54 
Some of the Agricultural Lessons of 1868. 
told me that towards the end of July, w^hen the harvest was 
progressing, observing the failure of the root-crop, and of the 
seeds sown with the spring corn, he urged every farmer he met 
with to set the plough to work to turn up lightly every por- 
tion of uncropped land in readiness for sowing turnips when 
rain should come, as the ground would then be in a forcing con- 
dition, and insure abundant plant. He was particularly induced 
to urge this, on being told it would be too late, from having sown 
turnips on land on which A'etches had been fed off by sheep 
at the end of July, 1867, when rain came opportunely. The 
crop was so uniform over the whole field, and excited so much 
observation, that the produce of an average portion was weighed, 
and yielded the extraordinary weight of 24 tons 16 cwt. per acre 
in the month of December, leaving some unconsumed by a very 
large stock at Lady-day, A remarkably mild winter has, in 
fact, so helped those who had striven to help themselves, that 
the great "difficulties foretold of the season have not generally 
happened. 
The chief lesson * of these letters, however, is, I suppose, to 
* Among the less general but still important lessons of the season were all those 
examples of the artificial supply of water during drought, which were furnished by 
"water-meadows, by sewage-irrigation, and by the practice of so-called water-drilling. 
It may be stated that, as a rule, the leading lesson here has been the worthlessness 
of any other watering than that supplied in enormous quantity by ordinary gravi- 
tation. There are many farmers now — -Mr. A. S. Kuston, of Aylesby, Chatteris, 
is one of them — who make a regular practice of washing in their seed of all kinds 
with the water-drill ; and they generally realise an advantage more than enough 
to justify the extra cost of the process. But a seed-time during and preceding 
di-ought is certain to be a failure, in spite of petty waterings by water-cart in this 
way. And Mr. Chandler, of Aldbourne, who was the introducer of the water- 
drill, candidly writes to me as follows: — 
" The total failure of the turnip-crop this season includes, of course, those drilled 
■with water equally with those put in by the compost-drills. The exceptions in 
either case are where swedes or turnips had been sown very early. We have some 
on this farm drilled in May that have produced about one-third of a crop. Part 
was drilled with tank-liquor and superphosphate, the other part with ashes and 
pig-dung. 1 have looked many times to discover where the one ended and the 
other began ; I cannot see the slightest difference. Twenty years' experience has 
confirmed my early impressions that a warm wet season is most favourable for 
the water-drill. The past season consequently could not be otherwise than detri- 
mental." 
And the worthlessness of small dressings of water during a drought is equally 
certain during the growth of the plant as well as at the sprouting of its seed. All 
attempts at merely refreshing plants by squirting water, whether it be pure or 
sewage-water, over them, in comparatively small quantities, are necessarily failures 
during a prolonged drought. The only serviceable watering in such a case is that 
"which takes place as in water-meadows where land, especially laid out to enable 
the self-distril)ution of the dressing, receives 300 to ."500 tons per acre — a quantity 
corresponding to a layer from 3 to 5 inches thick, which soaks the soil from 12 to 
15 inches deep. Mr. Cyrus Combes, of Tisbury, Wiltshire, than whom there is no 
higher authority on the subject of irrigation, says of the water-meadows arormd 
Salisbury in 1868 : — 
" Water-meadows were exceedingly valuable during the last summer drought. 
"When the pastures were burnt up the water-meadows were beautifully green. 
