No. 216.] 789 



purpose of irrigation, and all the country contiguous to them from 

 Turin to Venice, is capable of being overflowed; they find it neces- 

 sary to irrigate^, not only for grass, but for corn and vines. The 

 waters of all these rivers belong to the states through which they 

 pass, and no man can use them without paying the state a price regu- 

 lated by the quantity of water required. Lands capable of being ir- 

 rigated in northern Italy, rent nearly for one half more than lands 

 which are not. In all the hot countries in Asia, and in all tropical 

 climates irrigation is carried to a great extent as the most effectual 

 mode of producing fertility. It has been a favorite system of agri- 

 culture in Hindostan, Arabia and Persia, as well as in the Empire 

 of China. I noticed a statement made in the Journal of Commerce 

 yesterday, by a gentleman who had resided many years, 1400 miles 

 up the river Ganges in India, that millions of people had died of 

 famine, rain not having fallen for six months, and that the British 

 Government were now constructing a canal from the mountains in 

 which the Ganges rise 700 miles in length, at a cost of $50,000,000, 

 for the purpose of irrigation. I was shown land in the vicinity of 

 Edinburgh, Scotland, belonging to Earl Moray, that had been irri- 

 gated by the street water from the cit}, and thus made superior to 

 any other land in Great Britain, yielding six crops of grass in a sin- 

 gle year, which is sold for the purpose of being fed to milch cows, 

 for £29 sterling per acre, and has been sold as high, when grass was 

 scarce, as £55 sterling per acre. Forty-tvvo acres of poor sandy 

 soil near the city was irrigated at an expense of <£900, and in 1833, 

 when I was there, rented for j619 per acre, about $84.36. 



There are on Long Island, within a few miles of this city, large 

 tracts of sandy soil, now worth perhaps $5 per acre, which I am 

 confident might be made worth $150, by a proper and judicious 

 mode of irrigation. Adjoining many of these lands, there are ex- 

 tensive ponds, which by the use of proper steam machinery might be 

 made to irrigate them. The first expense in many instances, would 

 be great, but the profits would be far greater. I would respectfully 

 advise some of the Long Island millionaires to try the experiment 

 on a small scale. It only requires the success of a single individual 

 to induce every inhabitant to follow his example, and Long Island 

 woold soon become the garden of New York. 



In Switzerland, the mountain torrents as they descend in the fall, 

 are conducted over the vallies, which are flooded, and in many in- 

 stances remain so during the winter ; one winter's flooding is consi- 



