No. 129. J 191 



result of the good effects which were observed to be produced by 

 the overflowing of the Nile and Chinese rivers ; as in China, 

 irrigation, it seems, has been practiced, according to their histo- 

 rians, from a period long before the flood." If the system has 

 been in use in the latter country, for three or four thousand 

 years, it is a long time. In Italy, especially on the banks of the 

 Po, the cultivators of the earth have certainly employed this 

 process from a period previous to the days of Virgil, as this au- 

 thor, and the writings of M. P. Cato, Collumella, and the elder 

 Pliny testify. In the early part of the middle ages it was re- 

 sumed in Italy, first by the monks, in their religious establish- 

 ments, they monopolized all the wealth and learning of that day, 

 and knew best the use ot irrigation. The princes and chief men 

 of Italy, especially Lombardy, patronized and folio »ved so useful 

 an example, in extending the employment of water in all possible 

 directions. The waters of the chief rivers of the north of Italy, 

 such as the Po, the Adige, the Tagliamento, and of all the minor 

 streams, are used in irrigation. There is no other country which 

 possesses an extent of rich water meadows equal to that of the 

 Lombards. The entire country, from Venice to Turin, may be 

 said to be one great water meadow. The irrigation system is not 

 confined here to grass lands ; the water is conveyed on to higher 

 ground, where corn and the cereals are grown, into the low lands 

 where rice is cultivated, and around the roots of vines. These 

 last generally required a dryer soil, and will perhaps flourish 

 with less moisture than many other plants, yet they must have a 

 portion of it to produce clusters of the largest size, loaded with 

 the richest fruit, and of the highest flavor. We have the records 

 of holy writ for this. And Moses said unto his commission of 

 twelve whom he sent to spy out the laud of Canaan, " See what 

 the land is, -whether it be fat or lean, whether there be w^ood 

 therein or not, be of good courage, and bring of the fruit of the 

 land ; now the time Y\^as, of the time of the first ripe grapes. And 

 they came unto the brook Eshcol, and cut down from thence a 

 branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bore it between two 

 upon a staflf." Most assuredly a large cluster which took two 

 men to carry it between them on a pole. This great growth was 

 no doubt owing, in that dry climate and soil, to the influence of 

 the moisture of the brook Eshcol, on the banks of which these 



