166 THE OX AND THE DAIRY. 



growth soon appears, and the grass is ready to be cut a second 

 time, when the dry meadows only give their first crop. Thus, 

 by judicious management, three or four crops of grass are 

 obtained in each season, or only one abundant crop is made 

 into hay, and the sheep and cattle feed off the others. The 

 usual way in which the grass of water-meadows is made pro- 

 fitable is by feeding ewes which have early lambs till the 

 middle of April. A short flooding soon reproduces a crop, 

 which is mown for hay in June ; another flooding gives an 

 abundant aftermath, which is either mown for hay, or fed off 

 by cows, bullocks, and horses ; for at this time the sheep, if 

 pastured in water-meadows, are very subject to the rot. The 

 value of good water-meadows is very great : when the water is 

 suited to irrigation they never require manuring ; their ferti- 

 lity is kept up continually, and the only attention required is 

 to weed out coarse aquatic plants. 



Water may be carried in small channels through meadows 

 without being allowed to overflow, and in this case the effect 

 is similar to that caused by rivers or brooks which wind slowly 

 through valleys, and produce a rich verdure along their course. 

 This Fs watering, but not properly irrigating. When this is 

 done judiciously, the effect is very nearly the same as when 

 the land is irrigated ; and in hot climates it may be preferable, 

 by giving a constant supply of moisture to the roots, while the 

 plants are growing. The great advantage of water-meadows 

 in England is, not so much the superior quantity of grass or 

 hay which is obtained when they are mown, as the early feed 

 in spring, when all kinds of nutritive fodder are scarce ; when 

 the turnips are consumed, before the natural grass or the rye 

 sown for that purpose is fit to be fed off, the water-meadows 

 afford abundant pasture to ewes and lambs, which by this 

 means are brought to an early market. The farmer who has 

 water-meadows can put his ewes earlier to the ram, without 

 fear of wanting food for them and their lambs in March, which 

 is the most trying season of the year for those who have sheep. 

 At that time an acre of good grass may be worth as much for 

 a month as a later crop would for the remainder of the year. 

 When it is intended to form a water-meadow on a surface 

 which is nearly level, or where a fall of only two or three feet 

 can be obtained in a considerable length, the whole of the 

 land must be laid in beds about twenty or thirty feet wide, 

 the middle or crown of these beds being on a level with the 

 main feeders and the bottoms or drains on a level with the 



