468 



On the Theory and Practice of Water -Meadows. 



Those who are conversant with earth-works will see at once 

 that to make a water-meadow on this plan must be an expensive 

 process. Twenty pounds per acre would be a low average : 

 thirty pounds not unusual. I remember having asked in Dor- 

 setshire to see a cheap water-meadow, and being shown a field of 

 eight or ten acres, which had just been made at a cost of forty -Jive 

 founds for each acre. Few new water-meadows, however, are 

 any longer made in these southern counties, as the heavy ex- 

 pense of the system is barely compensated, now that the growth 

 of green crops has supplied more food for flocks in March and 

 April. It is to the south-west we must turn, to Somerset and 

 to Devonshire, for patterns of future irrigation. In those two 

 lovely counties, which have the valleys without the Alps of Switzer- 

 land, abundant streams roll cheerfully in a rapid descent over 

 stones, or among mossy rocks, and the sheltered sides shelving 

 rapidly upwards, have long since tempted the farmers to lead the 

 water along their sloping face in tiers of channels, each of which 

 receiving the overflow from above, as it begins to gather irregularly, 

 receives it in a level trough to brim over anew, until it reaches 

 the lowest channel, which delivers it back to the river's bed. The 

 horseman as he rides along sees meadows of a few acres rising 

 above his head, bright as emerald, glistening against the sun with 

 their thin film of water, alternating with orchards in which cottages 

 are nestled, that seem to cling to the hill, with a canopy of oak 

 copse above, whose russet leaves, a remnant of the last summer, 

 look the ruddier against the narrow space of blue sky that roofs 

 in the glen. These are called catch-meadows, because each 

 trench thus catches the water from its neighbour above it. 



Section of Lower Part of a Valley. 



a. Stream. b. Gutters. 



The catch-meadow is as cheap as the water-meadow is expen- 

 sive to form. For the slope being already there, it is necessary 

 but to take the levels for the gutters; which being done, these 

 may be dug, and the surface be laid smooth, for two or three pounds 

 per acre instead of twenty or thirty. I have seen near Winsford, 

 a water-meadow on the hang of a hill so steep that one could 

 scarcely climb it without help of the hands. It had been until 

 lately rough furze ground. The tenant had given it rent free to 



