SOUTHERN E PLANTER. 



Devoted to Agriculture, Horticulture, and the Household Arts. 



Agriculture is the nursing mother of the Arts. 

 — Xenophon. 



Tillage and Pasturage are the two breasts of 

 the State. — Sully. 



FRANK. G. RUFFIN, Editor. 



F. G. RUFFIN & N. AUGUST, Prop'rs. 



Vol. XVI. 



RICHMOND, JUNE, 1856. 



No. 6. 



Communications to the Virginia State Agri- 

 cultural Society. 

 ESSAY ON IRRIGATION. 



BY WELLINGTON GORDON, OF LOUISA. 



\_A premium of Fifty Dollars.'] 

 Our agriculture has arrived to the insurpassable 

 state of imperfection of applying its best soil to 

 the removal of the worst farther from market. 



Arator. 



Nothing has yet been done to wipe from 

 our agriculture the reproach of Arator. 



The alluvial treasure, annually washed 

 from our forests and badly cultivated soils, 

 and floated down our rivers, continues to 

 serve no other purpose but to obstruct our 

 navigation and poison our atmosphere. Not 

 one scientific effort has been made to arrest 

 it, in its progress to tide- water, and none to 

 appropriate it below. 



Of the amount of agricultural wealth, 

 thus neglected, no accurate estimate can be 

 made ;* but if the intelligent people of Vir- 

 ginia would understand and practice Irriga- 

 tion, as, for centuries, it has been under- 

 stood and practiced by the ignorant peasants 

 of China, Egypt, and of Lombardy, they 

 would discover floating through their lands 

 a treasure more valuable than the Chinchse 

 Islands, and requiring only a skilful use of 

 the shovel and the spade, to be distributed 



* The Mississippi has been estimated to deposit 

 eight millions of solid feet per hour. Estimating 

 the deposits of all the rivers of Virginia to be one 

 hundredth part of that of the Mississippi, and 

 that six inches of this deposit is equivalent to a 

 coat of stable manure, the annual loss will be 

 found to exceed 30,000 acres of fertilizing ma- 

 terial. 



over their hungry and thirsty soils. They 

 would also learn where Providence with- 

 holds from them the early and the latter 

 rains, that there are summer showers in the 

 running brooks. 



In dry and arid countries, Irrigation has 

 been coeval with the cultivation of the soil. 

 Famine, to whom more than to science, ag- 

 riculture is indebted for its discoveries, has 

 been its schoolmaster there. It is not a ne- 

 cessity in Virginia, and is therefore sup- 

 posed to be unsuited to our climate. It is 

 also believed to require a skill that we do 

 not possess, and an amount of labour, which 

 we cannot spare. The purpose of this pa- 

 per, in part, is to point out the fallacy of the 

 two last named objections. That of climate 

 might be disposed of, in a more summary 

 manner, but in its consideration an oppor- 

 tunity is presented of portraying the mar- 

 vellous results of irrigation, wherever prac- 

 ticed, and some tediousness will therefore 

 be bestowed upon it. Premising that, in 

 climate and soil, Lombardy, and especially 

 Venetian Lombardy, very nearly resemble 

 Eastern Virginia, the following extract from 

 the reports of the British Board of agricul- 

 ture is worthy of attention. 



" The waters of the chief rivers of the north 

 of Italy, such as the Po, the Adige, the Tagli- 

 mento and of all the minor streams, are employed 

 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 formed 

 into one great water meadow, yet the irrigating 

 system is not confined to grass lands ; the water 

 is conveyed into the hollows between the ridges 

 in corn lands, into the low lands where rice is 

 cultivated, and around the roots of the vines. 

 From Italy the practice extended into the South 



