THE farmer’s manual. 
3y 
with the limited capitals of our own country, will not 
enable the farming interest generally, to extend their 
improvements by irrigation, beyond such wash as they 
can convey from gentle descents in the highways, on 
to their adjoining mowing grounds, and such wash as 
they may occasionally turn on to their meadows, 
from brooks, or other small' streams, by obstructing 
them with dams, suitable for the purpose. This me- 
thod of irrigation is both useful and valuable, and 
when turned on to sloping grounds, may be multiplied 
very extensively, at sinalP expense, upon the catch- 
work plan, (so called.) Xlpon this [ilan, when the 
wash is carried over the higher parts of the field, 
(upon sloping grounds,) lead it back and forth at 
suitable distances ; remembering always to keep 
your trenches as near to a water level as possible, 
and yet suffer the water to run, excepting at the turn- 
ings, where the water descends from one trench to 
the next below. Upon this plan, you can. flow your 
grounds even, by cutting small openings from. your 
trenches, and even obstructing your trenches occasion- 
ally, to promote the flow through these openings. The 
expense of this mode of irrigation is small ; but the 
f )rofits are doubly great, both in the quantity and qua- 
ity of your hay ; beside, both these profits will in- 
crease annually. No manuring will give such profits 
upon mowiflg grounds as irrigation, and the expense, 
generally, may be considered cheaper than pla.ster. 
Here let me repeat my former remark ; make the most 
of this method of tillage in the w.inter and spring ; it is 
then most valuable. Be careful to keep your cattle, 
horses and sheep, from your watered meadows : the 
first will injure them by poaching, and the feed will 
give your sheep the rot, and even their hay may be 
unfriendly to sheep, if flowed by great rains in sum- 
mer. I shall close this article with a remark of Sir 
John Sinclair ; “ A productive water meadow, is pro- 
bably the true mark of perfection in the management 
of a farm.” — Sinclair's Code. 
