Irrigation and water-supply; a practical treatist on water-meadows, sewage irrigation and warping the construction of wells, ponds, and reservoirs and ... for agricultural and domestic purposes

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 Excerpt: ... germinate in the damp earth before being irrigated again. After this it is left almost constantly under water. In some of the paddy-growing districts of India the same course of puddling preparatory to sowing is followed. The land is ploughed several times while under water, and in the operation the soil is worked into a puddle, by the ploughs and by the feet of the cattle. It is then left to stagnate for a few days, after which more water is let on, and the ploughing and puddling repeated. Where vegetable manures are applied, these are trodden into the puddled soil. Before seeding the ground, the surface is smoothed by means of a heavy plank drawn by cattle. "The rice grounds," Mr. Russell concluded, "are comparatively healthy to white men in winter, but the very reverse in summer and autumn when the crops are growing and ripening. It has been often remarked that the swamps, in their original state, along the southern rivers of the United States were by no means so deleterious to the whites as they are now, when brought under cultivation. This seems to apply, to a certain extent, to all the rich alluvial soils in the river bottoms, but is particularly applicable to the rice grounds that are irrigated by the tides. Indeed, the undrained swamps remain comparatively healthy so long as they are covered with the natural vegetation. The mere stirring of the soil, and the exposing of it to the atmospheric influences of a hot climate, invariably Moncrieff, "Irrigation in Southern Europe." give rise to malaria. For this reason, the Campagna in Italy became much more unhealthy, as Dr. Arnold states, in his Roman History, after its drainage. There is nothing of course deleterious in the mere culture of rice; it is the mode in which the irrig...