for Agricultural Purposes. 
287 
ance with the nature of the land and its value for other 
purposes. Thus Mr. Pitt in his survey of Staffordshire, before 
quoted from, argued that a reservoir of a few acres and of two 
yards average depth might be constructed at from 10/. to 20/. per 
acre, according to circumstances of situation. Of course he could 
not have taken into the calculation the value of the land itself, 
or that the bottom of the reservoir would require puddling, and 
manual labour was, perhaps, only a little more than half its 
present cost a century ago. But he calculated that such re- 
servoirs would serve for fisheries which, under proper manage- 
ment, would be equal or superior in value to an equal breadth of 
land. 
Water like fire is one of the best of servants, but the 
worst of masters, and the devastations caused to riparian 
meadows and lowland moors by excessive injurious floods have 
perhaps raised a prejudice against extending irrigation arti- 
ficially. But if so, the great drought of the spring and summer 
of 1893, and its direful, calamitous results, ought surely to be 
sufficient, not only for its removal, but to make everybody 
anxious to do everything possible to prevent the recurrence of 
catastrophes which wrecked the prospects and minimised the 
crops of thousands. This can only be done by storing up the 
drainage water of the hills in reservoirs and catch ponds ; 
arresting alike the trickling dyke and the swelling brook, 
utilising every gushing torrent in those seasons when the rainfall 
is more abundant and preventing the rushing down to the main 
streams of the element which if conserved would be sure to prove 
a great blessing, but by being allowed to run to waste where 
it is not wanted becomes a curse to the plain. 
Injurious floods will be lessened in their ravages in good 
time no doubt, for such a season as 1879 shows the urgent 
necessity of it just as much as the severe drought of 1893 has 
inculcated the absolute need of much more water storage than 
has ever yet been contemplated. Indeed, the two gigantic 
undertakings of water storage for droughts and regulating the 
outflow of rivers so as to prevent excessive inundations are 
inseparably connected. 
The favourite scheme of Mr. Ridley and of the majority of 
the civil engineers who gave evidence before the House of 
Lords’ Committee on River Conservancy was that of embanking 
the main streams, and by placing the embankments far enough 
back from the bed of the river to have a watershed between 
sufficient to convey the excess of water in the most rainy season. 
Both Mr. Ridley and Mr. Abernethy stated, however, that if 
rivers were thoroughly embanked so as to prevent any overflow 
