Page:The Diothas, or, A far look ahead (IA diothasorfarlook01macn).pdf/131



an interval in the labor of the following morning, Utis informed me that business called him that day to Nuiore. Under ordinary circumstances he would make the journey by rail. But he now proposed to go by curricle, in order to afford me an opportunity of seeing the country.

Soon after the morning concert, accordingly, we set out at an easy rate of about fifteen miles an hour. I could not sufficiently admire the uniform smoothness of the roads, the high cultivation of the land, and the general air of completeness in every thing. Observing that the ground, wherever visible, was as moist as if rain had fallen, which I knew not to be the case, I inquired the reason.

"That," said Utis, "is the effect of irrigation. Whenever rain does not afford a sufficient supply, the water stored up, as I before mentioned, is let out between the furrows. We have attained, it is true, to a certain control over the rain-supply; but that control extends rather to the regulation of the general average than of the supply in detail. Irrigation is the basis of our agricul-

123