of the new gutter used to fill in the old one, taking care not to cram the old gutters too full. By this means the gutters are always new and always the proper size. If cut on the right-hand side and above one year, the next year they should be cut the left-hand side and below; thus they will always retain their original position, and be as efficient at any future period as they were the first year they were made.

The objection generally raised against this plan is, that the only carriage-gutter being at the head (highest level) of the watered ground, the best of the water is expended on the first part of the meadow (which is generally the best and healthiest land), and the lower part of the meadow (which we have said might want it most) is irrigated with the water after having been deprived of its best material. Such an objection is more plausible than valid; experience constantly denies that such is the result. I have always seen the lower parts of meadows formerly on the old system improve when put under this system, for however gutters on the old system might be provided for carrying the water down to a certain place, the machinery is so cumbrous that it is seldom used. I mean, there are so many heavy stops and bays to be interfered with, to be removed, adjusted, put in and readjusted, and so on, that it is seldom undertaken-seldom or never used. What is wanted is a machinery that can be used readily-with pleasure and not with difficulty. The plan I advocate is just such a thing; it is to use, and, therefore, pleasant to do; and, for that reason, sure to be done. And I shall presently show that it is quite effectual for the purpose even of carrying the water fully charged with matter in solution to the extreme distance desired.

easy

In the first place, I must admit that the stones, gravel, grit, and even sticks and leaves with which a stream might be charged in case of flood, would not be carried to the extreme end of a meadow by the means I employ; but then I say they ought not; and I may add, in the case of the old plan, they are not; for although gutters are cut ostensibly for the purpose, they never answer to the effect of carrying the heavy material. This is much better than allowing violent gushes of water to create a number of artificial hills and gullies in the usual way. It is well known (to those who know practically anything about it) that, when water is allowed to descend a gutter in a full violent stream, it frets the earth away from the sides and bottom of the gutter, and the material is washed down to settle when the current ceases to rush, thus causing two unsightly evils-a deep gully in one place, and an inconvenient hillock in another.

It will be proper now to call attention to the manner in which the water is carried, with its suspended matter, to the extreme end

of the meadow, by the plan we are pursuing. You will observe that the ground is covered by a sort of net-work of little gutters, from the "leading-in" gutter at the head to the extreme end of the piece of ground lying downward from that leading-in gutter; one set of gutters as we have shown being, in a sort, parallel to each other, intersected by gutters at right angles to them, and also parallel to each other: this would be strictly true were the surface strictly a plane surface; but this being very rarely the case, both sets deviate from a strictly parallel condition (as we have shown) in order to meet the undulations of the ground; these deviations compensate each other on the aggregate. Now, instead of carrying the water" down to the lower end" by means of one large gutter, and then dispersing it by another large gutter (a level one), we do it by twenty or so little gutters which feed the dispensing gutter about every ten or fifteen paces; being so small they never fret away; being newly cut every year they never increase in size. These advantages are too manifest to require pointing out.

The sections for watering on our plan are perpendicular sections (I call them so for want of a more appropriate term), i. e. from the "leading-in" gutter to the end of the piece-the running way of the water; and never lateral sections. That is, our section will be (see fig. 7) a, b, c, d, for one section, and b, e, d, f, for another; thus :—

and never 1, 2, 3, c, d, f. The water is not impaired in quality while running down these upright gutters, 4, 5, 6, 7.

We see the reason of this while we keep in memory that water is only good (as water) from two circumstances, viz. 1st, from

the purity of its composition (freedom from mineral properties), in which case the water will be as good at last as at first; and 2ndly, for what it holds in solution, not for what it carries in an insoluble state, for that should be deposited. Now, as long as this water is kept in motion it carries its solved substances with it, and the plant (grass) that takes up the material solved takes up the water also; so that as the water loses its quality it also loses its volume, partly by evaporation and partly by absorption by the grasses, consequently the water that remains must be just of the same quality as at first.

I have not tried any analytic experiment to prove the truth of what I have here stated, nor do I think it necessary to do so, as it is of no consequence whether it be true or not to a few quarts of diminution more or less; but this we know, water does evaporate, and that vegetables do decompose water for their own nutrition; we know that evaporation carries off little or none of the solved matter. Upon this I found an argument, and take it as proved, that as the water diminishes in volume as well as in quality, and that if those diminutions went on in exact ratio, then the water would remain, under all circumstances, precisely of the same quality; and that for all practical purposes which we have now under consideration, it does so remain. The most satisfactory proof of the truth of this argument is found in the answer given by the meadows themselves, viz. that it is true: experience has assured that the above reasoning is correct; the water is good to the last.

case.

It is very difficult to prove it by experiments in nature in every The water will act best upon the best land: therefore to expect water to exhibit as much good effect on the lower end of a meadow, where the soil is inferior in quality, as it shows on the higher end, where the soil is superior in quality, is to expect what reason ought not to ask, and that to which nature will never respond.

But these small gutters are sufficient when the little stops are taken out of the perpendicular gutters, and the level gutters are stopped so as to confine the water to the perpendiculars, to carry down as much water as ought to be carried down. The level gutter of a lower section (if it is determined that a lateral section shall be watered), instead of being fed by a large stream at the end, is supplied every ten or fifteen paces by one of those little gutters, thus giving an uniform supply throughout the length of the level gutter. A larger supply than this will afford is an evil, not a good; you do not want to wash the surface of your land, you want to irrigate it. But this fashion of sending down the water is not what I advise; I only say it can be done if required. I advise that the sections begin at the head: a surplus

will be found to run into the little gutters sufficient for the land below.

When the water is shut out from the "leading-in" gutter it is not necessary to move any of the little stops; the same perpendicular gutters that are effectual to run the water on, are as effectual to run it off, leaving the surface of the meadow dry and solid-a most manifest advantage.

The water is evenly distributed over the surface of the land by these minute gutters, which are made to follow all the undulations of the land, which can never be done by the large gutters; and also, from the draining effect of the perpendicular gutters, the water is never suffered to accumulate in ponds: the water on the meadow is, therefore, never "over-shoe" anywhere.

These gutters are no way dangerous to sheep or lambs, are never in the way of mowing, have an elegant rather than an unsightly appearance, are not perceived either in raking or carting, and suit the horse-rake or hay-making machine admirably.

I am not aware of any circumstances under which this has not the advantage over the "old plan." For wetting the ground in summer this plan has the decided superiority, as less water will do the work than will be required merely to fill the level gutters under the old system. It will be proper to remark, that grass so raised is scarcely safe for sheep; it certainly rots their livers: I found out this at the expense of many sheep. It is perfectly analogous to a plentiful rain after long drought; grass resulting thus proves equally as fatal to sheep as that produced by summer watering in a hot dry season, and vice versâ.

Where the stream is small, a pond should be made capable of holding as much water as will run a good stream for four hours or more; such a pond would make such a stream valuable as is really insignificant in itself. A small stream so collected will damp over 30 acres sufficiently well to secure a crop of hay.

I would just advert to the fact that the leading-in gutters can be so arranged as to tend themselves in cases of flood; but the opportunity does not present itself just now for going into that branch of the subject.

I have purposely forborne to go at all into the history of the invention, as it would be foreign to the present object in view.

VIII.—On an Improved and Cheaper System of laying out CatchMeadows. By SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE, Bart.

THE improved system of guttering, invented by Mr. Bickford, of Crediton, and of which I have made partial use in some watermeadows in the neighbourhood of Exeter, appears to me to possess great advantages, both in efficiency and economy, over that usually practised in this neighbourhood, and seems likely to be of great value if sufficiently made known.

The meadows to which I refer are situated on the banks of the Exe, about two miles above Exeter, and lie between the river itself and the stream which is taken out of it at Pynes Weir, for supplying the city with water. The waste water of this stream returns to the Exe immediately below the meadows, so as completely to surround a space of about 30 acres. This space is divided into three meadows, of which the highest has always been in my own occupation, while the two lower pieces have been let off. Till about seven years ago they were occupied by my steward, and while he held them they were regularly watered; but they have lately been let on lease to a tenant who, for some reason with which I am unacquainted, has not availed himself of the means of irrigation which were at his command. The higher meadow, therefore, is the only one which has been watered of late years. Having now, however, taken the whole of them in hand, I proceeded, last autumn, to examine the condition of the lower meadows, in order to ascertain what was requisite to be done to supply them with water.

The nature of the ground will be most easily understood by reference to the subjoined diagram.

The water is, in the first place, brought into the higher marsh (No. 1) at A, a point a little below the weir, whence it is carried by means of a large gutter aa (3 feet wide and 2 feet deep) along the highest part of the land. From this gutter there are cut, at irregular distances, other and smaller gutters, which traverse the