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LXX1V. ON THE ADVANTAGES OF IRRIGATING GARDEN GROUNDS 

 BY MEANS OF TANKS OR PONDS. 



[Read before the HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, August 1th, 1832.] 



THE quantity of water which may be given with advantage to plants of 

 almost every kind, during warm and bright weather, is, I believe, very 

 much greater than any gardener, who has not seen the result, will be 

 inclined to suppose possible ; and it is greater than I myself could have 

 believed upon any other evidence than that of actual experience. 



My garden, in common with many others, is supplied with water by 

 springs, which rise in a more elevated situation ; and this circumstance 

 afforded me the means of making a small pond, from which I can cause 

 the water to flow out over every part of my garden whenever I wish. I 

 am thus enabled to irrigate my strawberry beds whilst in flower, and my 

 alpine strawberry beds, and plants of every other kind, through every 

 part of the summer ; and I cause a stream to flow down the rows of celery 

 and along the rows of brocoli, and other plants which are planted out in 

 summer, with very great advantage. But the most extensive and bene- 

 ficial use which I make of the power to irrigate my garden by the means 

 above mentioned is in supplying my late crops of peas abundantly with 

 water ; by which the ill effects of mildew are almost wholly prevented, 

 and my table is most abundantly supplied with very excellent peas through 

 the month of October, as I have stated in a former communication. 

 Several of my friends, who have caused large quantities of water to be 

 carried, have obtained abundant crops late in the autumn of the variety 

 of pea which bears my name ; but they have complained that the 

 birds have eaten the whole crop. This will almost always occur where 

 means are not taken to prevent it : but there are only two species 

 of bird which ever break open the pods of green peas, the large black- 

 headed and the blue /tit mouse (the Parus major and Parus cseruleus of 

 Linnaeus), and both these are very easily caught. The coal titmouse, the 

 nuthatch, the chaffinch, and the robin, will eat the peas when the pods 

 are opened ; but neither of these ever break them. For the purpose of 

 taking such birds, I employ a little trap, which I invented when a school- 

 boy, and which secures without injuring them, and enables me to release 

 the unoffending ; and I do not find the smallest difficulty in preserving 

 my crops of peas in any season. 



When water is delivered in the usual quantity from the watering- pan, 

 its effects, for a short time, are almost always beneficial, by wetting the 



