bb HOW TO GROW GOOD GRASSES. 



irrigation has been successfully carried on for years, 

 there is a permanent cost of about 6s. an acre forr 

 keeping the works in order, and charges of the 

 " drowner," the name given to the man who over- 

 looks the works, in some instances of several pro- 

 prietors or tenants. 



A peculiarity in irrigated meadow of the best 

 quality is, the general absence of coarse grasses on 

 the one hand, and of any plants other than grasses 

 on the other ; hence, then, good succulent and nutri- 

 tious herbage is the rule, and anything that can be 

 otherwise described is the rare exception. Indeed, so 

 much is this the case, that a bit of coarse grass — 

 such, for instance, as Aira cmspitosa (Tussac Grass) — 

 making successful growth in any part of the meadow, 

 is at once an evidence of a stagnation of water at that 

 spot — a condition that a clever drowner at once looks 

 to when he has discovered it. 



As an evidence of the changes which go on as the 

 process succeeds, as well as of their nature, we give 

 the following as the tabulated result of the irrigation 

 of half of a meadow whose slope was too great to 

 allow of the whole being operated upon. Erorn these 

 it will be seen that the proportionals of different 

 pasture plants before and after irrigation offer a 

 material change ; and it may be added, that in some 

 cases, what would otherwise be a bad and useless 

 grass, may become succulent and useful from the 

 beneficial action of water. One of this kind is the 

 Agrostis stolonifera (Eiorin Grass), which is in arable 

 couch-grass weed, but in the irrigated meadow it 

 becomes of a fine green colour, is nutritive in quality, 

 and will bear with any amount of clipping. It 

 may here, too, be remarked that in cases where 



