for Agricultural Purposes. 273 
pays for his water three times as much as he pays in rent for 
the land itself. 
In Spain also irrigation receives great attention, and 
meadows capable of being irrigated are considered worth three 
or four times as much as ordinary dry meadows. In the 
Ampedan plain the farmers find that the produce of their 
meadows can be increased at least 200 per cent, by their being 
watered, and in the valley of the Tagus there has always been 
a considerable enhancement of fertility by irrigation, the increase 
in produce being estimated at twelve times as much as it 
otherwise would have been. Water is bought and sold in Spain as 
in Italy, as much as 11. per acre being often the outlay for it 
in the Tagus valley ; while in Arragon it is said to approach 
27s. an acre. At Alicant, about a century ago, the King of 
Spain made a reservoir which brought him a revenue of 2,000Z. 
per annum. 
On irrigation as practised in Switzerland there is an instruc- 
tive paper, by Mr. H. T. J. Jenkinson, in Vol. XI. 1st Series 
of this Journal (1850), wherein it is stated that it was pursued 
in that country as early as the fourteenth century. According 
to Mr. Herzog’s system in the canton Aargau the meadows are 
irrigated during October, November, and December, till the hard 
frosts commence and the winter snows fall. In March the 
system is recommenced and continued throughout summer, with 
the result of four crops of grass and sometimes five being 
obtained per year. M. de Fellenberg at Hofwyl, in another 
canton, also obtained four crops in one season, and occasionally 
he had six. One year the grass was being cut for his cattle as 
late as Christmas. In general, however, the first crop is cut in 
May and the last in October. M. de Fellenberg believed that he 
could not irrigate too much, and Mr. Jenkinson after inspecting 
his farm gave (p. 610) the following description of his water 
meadows : — 
I never saw fields look brighter or greener than the water meadows, and 
the grass was thick “ like a brush.” M. de Fellenberg irrigates as late as 
possible in the year, and only stops when there is danger of the water freez- 
ing in a mass on the land. As long as the water trickles underneath a sur- 
face of ice he continues watering, and considers that this surface of ice pro- 
tects the roots of the grass. The water is made to flow over a certain portion of 
land for twenty-four hours. It is then shifted farther on, and in about a week 
they return to the point where they commenced, this shifting being owing to 
the scanty supply. 
Irrigation was also extensively adopted by the Romans. 
Cato says : — “ As much as in your power make water meadows.” 
Columella also alludes to the advantages of irrigating, but deems 
it more profitable for weak, poor, thin soils than for those more 
