Improved System of Irrigation. 



169 



of the meadow, by the plan we are pursuing. You will observe 

 that the ground is covered by a sort of net-work of little gutters, 

 from the " leading-in'' gutter at the head to the extreme end of the 

 piece of ground lying downward from that leading -in gutter ; one 

 set of gutters as we have shown being, in a sort, parallel to 

 each other, intersected by gutters at right angles to them, and 

 also parallel to each other : this would be strictly true were the 

 surface strictly a plane surface ; but this being very rarely the 

 case, both sets deviate from a strictly parallel condition (as we 

 have shown) in order to meet the undulations of the ground ; 

 these deviations compensate each other on the aggregate. Now, 

 instead of carrying the water " down to the lower end" by means 

 of one large gutter, and then dispersing it by another large gutter 

 (a level one), we do it by twenty or so little gutters which feed 

 the dispensing gutter about every ten or fifteen paces ; being so 

 small they never fret away ; being newly cut every year they 

 never increase in size. These advantages are too manifest to 

 require pointing out. 



The sections for watering on our plan are perpendicular sec- 

 tions (I call them so for want of a more appropriate term), 

 i. e. from the " leading-in ^' gutter to the end of the piece — the 

 running way of the water ; and never lateral sections. That is, 

 our section will be {see fig. 7) «, h, c, d, for one section, and e, 

 d,f^ for another ; thus : — 



Fig. 7. 



a 



4 



5 



6 ; 



h 







& 



































1 









2 







3 



















and never 1, 2, 3, r, d, f. The water is not impaired in quality 

 while running down these upright gutters, 4, 5, 6, 7. 



We see the reason of this while we keep in memory that water 

 is only good (as water) from two circumstances, viz. 1st, from 



