small 

 irame in the city of Paris, usually amounts to twen- 

 tylwo millions of pounds. 



