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Irrigation and the Storage of Water 
space between for the passing of the cattle. Upon the main 
watercourse and opposite the sheds a small pond was formed for 
the reception of the manure when thrown out from the cattle shed. 
The water on its route thus passed through the pond, and by 
mixing with the manure and sewage from the shed became 
changed for the better, and the effect was deemed certain and 
cheap. 
The following will show that Mr. Smith’s enterprise in these 
respects was attended by important results. He says : — 
The water which has passed through my yard has been used upon a 
selected portion of hill-side land as an experiment, which in its natural state 
was partially covered with rough grass and heather, while on some parts 
not a plant of any kind was ever seen to grow. That below the water 
carriages upon which the water has been used is now covered with green 
and daily improving grasses, the chief of which is white Dutch clover, not a 
single seed of which has ever been sown there. 
Construction and Cost of Water Meadows. 
The Rev. Joseph Jekyll, in the Journal, Vol. XI. 1st Series 
(1850), p. 675, thus describes details and cost of forming catch 
meadows in the Western Hill districts of England : — 
The cost is but trifling. The gutters should be cut with a spirit-level about 
3 £ perches apart, 4 inches deep, and 18 inches wide, decreasing in width 
(according to length) to not less than a foot ; a 2-feet gutter may be required 
at the top, and also some intervening gutters of the same width as the water 
descends the combe. This can be effectually done for 1 id. per perch, and as 
50 perches will be required for an acre the cost will reach 6s. 3d. per acre. 
My valley meadow of seven acres is a flat uneven piece of ground ; it was 
filled with large stones, covered with bushes and briars, and not worth 8s. per 
acre when I took it in hand. I merely cleared and cropped it with turnips 
at a cost of 51. an acre, and had a fair return for the outlay the same year. 
I then laid it down to grass and the third year conveyed over it the Bazle 
water in a 2-feet gutter through its centre, cutting the smaller gutters, some 
at right angles, some serpentine, from the main gutter ascending to the 
level. The expense of this, sluice and all, did not exceed 51 . ; it is now 
worth 21. per acre. 
The technical art in the formation of a catch meadow 
depends very much on the employment of the spirit-level. 
Thus Mr. Smith, who in the fifties managed the newly 
reclaimed estate of Mr. Knight, of Exmoor Forest, wrote as 
follows in the Journal, Vol. XII. 1st Series (1851), p. 141 : — 
The hill-side being already formed by Nature to our bands, the spirit-level 
beautifully traces the varied slopes and marks the onward course for the 
gutterer or waterman, who should be a man of some taste in the art of 
levelling, as the marking out the intermediate spaces upon irregular ground 
is found to be a nice point, that the water may flow in an even stream over 
the sides of the gutters. The arrangement of the “ main water-carriages ” 
depends solely upon the formation of the land and supply of water. 
