136 



This, with Mr. Smith, may be true, 

 when he receives the pay both of a drainer 

 and a iloater ; but draining, in itself, is no 

 more a part of irrigation, than it is a part 

 of any other branch of husbandry; it 

 should, indeed, in unsound land, precede 

 every agricultural operation, but the floater 

 always expects to find the land on which 

 he is to work previously made dry to his 

 hand ; and it is the surface of the land, 

 and not its strata, that he has to consider,. 



In the same page, Mr. Smith objects to 

 the floaters treading the beds of the mea- 

 dow w hen the water is upon them j but 

 he mistakes the intent of this treading^ 

 which is not had recourse to, to make 

 them solid, as he supposes, but to make 

 their surface even, that the water may 

 communicate its benefit to every plant of 

 grasg alike, and that it may meet with no 



imprope^^ 



