AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 443 



The laud of the Tavistock meadows quadrupled in value after 

 four years irrigation. 



Therefore, the primary condition of pure air is, that all refuse 

 and town odor should be immediately removed from tlie vicinity 

 of dwellings; and this, in my opinion, can be most economically 

 and completely accomplished by saturation in water as proposed. 

 The application of this liquid on farms through the medium of 

 irrigation would be far less injurious to health than the common 

 method of solid top dressings. These liquid substances would 

 not be exposed to evaporation before they reached tlie farm on 

 which they were to be distributed for absorption by the land. 



A Mr. Neilson of Halewood farm, on the Earl of Derby's estate, 

 eight miles from Liverpool, raised by liquid manure, as he says, 

 on a well underd rained acre of land, previously fertile and in good 

 condition, one hundred tons of green crop of Italian rye grass 

 within one year. Think of that gentlemen of the Farmers' club, 

 and eschew the solid compost at once, as most of us would re- 

 quire fifty acres of good land to equal Mr. Neilson's single acre, 

 the produce of which was worth three dollars per ton at least, 

 more than the interest on four thousand three hundred dollars for 

 a single acre of land. If Mr. Neilson can do it, we can — let us 

 try. 



The principle is to give a new born plaqt an abundance of food 

 in its infancy, that it may acquire sufficient strength to avail itself 

 of the stores of food provided by nature within its reach. The 

 same rule follows with regard to young animals — feed them well 

 when young and they will take care of themselves afterwards ; 

 starve tliemin infiuicy and their growth and strength will be stunt- 

 ed, and their after life wretched and miserable. You must recollect 

 when irrigating your lands that some require much more w^ater 

 than others — for example, take one hundred pounds of quartz 

 sand and saturate it, you will find when it has absorbed tweiit}-- 

 four pounds, water will drop from it ; calcareous sand, thirty 

 pounds ; loam soil, thirty-nine pounds 5 clay loam, forty-nhie 

 pounds; pure clay, sixty-eight puunds. 



Six tons of night soil diluted with twenty- four tons of water 

 will produce a far more fertilizing effect than a top dressing of 

 thirty loads of stable manure, and the weight of gmss on the land 

 irrigated will be fifty-two per cent greater. The time when liquid 

 manures may be distributed with the best effect on vegetation is 

 when the rootlets are out, and the plant in vigorous action. In 

 March and April you may irrigate at any hour during the day — in 

 May, June, July and August, from four to ten o'clock, a. m., and 



