374 



N £ A ENGLAND FARMER 



MAY 13, ?S40. 



fundamental truth as a point of departure — a sure 

 test to wliich we may always refer to prove ill ul- 

 terior deductions. Water, air, light and hea!, thou, 

 it is admitted, L'oiistitute the great chemicnl levcK 

 by which the vegetable lungdom is raised, and the 

 inert earth is the fulcrum on which it acts. 



As far back as 1 can remember, iirigatinn has 

 been practised in our country, although not so com- 

 monly as in Europe. The English mode described 

 by Mr Webster, I have often seen in this State, 

 where sprin^js were at command. The use of a 

 copious spring for this purpose, by General Hull, on 

 liis farm in Newton, gave rise to a suit between 

 him and a manufacturing company, who complained 

 against this use of the water, as it passed through 

 liis farm, contending that it diminished the power 

 of the mill. The suit was decided against agricul- 

 ture, but on wliat principles, I must leave prufoiin- 

 der jurists to determine. If the great and com- 

 mendable temperance reform had then been in 

 operation, the mill company might have added to 

 their complaint that the General d'-ank too much of 

 the water ms it passed over his land. I can find no 

 .wlicre in the code Justinian or the code Napoleon, 

 any inhibition against the use of water for irriga- 

 tion, in its passage over the successive farms. Per- 

 haps when the importance of the agricultural inte- 

 rest becomes better understood, and the creative 

 power of water better known, our intelligent legis- 

 lators from the country will settle this question by 

 statute. 



In the conclusiim of my last letter, in your paper 

 of the '-iSd April, my allusion to the mode of retain- 

 ing water on high grounds, for irrigation or other 

 purposes, was not so clear as I could wish. I was 

 absent, you are aware, and could not examine the 

 prool. There arc few fiirins which have not some 

 ))lace where water may be stopped a;id retained for 

 future use. Some natural cavities, with a little la- 

 bor, cciuld be converted into ponds. Many narrow 

 gorges between neighboring hills, may be made in- 

 to reservoirs, by a short dam; and in both *a.-es, if 

 the earth be of gravel or sand, and too Idose to 

 hold water, it may be puddled with clay, or it will 

 in a short time become impervious, by the natural 

 sediment. These artificial reservoirs will be kept 

 always full by the rain alone, provided they have 

 the wash of a small quantity of land more elevated ; 

 and then they may be used for the irrigation of all 

 lower lands, tor supplying aqueducts, or eve'n ' for 

 watering cattle, and thus save the labor and waste 

 of driving cattle over productive grass land to 

 reach some distant spring. In Europe, where there 

 is the smallest spring it is used to create artificial 

 fish ponds, and in passing from one pond to the 

 next, it is made to irrigate the intervening ground ; 

 and T never heard that the owner of the lower 

 pond or ground instituted suits against his neighbor 

 above, ior using the water. 



The J\/'orin (wrongly spelt in my last letter A'br- 

 ke,) may be used with economy, where much water 

 is wanted from a well for cattle, or in ca.<!e of a 

 great drought, perhaps, Ibr a garden. The Hi/drnu- 

 Kc iJam, which requires a small walcrfall, I shall 

 describe, as soon as I have time to draw you a dia- 

 gram, on which a mechanic could execute ii. But 

 the Syphon, to which I alluded in my last letter, 

 requires some further notice. I am somewhat 

 proud of this application of that old in-truinent, for 

 I never read or heard of its being used fur agricul- 

 tural purposes before I proposed it in France, more 

 than forty years ago. 



Let us now suppose that you have a sloping field 



to the south, quite dry, which you would convert 

 into a meadow; and there be on the opposite de- 

 clivify of the hill, at some thirty or forty feet below 

 the summit, a copious spring. It may be too far 

 to carry the water round the hill from this spring, 

 or you may not o»n the land over which it must 

 pass to get round. (This was my case in France.) 

 Now the process is simply this. Dig a rCTiervoir 

 about the spring. If it be a quicl< spring ti;e res- 

 ervoir need not be large: make a trench over the 

 hill for the syphon to li'' in. The trench need be 

 only deep enough to be clear of tho frost, excepting 

 at the summit of the liill, and there only in case it 

 be necessary to reduce tlie elevation to thirty feet 

 above the reservoir; for the syphon will rot draw- 

 beyond that elevation. The arm of the syphon, or 

 crane, which enters the reservoir, is the short arm ; 

 the other arm, on tlie opposite side of thciiill, must 

 be a footer two longer. Now to put this crane in 

 operation, instead of drawing it by the breath, as 

 usual, which would be impossible, both ends must 

 be stopped — the end of the short arm being under 

 water near the bottom of the reservoir, — then a 

 hole must be made in the highest part of the sy- 

 phon, if it be of wood, or if of metal, a short arm, 

 three or four inches long, soldered in that place, 

 through which h'ole or arm the syphon is to be filled 

 with water by a tunnel. When so filled, and cork- 

 ed, forcing the cork down upon the water as much 

 as possible, the stoppers may be taken out of both 

 ends of the syphon at the same time, and it will 

 continue to run as long as there is any water in the 

 reservoir. Now, to avoid the necessity of renew- 

 ing this operation, if the water should be exhausted, 

 there must be a cock at the end of the long arm, or 

 the diameter of the opening there must be calculat- 

 ed to take no more water than the spring will con- 

 stantly supply : then it will run forever, or so long 

 as the aqueduct remains sound. In performing 

 this operation, it is necessary lo guard against the 

 retention of air in any part of the syphon ; there- 

 fore, where any considerable portion of it runs over 

 a plain, undulations must bo avoided — other" ise, 

 the air would be confined in the summits of these 

 undulations, and could not c-cape, having tlie wa- 

 ter on both sides, and filling the whole bore of the 

 syphon. 



If it be desirable to bring water from a well, a 

 pond, or a river, at a considerable distance over a 

 plain, or irregular ground, where there shall be no 

 greater. elevation on the route than thirty feet, this 

 may be done with the syphon ; and cannot be done 

 otherwise, without digging a trench, the whole dis- 

 tance, as deep as the water is at the source, at its 

 lowest depth. 'I his process was described in my 

 last letter, in the case of A!r Chapman's wells in 

 Charlestown. 'I he receiving well or reservoir at 

 the place where the water is wanted, must be a lit- 

 tle deeper than the lov.e.-^t surfiice of the water at 

 the place from whence it is to be drawn; and the 

 arm of the syphon longest, in the Aome reservoir; 

 the water then will remain in that reservoir on the 

 Fame level as in the river, pond, or other source. 

 It will be seen that by this process, an abundant 

 supply of good water may be had so near the sur- 

 face as to bo dipped out, in many cases; and in 

 such cases, with no other reservoir than a sunken 

 tub. It is also apparent that an inexhaustible sup- 

 ply of water so easily had, would authorise other 

 atteiripts to use it for watering gardens, or even 

 level fields, on a large scale, in very dry seasons. 



The syphon may be used to drain swamps or 

 ponds, where a lower point is not too distant, and 



I where the intervening ground is of rock, or to 

 j high to drain them in the usual way, by a ditch.- 

 i Some swamps may be drained even without an 

 lower place to take ofli'the water, provided .ajver 

 loose soil can be found by digging wells in til 

 neighborhood, and placing therein the long end c 

 a syphon, communicating with the swamp. Final 

 ly, the syphon may he used to transport water fror 

 one stream to another, running in an opposite di 

 rection, when it is desired to increase one of thei 

 for manufacturing pui poses : the syphon in sue 

 cases may be made large enough to take all th 

 water out of one of the sources. 



It should be remembered that, although a pum 

 be a very ingenious contrivance, and well suite 

 for a house or stable, it should not be used, wher 

 labor is high, for purposes which require a gres 

 consumption of wafer. The ingenuity of my cour 

 trymen will devise various modes of raising wate 

 a few feet; and they will always find, that the siir 

 plest is the best mode. 



'i o return for a moment to that great hydrauli 

 apparatus which draws water from the air, viz. th 

 woods, I would ask our oldest inhabitants of th 

 country, whetlier they do not remember many sma! 

 ponds, springs and brooks, in former times, whic 

 do not now exist? II so, I call this fact as a wi( 

 ness in favor of keeping good that source, as Ion 

 as possible, by h'javing wood on our hills. Th 

 diminution of wood lands, must be the cause ofth 

 diminution of water alluded to; and it is quite pos 

 sible that some of our good mill powers will ceas 

 to be so, at no distant period. 



The water retained on high grounds and in th 

 gorges of the hills, as recommended in the begin 

 ning of this article, will be taken up in part by th 

 surrounding woods, and contribute to their growth 

 And being arrested and conducted in channels fo 

 irrigation, it will then cease to run down in torrent 

 carrying away, in its course, the soil and sometime 

 covering rich meadows with sand or gravel. 



In that part of France where I lived, there wa 

 much rain, and places where there was too muc 

 water, like those noticed in England, by Mr Web 

 ster ; and the French have been in. the habit of get 

 ting rid of this superfluous water in a way some 

 what similar to that described by Mr Webster, bu 

 better suited to our stony country. They dij 

 trenches sufticiently deep to be out of the way c 

 the plough, and lay hiose stones in them, and afte 

 covering these stones with brush and stubble, re 

 place the earth, and drain the land without loss c 

 any part of it. 



I believe that many of our bogs may be raisei 

 and turned into rich meadows, so as to pay well fo 

 the labor, where stone, gravel, or sand is near. Fo 

 example, ditch this land in the dry season, wit 

 ditches six feet wide, and twelve feet apart; the 

 fill these ditches with stones, gravel or sand, in th 

 winter, when the cattle and the men have little t 

 do. It will be easy carting over the level ice i: 

 these ditches, where the stone, &c. may remain an 

 fall in when the thaw comes. I would not, how 

 ever, advise any great outlay of money for sue! 

 works, but merely to use them as a savings bank t 

 receive the odds and ends of loisurt! hours. 



I shall resume some of the subjects heretofor 

 noticed ratlier too hastily, for practical effect, an 

 endeavor to recollect a few of the modes of bus 

 bandry which may seem to difler from our own ; si 

 that practical farmers may make such use of then 

 as they may please. It is quite possible that 

 may tell old stories, as old men arc apt to do ; fo 



