280 
Irrigation and the Storage of Water 
this, one being that Mr. Bakewell lent his irrigator to a friend 
that he might ascertain whether he could water the church 
meadow, and on the level being taken it proved that the water 
might be carried over the church steeple, had the land been 
high enough to receive it. Also that at Euston, the seat of the 
Duke of Grafton, doubts having been entertained in a discussion 
whether certain meadows below the hall could be watered or 
not, he himself, to solve the point, took the levels for more than 
five miles from Sappiston Mill, and found that the sand fox 
covers on rather high hills near the hall might be converted into 
water meadows. The following extract from the “ Farmer’s 
Calendar ’’ also bears on this point : — 
The lands usually chosen for the first operations are just those that 
ought to he the last, namely, the low flat meadows by the river. These are 
often improvable to a very high degree by draining and manuring with 
sand, gravel, earth, chalk, marl, &e., but they are by far the most expensive 
to irrigate, and when done, unless very well executed indeed, yield the 
worst hay. They are best watered and in many cases only to be watered 
advantageously by ploughing them into broad and highly arched ridges, the 
delivering trenches to be on their crowns and the drains in the furrows, but 
the profit of irrigating dry slopes and gravel, &c., and poor, dry, ling moors 
is immense. The expense is comparatively trifling and the improvement 
beyond conception. Such lands may be raised from 2s. or 3s. an acre to 
40s. or 60s., while the fiat meadows may be worth 20s. before the under- 
taking begins, and may not when ended be worth more than the others, 
though effected at ten times the expense. I once found a friend in the full 
speculation of watering some meadows which were worth 25 s. an acre, and 
just ready to set a man to work, who ought to have known better. I 
thought by my eye that the water (the quantity very limited) might be 
better employed on some dry arable land above the meadows but further 
down the vale. I took the levels and found it as I conjectured. The plan 
was adopted, and I have since heard that the undertaking was remarkably 
profitable. The meadow at Sixmile Bridge in Hampshire, which lets for 
above 5 1. an acre, was a gravel worth only 10s. before watering, yet formed 
at little other expense than converting a ditch into a carrier. Nor was the 
conduct of the water when I saw it correct by any means. 
Still another quotation may be taken from Arthur Young’s 
“ Farmer’s Calendar,” as it illustrates very forcibly a fact about to 
be insisted on, namely, that vast areas of comparatively high lands, 
chiefly on hill-sides, might be subjected to irrigation if only there 
was that provident storage of water which seems so necessary 
when we consider the ruinous results of such seasons of drought 
as the summer of 1893 gave us experience of. At p. 307, in 
his “ Farmer’s Calendar,” Young states : — 
I am confident that with a little attention out of from 20,000 to 30,000 
acres on a range of mountains I have viewed in [reland water might be 
thrown over three parts in four. The declivities through which the streams 
run are considerable, and extensive tracts of land slope off on either side, 
so that by obstructing those streams, by piling torrent stones across them 
at various heights, and drawing small channels in the mountain-sides just 
