The difference in cost of enriching soil in England is estimated as follows:

Spain, at this day, employs irrigation to so great an extent that few crops are raised without it. One of the greatest specimens of hydraulic architecture is the dam and canal made by the Moors for leading the waters of the Guadalquivir into their beautiful capital of Granada. The dam was constructed between

two steep mountains, for the purpose of collecting a reservoir of water. It is 156 feet high, 70 feet thick, and 273 feet long. The waters after irrigating the vineyards of Alicante, were conducted through the streets of Granada, and contributed to the wealth, beauty, and luxury of that gorgeous capital, in fountains, baths, fruits, and flowers.

One of the largest enterprises for opening an irrigating canal in Spain has recently been undertaken by Mr. James Eldredge, an American, who became familiar with the system in California. It is a concession from the Spanish government, and embraces the right to purchase, at a nominal cost, the body of land which the canal is intended to reclaim from sterility. The location of this enterprise is about sixty miles south of Madrid, and will involve an outlay of about $5,000,000. Success to the American irrigator in Spain!

ITALY.

Italy may be styled the classic land of irrigation. There the practice of hydraulic engineering is taught as a science, and rises to the dignity of a profession. The principal university where this science is taught is at Turin, in the vicinity of which city an extensive system of irrigation gives ample opportunity for practical education. In the reign of Theodoric I, a hydraulic engineer was brought from Africa to teach the manner of obtaining and regulating supplies of water from rivers.

The Romans gave preference to the irrigation of meadows, and Cato, the oldest Roman rustic writer, expressed his opinion that the way to become rich quickly was "by grazing cattle well." They cured hay twice a year, and cut it for forage four times.

The modern Italians have devoted their energies more to the irrigation of arable lands, and have by far the most perfect system of irrigation in Europe. The great canal of the Ticino, in Lombardy, was constructed in the 12th century, and has for more than 600 years carried a volume of water equal to 1,800 cubic feet per second. This great mass of water has been spread over the surface of the country through a thousand channels, stimulating the productiveness of the soil to such an extent as to make the country through which it passes one of the richest and most densely populated which the world has ever seen. In Piedmont the irrigated region covers 1,500,000 acres, with a network of 1,200 miles of canal. The water-courses are fed from the melting snows of the Alps, and swell to their greatest volume in the hot, dry season, when the lands are most thirsty. The construction of these canals has engaged the attention of every government in Italy, including that of the Great Napoleon.

The charge for water is a state revenue, and yields an average of one dollar per acre for irrigating lands.

EGYPT.

Egypt, the ancient nursery of the arts, was also the mother of irrigation. History gives no more satisfactory account of its first introduction than of the

building of the pyramids, but it is stated that Sesostris greatly increased the number of canals, which must carry their origin back to a period of great antiquity, as he lived about 16 centuries before the Christian era.

We need only refer to sacred history to prove the advantages of a well-established system of irrigation. The Egyptian granaries, insured by irrigation, were overflowing with corn when their neighbors were famishing for bread. Their great public works stand as eternal proofs of their agricultural abundance. The fertilizing effects of the waters of the Nile, after its overflow, could not fail to teach a simple lesson to the Egyptians, who had only to imitate nature to secure the fertility of the soil lying beyond the reach of these inundations.

The remains of canals as capacious as the beds of rivers may be seen in that sand-desolated country, showing the gigantic efforts which have been made by its inhabitants to irrigate that portion of their country, upon which a drop of rain never falls to refresh its languishing vegetation.

INDIA.

The famine in British India induced the government to undertake the construction of a system of irrigating canals. The great Ganges canal, the principal of these works, is nearly 1,000 miles long, (including its branches,) and takes from the sacred river 8,000 cubic feet of water per second. This enterprise has received an ample reward in the civilization of the people, the improvement of their sanitary condition, and the immensely increased revenues of the government from land and water rents. The canal and its branches form an internal network of water-carriage for the production, stimulated by the enlightened enterprise which has brought 11,102,048 acres of waste and malarious land under subjugation and cultivation.

The cost of opening the canal is estimated at £1,500,000, and the pecuniary returns, after deducting expenses, yield a net revenue from the investment, of 23 per cent. annually.

Irrigating canals, in addition to the practical utility of insuring abundant harvests, contribute to the ornamentation of a country by watering rows of shade and fruit trees. In India the law directs that "on both sides of the canal trees of every description, both for shade and blossom, be planted, so as to make it like the canal under the trees in Paradise, that the sweet flavor of rare fruits may reach the mouth of every one, and that from these luxuries a voice may go forth to travellers, calling them to rest in the cities where their every want will be supplied."

The water of the great Delhi canal, carried over the low country in an aque duct of masonry, after passing a cut in the mountains 60 feet deep, flowed through the city, distributing itself in minor streams, supplying gardens, fountains, and mansions-filling the marble baths, and watering rich fruits and flowers.

CHINA.

We cannot afford to despise the teachings of the Chinese, a people who were far in advance of Europe in the invention of printing, of gunpowder, of the mariner's compass, and of vessels adapted to navigation. We may learn a lesson in agriculture from the patient and industrious laborers in this most primitive and important occupation of man; who have made a network of irrigating canals through their extensive and populous empire, for stimulating the soil, and bearing their productions to market. The Grand canal from Pekin to Canton is nearly a thousand miles in length, and bears a vast commerce upon its bosom, and this is only one in a thousand of the arteries of this interesting and prolific empire.

JAPAN.

Japan has been sealed to the outside world for so long a time that very little knowledge of her agricultural improvements has gone abroad. Professor Blake, of California, who was employed by the Japanese government some years ago to make a scientific investigation of her mineral resources, informs me that the art of irrigation has been brought to great perfection by the Japanese. It is, in general, a hilly country, and water is taken out of the ravines and spread upon the hillsides in all directions. The numberless little ravines which, by their narrowness and steepness, are unsuited to cultivation are brought into luxuriance by means of dams built across from one side to the other. The space thus enclosed is filled with deep, fine soil, and a series of terraces is formed, one above another, and over them the drainage of the ravine can be spread at will; the water from one terrace being allowed to escape to the next, and so on to the low lands. These little patches of land are said to be the most fertile and productive in Japan.

IRRIGATION SEDIMENT.

When we consider the amount of fertilizing sediment carried to the sea by the great rivers, it will be well to adopt some method to arrest the waste and distribute it upon the land.

The quantity of alluvial soil swept into the sea by the waters of the Ganges is a 200th part of its whole volume, or 2,509,056,000 solid feet per hour. The Nile deposits the 120th part of its whole volume, or 14,784,000 solid feet per hour. The Mississippi deposits 8,000,000 solid feet of sediment per hour, containing the richest fertilizing properties, and the smaller streams deposit in proportion to the alluvial bottoms which they drain. What a wealth of fertilization is here washed away, especially when they also carry away the sewage of large cities! Verily, we are an improvident people.

INSURANCE OF IRRIGATION.

In addition to the certainty of returns, the actual produce of irrigated lands exceeds that of unirrigated lands by one-fourth to one-third of a crop. In a genial climate the harvest is placed beyond the influence of seasons. A crop of corn in the spring and of cereals in the autumn is the usual rotation in America. Irrigated land never becomes impoverished, but is continually enriched by the perpetual deposition of sediment. The question of health and morality has been satisfactorily demonstrated by the improvement and reclamation of the jungles of India, where vast populations have been brought from a condition of wretchedness, famine, and insubordination into a state of health, contentment, and prosperity, by the abundant crops secured by irrigation.

In Italy, where tables are kept, the ratio of increase of population in irrigated districts is 50 per cent. greater than in unirrigated districts. The fecundity of the Chinese may be attributed to their abundant supply of water.

The population of irrigated districts is estimated as follows per square mile:

In countries where irrigating canals are constructed by the state, the tolls on water are collected as a revenue, and as these enterprises are generally undertaken for the common good of a community, they must, of necessity, be done by the state, or under state authority by associated capital and labor, in the form

of corporations. The laws regulating irrigation are well defined in Italy and Spain, and the laws of the latter country have been generally extended to Spanish America, and are usually adopted in that part of our domain acquired from Mexico.

In pueblos, or communities where irrigating canals exist, a judge of the water is elected by the community. He has jurisdiction in all disputes relating to the gathering and distribution of the water through irrigating canals. Each proprietor is allotted a supply of water proportioned to the labor and capital contributed to its introduction, or the amount of land he has in cultivation. He must punctually take his turn when it comes, whether it be in the day or the night, as the water is flowing all the time and cannot be allowed to run to waste. In India it is estimated that one cubic foot per second will irrigate 180 acres of land.

TRANSPORTATION BY CANAL.

To construct a canal for commercial purposes where a railway is available is to fall behind, not to keep pace with, the spirit of the times; but it is equally true that irrigating canals will prove great auxiliaries to railroads, by furnishing products for transportation, and that navigable canals will gather the produce economically at convenient depots for railway transportation.

CAPITAL FOR IRRIGATING CANALS.

The capital necessary to construct irrigating canals can easily be obtained by conceding to corporations alternate sections of land along their course, and the collection of water rents will insure a handsome income upon the investment.

The same liberal policy which has stimulated the building of railroads in our western country may, with equal propriety and benefit, be extended to the ini gating canals, and the reclamation of sterile lands. It is accounted a worthy and beneficent undertaking "to make two blades of grass grow where only one grew before."

In the census of 1860 the area of improved land in the United States is set down at 163,110,720 acres, and the unimproved land at 244,101,818 acres, or, in other words, for every two acres of improved lands, we have three acres of unimproved lands.

The Rocky mountains contain an abundant supply of water for irrigating the plains at their base, and the opening of irrigating canals on our western plains will inaugurate a new era of agricultural prosperity in a region which has hitherto only furnished grass for the buffalo and hunting grounds for the Indian.

CHINA.

It is my intention in accompanying the embassy of the United States, at the nead of which is Hon. J. Ross Browne, the recently appointed minister to China, to examine that vast and comprehensive net-work of irrigating canals and waterworks which contribute so much to the riches and convenience of a people who place agriculture among the most honorable occupations of mankind. If the investi gation of this subject meets the approbation of your Department, and I am honored with a commission for the purpose, it will be a pleasant duty to unfold to my countrymen a system which supports one-third of the population of the earth.

VALUE OF BIRDS ON THE FARM.

BY EDWARD A. SAMUELS, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

That our birds, as a class, are eminently beneficial on the farm is now very generally acknowledged. In some localities wholesome laws have been enacted and local efforts have been made for their encouragement and protection; but the old prejudice against many species, because a few have been detected in misdemeanors, is still too generally prevalent, and every effort should be made by writers and students in natural history to eradicate it.

I have said that this prejudice has been caused by the misdemeanors, real or fancied, of a few species. It is of these few species, and their nearly allied relatives, that I propose to speak in the present paper. None of our birds have caused greater controversy among horticulturists and farmers throughout the country than the common robin, and agricultural papers have contained long articles relative to its destructive or beneficial qualities, and the light that has been, or should have been, shed on its habits is great. But, unfortunately, little is practically known of the bird save that it cats cherries and other small fruits, and that it is a nuisance generally. I have had a fair opportunity during the past ten years of discovering what its relative good and bad qualities are, and from my own observations, and those of others-careful students and good observers-I have arrived at the conclusion that the robin as a species is vastly more beneficial than injurious on the farm, taking into consideration all the interests of rural economy.

I will at the outset frankly acknowledge that to small fruit growers the bird is very often a pest; that it has a love for ripe cherries and berries, and that it often takes more than a fair share to itself; but, admitting this injury, which occurs during a short season of the year only, what is the amount of harm done in comparison with the benefits the bird renders to the farm through the remainder of the year? My observations regarding the food of the robin have been made both by watching the bird in various seasons of different years and by examining the contents of stomachs of dead specimens killed in a variety of localities and seasons. I have also been assisted by students in different parts of the country, who have sent me many specimens, and have examined others, making full memoranda of the contents of the stomachs of the birds.*

Beginning with January and continuing through February, I find that in a few specimens which were killed in the middle, western, and New England States, the contents of the stomach consisted in nearly the following proportion : Of barberries, 2; seeds, 3; insects, 3; a few larvæ, 3; cedar berries, 4; or, in other words, mention is made of barberries twice where insects are spoken of three times, larvæ twice, cedar berries four times, &c. We can see that during these two months the food must necessarily have been meagre; and although a few insects were obtained, the greater part of the diet consisted of seeds and wild berries, which were of little value to the agriculturist; allowing reasonable margin, and supposing that a portion of the insects were beneficial, we may conclude

*Special acknowledgments are due for specimens and memoranda to D. D. Hughes, Marshall, Mich.; E. R. Maynard, Newtonville, Mass.; E. E. Perry, Volusia, Florida; L. E. Ricksecker, D. Sampson, and H. A. Purdee. In presenting memoranda of the food of the robin it will be most convenient, perhaps, to arrange them by months.