218 APPENDIX. [March, 



true, that on stiff clayey lands, thorough draining is as useful in dry, 

 hot summers, as in cold and wet summers ; for such land, if a wet 

 winter or spring be suddenly followed by hot and dry weather, is apt 

 to become hard and baked, so that the roots of plants cannot enter it. 

 Thorough draining, by giving an opportunity to the water on the sur- 

 face to be constantly escaping, corrects this evil. Draining can never 

 be needed to so great an extent in Massachusetts, as in England and 

 Scotland, from the different nature of the soil ; but we have yet quan- 

 tities of low meadow lands, producing wild, harsh, sour grasses, or 

 producing nothing, which, there is little doubt, might be rendered most 

 profitable hay fields, by being well drained. When we understand 

 better the importance of concentrating labor, instead of scattering it ; 

 when we shall come to estimate, duly, the superior profit of " a little 

 farm well tilled," over a great farm, half cultivated and half manured, 

 overrun with weeds, and scourged with exhausting crops, we shall then 

 fill our barns, and double the winter feed for our cattle and sheep by 

 the products of these waste meadows. 



There was in England, another mode of improvement, most impor- 

 tant, instances of which he had seen, and one of which he regarded 

 as the most beautiful agricultural improvement, which had ever come 

 within his observation. He meant irrigation, or the making of what 

 is called water meadows. He had first seen them in Wiltshire, and 

 was much struck with them, not having before understood, from read- 

 ing or conversation, exactly what they were. But he had afterwards 

 an opportunity of examining a most signal and successful example of 

 this mode of improvement on the estates of the Duke of Portland, in 

 the north of England, on the borders of Sherwood forest. Indeed, it 

 was part of the old forest. Sherwood forest, at least in its present 

 state, is not like the pine forests of Maine, the heavy hard wood for- 

 ests of the unredeemed lands of New Hampshire and Vermont, or the 

 still heavier timbered lands of the West. It embraces a large extent 

 of country, with various soils, some of them thin and light, with beau- 

 tiful and venerable oaks, of unknown age, much open ground between 

 them and underneath their wide-spread branches, and this covered with 

 heather, lichens and fern. As a scene to the eye, and to the memory 

 by its long existence and its associations, it is beautiful and interest- 

 ing. But in many parts, the soil is far enough from being rich 

 Upon the borders of this forest, are the water meadows of which he 

 was speaking. A little river ran through the forest in this part, at the 

 bottom of a valley, with sides moderately sloping, and of considerable 



