I li u 
Witnefs the irreverent Ion 
Of him who built the ark; who, for the Ihame 
Done to his father, heard his heavy curie. 
Servant of fervants, on his vicious race. Milton. 
IRREV'ERENTLY, adv. Without due refpeft or ve¬ 
neration.—’Tis but an ill eflay of reverence and godly 
fear to ufe the gcfpel irreverently. Government of the Tongue. 
IRREV'ERENTNESS, f: The want of reverence. 
IRREVERSIBLE, adj. Not to be recalled f not to be 
changed.—The fins of his chamber and his clofet Ihall be 
produced before men and angels, and an eternal itnverjibk 
fentence be pronounced. Rogers. 
IRREVERSIBLY, adv. Without change.—The title 
of fundamentals, being ordinarily confined to the doftnines 
of faith, hath occafioned that great fcandal in the church, 
at which fo many myriads of Solifidians have (tumbled, 
and fallen irreverfbly, by conceiving heaven a reward of 
true opinions. Hammond cn Fundamentals. 
IRREVOCABLE, adj. Not to be recalled •, not to be 
brought back; not to be reverfed.—That which is pad is 
gone and irrevocable ; therefore they do but trifle that la¬ 
bour in pad works. Bacon. 
The feccnd, both for piety renown’d. 
And puiflant deeds, a promile Dial! receive 
Irrevocable, that his regal throne 
For ever Dial 1 endure. Milton. 
By her irrevocable fate, 
War Ihall the country wade, and change the date. Dryden. 
IRREy'OCABLENESS,y: [from irrevocable .] The date 
of being irrevocable. 
IRREVOCABLY, adv. Without recal.—If air were 
kept out four or five minutes, the fire would be irrevocably 
extinguidied. Boyle. 
To IRRIGA'TE, V. a. [irrigo, Lat.] To wet; to 
moiden; to water.—The heart, which is one of the prin¬ 
cipal parts of the body, doth continually irrigate, nourilh, 
keep hot, and fupple, all the members. Ray. 
They keep a bulky charger near their lips, 
With which, in often interrupted deep, 
Their frying blood compels to irrigate 
Their dry furr’d tongues. A. Phillips. 
IRRIGA'TION, f. The aft of watering or rr.oilfen- 
ing.—Help of ground is by watering and irrigation. Bacon. 
The Rev. T. Wright, reftor of Ould in Northampton- 
Jhire, is the mod judicious writer upon irrigation that 
we have met with. This gentleman has publilhed three 
pamphlets upon this fubject, each about ten years apart. 
The fird, publilhed in 1789, was entitled, An Account of 
Watering Meadows; but in the two lad, 1799 and 1810, 
he rejects the term watering, as not contributing towards 
a clear conception of the bufinefs, but merely affording 
an idea of wetting the land by a fmall and inconfiderable 
portion of water; and he therefore fubditutes the term 
floating, as; more exprefiive of the procefs intended ; which 
is, covering the whole furface of the meadow with a thin 
Iheet, not of dagnant, but of flowing, water; and, if pof- 
fible, from a large flream. In the county of Glouceder 
and in Wiltlhire, it is frequently called drowning , or win¬ 
ter-drowning; but this runs into the oppofite extreme, 
and denotes too much water in ufe, and feems to exprefs 
water kept in a dagnant date, which is pernicious if luf- 
fered to continue any length of time. 
Of the advantages of doating, this gentleman fpeaks in 
terms the mod encouraging. He reprefents, as others 
have done, that the water of every copious and rapid 
dream is loaded with manure of the mod fertilizing qua¬ 
lity ; and with this water it is poflible to make land al- 
mod as rich as you pleafe, whatever be the nature of the 
foil or of the lubfoil, even without attending fo nicely 
to fyftem as you neceflarily mud when clear fpring-water 
is ufed ; and, by the contents of this turbid water, an en¬ 
tirely new foil is given to the land in the courfe of a few 
years. 
I R R 383 
,e The primary objefts of floating are. I .aflert, limply 
thefe two, to procure a deoofit of manure from the water 
ufed, and by the .water -at tire-fame time to (helter the" 
land from the feverity of winter: and the chief eflentials 
of the art are, that the water ihall be made to flow over 
the furface of the hud an inch deep, during winter, and 
that every part of the" works Ihall be fo conftrufted as to 
keep the whole of the water in condant motion. Without 
attention to thefe t-.vo lad reqiiifitcs, the above objefts, to 
which ail others areiubfervient, cannot be fully obtained ; 
for, if the water does not flow an inch deep, you do not 
ufe fo much water as might be effeftynny drained or lifted 
by the grafs, and of courfe do not colleft as much muci¬ 
lage as might be expefted, nor give a complete (belter to 
the land. If you ufe much more than an inch depth, 
and continue it for leveral weeks, you dedroy your belt 
grades, winch will not bear to be under water for many 
weeks in fucceffion : and, if any of the works are cut en¬ 
tirely upon a dead level, a certain part of the water will 
be kept in a dagnant date, depending its fediment in the 
ditches more than on the furface of the meadow, and 
foaking into, and chilling, the land. If, however, you can- 
fo form your meadow as to ufe the above quantity of wa¬ 
ter on the whole or a part of the land, and each part has 
a regular defeent, the meadow will enjoy every encou¬ 
ragement and protection which grafs-land is capable of 
receiving from the care and culture of man. 
“ The art of winter-floating is worthy of no mean com¬ 
mendation, on three efpecial accounts, or for its tffiree 
leading or cardinal properties : namely, its affording grafs 
at an unufual feafon, and when it is mod wanted ; its 
certainty in the hay-crop ; and its requiring no dung- 
Thefe properties I venture to edimate at 3I. per acre per 
ann. additional value, even upon good land, and much 
more upon bad land; and this edimate, I prefume, will 
not be thought highly dated by any farmer who has had 
a full dock of cattle and fheep in a late fpriifg, and has 
had it in his power to have recourfe to a meadow of this 
defeription.” 
Yet, notwithdanding the advantages hdre fo clearly 
fpecified, and which are of much moment in the contem¬ 
plation of every farmer, Mr. W. obferves, and laments* 
that “ the praftice is dill very partially adopted, very ge¬ 
nerally mifunderltood, very drangely mifreprefented, and 
in danger of degenerating into a mere wetting of the land.” 
Thefe are, indeed, good reafons for direfting the attention 
of farmers to this fubject. We fhall therefore briefly ex¬ 
plain his method of forming a floating meadovr, referring 
to his lad treatife, “ The Formation and Management of 
Floated Meadows,” for a more ample detail. 
“ Before I begin to point out the particular mode of 
forming a floated meadow, fuch quedions as the follow¬ 
ing are necedary to be propoled : Will the dream of w'a- 
ter to be employed in floating admit of a temporary wear 
or dam acroi’s it ? Can you dam up, and raife the water 
high enough to flow over the furface of your land with¬ 
out flooding or injuring your neighbour’s land ? Or, is 
your water already high enough, without a wear ? or can 
you make it fo, by taking it out of the dream higher up, 
, and, by the conductor, keeping it up nearly to its level, 
till it enters the meadow ? And can you draw the water 
off your meadow as quick as it is brought on ? If thefe 
quedions fugged no infuperable difficulty, but can freely 
be anfwered in the affirmative, you may proceed accord¬ 
ing to the following directions : 
“ In the fird piace, when the defeent is not fufficiently 
great to be determined by the eye, take an accurate level 
of the ground intended for floating, and compare the 
liigheft part of it wdth the dream of water to be ufed. 
Afcertain how many inches fall there are, from the fur¬ 
face of the water to the highed part of the land : if the 
liighelt part of the land be adjoining to the dream, the 
procefs is eafy : but if, as it often happens, it be didant 
from (or the far.thed part from) the dream, the execution 
becomes more difficult; as it is neceflary that the fides of 
the 
