462 



On the Management of Barley. 



or that variety as being the best or most productive for every 

 locality ; but my own opinion is decidedly in favour of Chevalier 

 and Brewers' Delight ; bearing always in mind the necessity for a 

 change of seed, and care being taken to sow the boldest and best 

 that can be obtained. There can, I thinks be no doubt that the 

 same laws prevail in the vegetable as in the animal world. Few 

 will dispute the fact, that strong and health} 7 animals propagate 

 a like progeny, and vice versa. So we may fairly infer, and it is 

 moreover borne out by the results of practice, that from the largest 

 and best kernels of grain of every description the best crops will 

 be produced. 



XXIII. — On the Theory and Practice of Water- Meadows. 

 By Ph. Pusey, M.P. 



Some years since a slight account of some Devonshire water- 

 meadows, and of the cheap rate at which they are formed, was 

 inserted by me in this Journal. Having now formed some myself 

 on the same plan in Berkshire, I am thus enabled to state dis- 

 tinctly what they have cost me ; and if the money so spent yield 

 a profit of 30 per cent., which at a moderate estimate it can be 

 shown to do, this mode of improvement must deserve the atten- 

 tion of landlords, now especially, when tenants stand so much 

 in need of assistance, and labourers of employment. 



It is well known that, in forming water-meadows, to moisten 

 them is not the main object, the stream being laid on chiefly in 

 winter, when commonly the ground is already rather too wet. 

 Yet a slight film of water trickling then over the surface, for it 

 must not stagnate, rouses the sleeping grass, tinges it with living 

 green amidst snows or frost, and brings forth a luxuriant crop in 

 early spring, just when it is most wanted, while the other meadows 

 are still bare and brown. It is a cheerful sight to see the wild 

 birds haunting these green spots among the hoar-frost at Christ- 

 mas; or the lambs, with their mothers, folded on them in March. 

 A water-meadow is the triumph of agricultural art, chang- 

 ing, as it does, the very seasons : but though our rustic fore- 

 fathers so long since mastered the result, the mode of the water's 

 action has been left a mystery. It consists not in moistening 

 the roots, for they are moist enough — nor yet in covering the 

 surface, for stagnant surface-water is merely injurious, the fluid 

 must be kept in motion, however slow — it is not in the deposit of 

 fine mud, for though the first runnings after the autumn rains 

 are rendered the most beneficial by the thickness of the waters, a 

 stream, clear as crystal, is often employed. About Exmoor I have 



