314 THE COMPLETE FARMER 



owing to the more copious supply of water which it thereby 

 receives. 



That pure water is capable of producing similar effects I 

 have the following experiments to prove : 



Several years ago, when resident with my father on his 

 farm at Rowley, I labored hard to divert a stream, which fell 

 into a miry swamp, from its usual course across a piece of 

 dry upland. The stream was pure spring water, which issued 

 between the hills about fifty rods above, running but just far 

 enough to acquire the temperature of the atmosphere, but 

 without receiving any more fertilizing quality than was ob- 

 tained in passing through a pasture in a rocky channel ; the 

 effect, however, was to double the quantity of grass. The 

 same stream I again diverted from its course about forty rods 

 below, after it had filtered through a piece of swamp or 

 meadow-ground, and with the same effect ; and again, still 

 lower down its course, I succeeded in turning it on to a piece 

 of high peat-meadow, which had usually produced but very 

 little of any thing ; and the effect was, that more than double 

 of the quantity of grass was produced, and that of a much 

 better quality. I was led to this latter experiment by ob- 

 serving that a strip of meadow which naturally received the 

 water of this run, and over which it spread for several rods 

 in width without any particular channel, was annually much 

 more productive than any other part of the meadow. 



But the best experiment, and on the largest scale of any 

 which I have known, was made by my late father-in-law, 

 deacon Eleazar Spofford, then resident at Jaffrey, New 

 Hampshire. A letter from Rev, Luke A. Spofford, in an- 

 swer to my inquiry on this subject, observes : ' My father 

 commenced the experiment as early as the year 1800, and 

 continued it till 1820, or to the time when he sold his farm. 

 The last ten years of his time he flashed perhaps twenty 

 acres ; and it produced, I should think, twice as much in 

 common seasons, and three times as much in dry seasons, as 

 it would have done without watering. This land would 

 hold out to yield a good crop twice as long as other land of 

 the same quality,' (that is, I presume, 'without flowing.) 

 ' In dry weather he watered it every night, and the produce 

 was good, very good.' 



I am acquainted with the lot of land which was the sub 

 ject of this experiment. It is a northern declivity, and rather 

 a light and sandy soil, on the eastern bank of Contoocook 

 river ; and the water used was that of the river, about one 



