A N D H O R T I C U L T U l{ A L R E Cx I S T E 11 . 



9 



PURi.ISHED BY JOSEPH BRECK & CO., NO. 52 NORTH MARKET STREET,' (AGnicuL-runAL Warehouse.) 



VOL. X v'ln.] 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, APRIL 29, 1840. 



[NO. 43. 



N. E . FARMER. 



For the New Englan.l In 



LETTER FROM WILLLA.M FOSTER, E.s<i. 

 . [Concluded. J 



Cadiz in S|>iiin, is n city of about eighty thousatiu 

 inhabitants. Tt is a peuin-^ula, and is separated 

 from the main land liy a liarren neck of sand, seven 

 or eight miles long, without a sign of vegetation, 

 excepting where it has hoan created by the indus- 

 try of man, and t'le elements in conjunction. This 

 city is wholly supplied with vegetables, and chiefly 

 with milk, by gardens made on this barren sand — 

 The city affords little m.nure, the streets beingvery 

 narrow, and there being but few horses there. 



These gardens are made level, and intersected 

 by little gutters to conduct water into the beds, in- 

 to which tliev are divided about 40 by 20 feet, 

 hemmed round by little dams about 12 inches high. 

 When tlie ditches are filled with water in the man- 

 ner I shall e.\plain presently, the gardener witli his 

 hoe makes a small gap in the dam and floods these 

 beds, one after the other, and closes thom when so 

 flooded. This operation is performed once or oft- 

 ener, in a day, according to circumstances. It 

 must be noticed ihat there are six months of the 

 year during which little or no rainfalls in the south 

 of Spain. But the water for this irrigation is drawn 

 from weHs in a very simple and cheap manner.—^ 

 Over the wellthere is a machine called .VonVc, con- 

 sisting of one p^pcndicular whefel witli projecting 

 cogs, which geer into an old-fashioned lantern. On 

 the opposite side of the cogs, stand off wooden 

 spokes about 14 inches long; over these spokes 

 hangs an endless band, composed of two. parallel 

 bass ropes ; between these ropes there are fastened 

 a number of earthen pots, which go down empty on 

 one side and come up full on tlie other, and dis- 

 charge into a trough, from which the little garden 

 canals are supplied. The pots have a small aper- 

 ture in the bottom, to allow the air to escape, while 

 they are filling. 



Notwithstanding the numerous hydraulic ma- 

 chines to draw water from wells, this, although the 

 most ancient, is the most productive by any given 

 power. It is still in use in Egypt and on the whole 

 ttDrthern coast of Africa. This simple mill is turn- 

 ed 1)y a horse, aco^v, or an ass. 



Here then is nothing but water, air, sun and 

 sand to produce vegetables for eighty thousand in- 

 habitants. I make no mention here of the shipping, 

 which is very numerjus, but leave that to balance 

 the supply of vegetables which may come from 

 more distant places. 



I will mention one small experiment of my own. 

 While in France, and a rpuisi farmer, I came in 

 possession of a few potatoes from an English wreck, 

 and planted them on a perfect swamp, barely stroniT 

 enougli to .support a few wheelbarrow loads of bar 

 ren gravel, whicli was near at hand. In these 

 heaps of gravel, which I madf in imitation of the 

 potato hills which I remembered at home, I planted 



n few potatoes, and gathered an excellent crop i^ 

 fine potatoes. Now these floating hills of gravel 

 performed merely the function of a matri.x, in whicij 

 the vegetable congestion was performed: the nour- 

 )i7iHif)i< of the plant came from the air and water; 

 or their united powers decoiiposed a part of the 

 gravel and a part of the bog, and prepared them 

 also for vegetable aliment. I dwell on this subject 

 for the purpose of fixing your attention to the vory 

 important part which air, light, heat and water have 

 in vegetable formation. It will not be strenuously 

 coutcaded by any one that the lifeless gravel was, 

 in this case, an important constituent of the potato 

 crop. And if there be any analogy between the 

 powers of animal digestion on living food, (which 

 are said to he null,) and vegetable digestion, the 

 living bog could not have aftbrdod any nourishmoiit 

 to my potatoes, although the decnyi'd portions of 

 the hog might have contributed to it in some de- 

 ! groe. Still there is scope enough left to show that 

 water and air were the principal constituents. That 

 n ater will produce solids, in a great variety of forms 

 and substances, has been nufHciently proved in our 

 own imperfect chemical laboratories. What won- 

 ders nature can perform with the same substance, 

 we may never entirely know. But we find this im- 

 portant element in all her works ; and none of 

 them without some proof of its agency. 



Stagnant water in a basin of inert clay, cannot 

 remain long without discovering signs of incipient 

 V goidtii.u, i.i th.it groo!i.=cmtt which .soon appears ; 

 and soon after, without afly apparent generative 

 cause, animal existence becomes apparent. 



Being now convinced of the vast importance of 

 this great agent, let us keep our sylvan nets always 

 spread, and ready to arrest it in its passage from 

 the lakes and the ocean over the tiursty earth ; and 

 then let us economise it by all possible means ; and 

 not let it run too hastily to the ocean from whence 

 it came, before it has paid its due tribute. 



We often hear during great droughts, of water 

 being so scarce that cattle must be driven miles to 

 be watered. Now, it would be hardly possible to find 

 a farm v hich presents some inequality of surface, 

 where tlio superfluous water from higher grounds 

 could not be conducted into a place of deposit 

 below. There are thousands, even, which offer 

 better places of deposit on high locations, in the 

 gorges of hills, where a short dam would retain 

 thousands of hogsheads of water, which might be 

 used for irrigation, as w-ell as for other purposes; 

 and where water is at command, we have seeirabove, 

 vegetable increase is certain. As it is well to mix 

 a little practice with theory, 1 will relate the story 

 of a small trial in this neighborhood and on a place 

 not the most favorable. 



A number of years ago, Mr Francis Aniory, call- 

 ed upon me to visit his farm in Milton, to advise 

 him about getting soft water for his house. '! Iiis 

 farm is near to the Blue Hill ridge, but is detached 

 from if, and forms an insulated rising by itself, the 

 greater part of the land being higher than the 

 grounds about the house. We chose the lowest 

 part of an adjoining meadow, near the house, for 

 the place of our reservoir, over which the wash of 



the higher ground in the rear naturally flowed, 

 though not in tlie form of a brook, but quite imper- 

 ceptibly, as on any moderate declivity. 'J'heru we 

 dug a reservoir about twelve feet diameter, and as 

 many deep, and stoned it with common wall stonca. 

 From the house to this reservoir there was laid a 

 lead pipe, for the convenience of pumping the wa- 

 ter into the k.tchen. This reservoir, I am almost 

 annually informed by Mr Amory, has never failed 

 in the driest seasons. 



The city of Cadiz occupies less ground by three 

 quarters than Boston, and contains about the same 

 number of inhabitants. For six months of the year 

 little or no rain falls there ; yet the roofs of their 

 houses furnish them water for all purposes but 

 drinking. Tliis water is conducted into stone tanks. 

 It was on a suggestion of this fact, several years 

 ago, that our city government adopted their present 

 system of reservoirs, which may be made to furnish 

 twenty times more than it now does, at a small ad- 

 ditional expenditure. 



There are situations -where water may be easily 

 collected, hut from whence it cannot, without too 

 much expense, be taken by natural inclination for 

 irrigation or other purposes where it is wanted. Hut 

 there are various modes of removing this water 

 mechanically. Let us suppose that it is now want- 

 ed in a direct line over a rising ground of 20 feet 

 elevation, to irrigate a meadow. The AJ'orice, de- 

 scribed above, would answer the purpose, but might 

 be too exiK;V..;'ve for our country. The Hydraulic 

 Ram, of wJiich 1 shall offfer you a plan, would be 

 less expensive of labor, but vastly wasteful of wa- 

 ter; and is useful only to elevate smaller quantities 

 of water for houses and stables. The Syphon, how- 

 ever, may be used to great advantage, under all 

 elevations, which come within the pressure of the 

 atmosphere, viz. about 32 feet; or where the crown 

 of a hill may be reduced by a trench for the Sy- 

 phon, lo that elevation. This Syphon may be from 

 one inch bore to any other convenient calibre ; and 

 will continue to run as long as there is any water 

 in the reservoir. 



It would seem, when we contemplate the expen- 

 sive Roman aqueducts, that they were unacquainted 

 with this hydraulic instrume.it. It was first applied 

 upon a large scale in this country, I believe, at my 

 suggestion, by the father of our present Mayor, at 

 Charlestown, to draw water to a well in his distillery, 

 from another well, several hundred feet distant; 

 and afterwards on the Boston Mill Dam, for. one 

 mile. All (jver continental Europe, where the 

 smallest spring can be found, it is used in succes- 

 sion by all who can have access to it, to make arti- 

 ficial ponds, where fish are raised for consumption. 

 It would be an interesting question of rural econo- 

 my to h'arn how much these ponds contribute to 

 the food of man. The amount must be very great, 

 hut I "llo not remember to have seen it stated in the 

 European statistics. 



In that part of France where I lived, although 

 the farms are very small, from ten to twentyfive 

 acres, they obtain shelter for their grain and other 

 low vegetatiim, and attract moisture from the air 

 by the same means. These small farms are divid- 



