88 THE FAEM. 



new system, are prepared thus: the earth is dug out to the depth of 

 about two feet, and the perfectly level bottom is covered with bricks 

 or tiles (or it may be more cheaply done with concrete) quite water- 

 tight, with bricks on edge at the four sides, to prevent the liquid from 

 escaping. Upon the bottom is laid, the whole lengthway of the bed and 

 midway, a line of half-round drain-tiles, laid together (the convex part 

 uppermost) in the usual way. At the end of each bed next the walk, 

 a pipe is slantingly fixed, inclining downward to the main channel, for 

 the purpose of conveying the liquid into it, and an upright pipe is placed 

 at the other end as an index, by which any one looking into it, or gaug- 

 ing the depth, can tell the height to which the moisture rises. 



The surface being prepaised as described, the earth that had been re- 

 moved is thrown back again. 



By means of a gutta-percha hose, with arms that can be turned to 

 each bed, furnished with stop-cocks, the liquid can be supplied to all or 

 any of the beds at once. It passes along their entire length at bot- 

 tom, rising through the interstices between the pipes ; and being ab- 

 sorbed by the earOi, it feeds the roots of the plants. None of it runs to 

 waste : it cannot escape through the bricks. 



That this system of applying manure is productive of great results, no 

 one who has seen Mr. Wilkins's crops can doubt. The plants are 

 directly supplied with food in the form in which it is most suitable to 

 them ; none of it is lost by evaporation, which in surface irrigation must 

 take place. Neither scorching heat of the sun, nor parching wind, de- 

 prives it of its most precious qualities. The plants imbibe the full 

 amount of nourishment which the manure contains : there is no waste 

 whatever. 



On the beds thus prepared and thus manured, the differences in some 

 of the crops were in the following proportions : 



On the new beds, mangolds weighed about three times more than those 

 grown on the opposite beds treated in the old way. 



Swedes measured twenty-three and a half inches in girth in the one 

 instance, and less than half this in the other. 



The yield of wheat, peas, and beans was double the amount on the 

 watered beds. 



A single potato grown in mere sand produced ninety-four tubers, 

 while two planted under the old system produced but seventy-seven. A 

 single ash-leaved kidney planted in saw-dust yielded, under the new 

 system, one hundred tubers, weighing twenty-four pounds. 



Similar differences were seen in the crops of hemp, flax, hops. Lucerne 

 and Italian rye-grasses : five cuttings were obtained of the two last by 

 the underground watering ; while only two were obtained from the un- 

 watered beds. 



A very remarkable distinction appeared in the growth of two vine- 

 cuttings, both planted at the same time, one receiving the liquid manure, 

 and the other being without it — ^the former was about fifteen inches high 

 when the other was scarcely four. 



Gardens belonging to poor-houses and various public establishments 

 of an industrial nature, might, to some extent at least, be treated on 

 this plan. On very poor and otherwise almost worthless soils, the sys- 



