IMPROYEMEi^T OF SOILS. 39 



tribution of the water. The feeders are not carried lon- 

 gitudinally down the meadow, but across the line of de- 

 scent. They are filled as before from a main conductor ; 

 but the water having overflowed the lower side of each, 

 is not discharged into smaller drains, as in the former 

 case, but into the next feeder lower down ; the purpose 

 of the catch-furrow being to cut off the rills into which 

 a surface liow is apt to collect, and re-start the overflow 

 evenly once more. The water is thus conveyed from 

 feeder to feeder until it reaches the main drain, at 

 the lower part of the field. This is termed the Catch- 

 "Work system, and as it can be adopted where the surface 

 is too much inclined to admit of bed-work, it is fre- 

 quently practicable where the other is not, and is often 

 combmed with it in the same meadow where there are 

 inequalities of surface. On arable hind the catch-work 

 system is best, as the bed-work w^ould be continually de- 

 stroyed. It is also less expensive to begin with than lay- 

 ing the land out in beds on the ridge-and-furrow system. 



Time for applyinif Water to Meadows. — Where the 

 winters are not severe, water may be kept many days at 

 a time on the fields during the entire season of frosts. 

 This protects the grasses, which, on the approach of warm 

 weather, at once start into growth and yield an early and 

 abundant crojD. But in general this system cannot be 

 successfully practised. The water may be admitted, at 

 proper intervals, freely during the spring and early part of 

 the summer, when vegetation is either just coming, or is 

 going forward rapidly. It is sufficient to flood the sur- 

 face thoroughly, and then shut off the water for a time. 

 The water should be taken off before the grasses com- 

 mence ripening : indeed, the common use of the water 

 meadow in localities where the soil abounds in lime where 

 they are most useful, is in providing the earliest succu- 

 lent food for ewes and lambs, which are folded on them 



