ON IRRIGATION OF LANDS. 37 



boring hills, which are full in winter, might be turned into a 

 co.iimon reservoir or basin, which may be formed by a small dam, 

 and the water reserved for use in summer to great advantage. 



Tlie establishment of the Shakers at Canterbury, as enter- 

 prising, industrious, and excellent farmers as are to be found in 

 the country, exhibits an example of this kind ; w"here by turning 

 several springs and small brooks into a small valley in which 

 there was no standing water before, and wdiich they formed into 

 a receptacle by a dam by no means expensive, they have 

 succeeded in obtaining a head of water, sufficient to last through 

 the season, and which is used by successive dams and erections 

 five times before it is suffered to pass off, in driving different 

 kinds of agricultural and manufacturing machinery. It lias oc- 

 curred to your committee, that there may be situations in the 

 county where upon a small scale water may be in the same w^ay 

 collected for the purposes of irrigation ; and though the power 

 of an individual to effect such improvements must be small, 

 compared with the united efforts of such a numerous and indus- 

 trious association, yet their successful experiment on so large a 

 scale may serve to stimulate and encourage individual efforts in 

 a humbler form, which may become proportionately conducive 

 to private and public benefit. Pure water is a most efficient in- 

 strument of vegetation. In what way it operates it may not be 

 easy to determine. It is happy for us, that without becoming 

 adepts in chemical philosophy, the plainest farmer may employ 

 with success in his operations, the most powerful agents in na- 

 ture ; and the reflecting mind will not fail to think often with 

 grateful pleasure on the abundant diffusion of one of the most 

 valuable aliments of vegetable and animal hfe. 



Moses Newell, 

 Henry Colman, 

 Joseph Kittredge, 

 John W. Proctor, 

 Paul Kent, 

 Elias Putnam, 

 Hector Coffin, 

 January, 1832. 



Committct 



