AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE. 131 



ing canals, and an amateur seldom lets the year go round 

 without making some such change as the result of ob- 

 servation "or of restless fancy. 



Whoever has watched this annually repeated cultiva- 

 tion, and followed the care with which the owners study 

 their little properties to find out the nature of the soil, 

 and choose the disposition best suited to the position 

 with regard to the sun and the wind, will be convinced 

 that a perfect system of water-meadowing must be a 

 work of time and of great care and observation. He 

 will, however, be persuaded, by observing the value of 

 the crops obtained without the aid of manure from a 

 large extent of poor land under a severe climate, that no 

 time should be lost in adopting this mode of treating 

 meadows wherever circumstances make it practicable. 

 The Duke of Portland and the Duke of Marlborough 

 have, we believe, recently adopted irrigation on a 

 large scale in England, where at least as much land may 

 easily be watered as has of late years been drained, and 

 unquestionably with a no less profitable result. Although 

 the manure obtained from towns is of the greatest value 

 in increasing the yield of meadows, yet it is import- 

 ant to make the fact known, that simple water, unac- 

 companied by the wash of floods, or by any extraneous 

 matter, promotes the growth of grass on meadows in 

 a remarkable manner. The meadows of Siegen allow 

 the peasants to give all their dung to the arable land, 

 which, in its cold bleak situation on the sides of the hills, 

 would, on other terms, not be worth cultivating. The 

 whole agricultural plan of this district thus combines 

 whatever can be of use to a half-manufacturing popula- 

 tion, by demanding little labour and producing chiefly 



