Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1873-02-26

bilier STOCK from Cakes AEles. Ames him
self is Justly recommended for extreme
treatu ent, because be acknowledges an in
tent to bribe. A similar treatment of MIR.
Brooks is required, by the fact that he was
a Government director, and was intimately
acquainted with the character OF the
scheme. For the rest resolution Of severe
censure is the least they deserve, and this
is demanded, not only as an act of justice,
but in order that definite standard may be
established for the future"
THE GARDEN SPOT OF EUROPE.
The agriculture of Europe presents many
historical facts which American farmers
may read and study with profit; for when
man learns what has been done in the way
of improvement in tillage and husbandry,
and how it was done, he has inspiration to
make some progress in bis art, and achieve
a benefit which others have shown to be at
tainsble. 1t may seem incredible that the
worst land in Europe has been made its
garden spot; but is there anything that will
teach farmer industry, enterprise, econo-
my and frugality, like necessity? It Is the
mother of iRyention, of labor, and of
wealth. So early as the second century Of
the Christian era the people who occupied
holl01o land east of the German ocean call
ed Holland for short, and low or Neither
lands, began to dixie out the sea, and obtain
small farms on which they could make a
living. Plantations lower than the average
tides, and in storms of wind, subject to ter
rible foundations from the ocean, had to be
defended from the overflow of the three
rivers, Rhine, Schledt and Meuse, by
high embankments hundreds of miles in
length. Bog and drifting sand, lake,
pond, marsh, river and ocean floods, have
imposed on some three million people the
necessity of expanding fifteen hundred mil
lion dollars in permanent agricultural i'm
provements. At time when famines were
not very uncommon, and plaques still more
frequent, in London, the Dutch supplied
that city and others in England, with cab
bsge, turnips and other vegetables, almost
unknown to farmers out of Holland. When
Mr.. Webster was minister at the Court of
st. James, he expressed his admiration Of
five hundred acre fields Of turnips; but the
practice originated in the polderS of the
Netherlands, which we will describe. In
early times there were 'ome $50 lakes in
the Netherlands generally shallow, and
in summer lower than the sea by
reason Of solar evaporation. They can
only be drained by pumping out the water
some two feet or more below the bottom Of
the lake il bitches, and by deep ditch or
canal quite round the lake to cut eff all
springs and brooks running into it. Land
so reclaimed is polder; and many years
ago the Dutch had 223, 062 acres CT such
garden spots. Perhaps the greatest single
work of making farms from land covered
with water II feet 10 inches below low-wa-
ter mark in the ocean, was commenced in
1886, to drain Harlaem Lake with an area
$3.50 acres, and completed in 1852.
To remove the streams running into tie
lake, canal forty miles in length, nine feet
deep, and from 125 to 147 feet in width, was
dug quite aroundit and the earth excavated
was made into solid embankment between
the canal and lake. This was not an easy
task, for some swamp streams were almost
bottcmless, and swallowed world of brush
and gravel, before the bed rose to the sur
face of the water. The canal and embank-
ment constructed, and the long dixie also,
against the ocean, three steam engines of
$50 horse power each were procured from
England; and to give them solid founda-
ton in the swamp mud, it was aug out %
feet, and piles were driven 40 feet below.
Each of these engines worked eleven pow
erful pumps of ten feet stroke. After work
ing two years, and mostly night
and day, the water was not
out Of Harlaem Lake. It was greatly re-
duced, and in one year more the dry land
1t was surveyed and sold for
enough to pay all the cost and something
over. The expense was S3,592,537, and
S79 an acre. Two years after, the water
was pumped into the sea, an American
farmer visited this garden spot, and found
1000 people living on these 1920 acres,
Is feet below low water mark on
the contiguous ocean. Now, land that cost |
$40, pays an annual rent of that sum; and |
it is proposed to drain the Zuyder-Zee,
which, although now sea, was once fresh |
water lake. The kingdom of the Neither |
lands has less than two acres of improved |
and to one inhabitant; and to get the max
mum yield from it, more than one-half is
in grass. The diaries of Holland are said |
10 be the neatest in the world; and |
their butter sells at the highest price
ID European cites. Long before |
\ steam engine was made in England, the
educated Dutch had carried agricultural
to the point of planning and
erecting windmills that cost $4,000 with
cheap labor, each; and one would pump all
he surplus water from 600 acres of low
AXE, or swamp, to higher level. 1t is now
i33 years since pond Of 50 acres was per-
;ectly drained in this way. On tower an
American traveller counted 200 of These
gindmills in sight at one time, to drain and
rrigate improved land. This is not theory
u farming, but the successful practice of
centuries in the heart of Europe, where
he white race with its best thoughts and
.fforts, has lived IS long as anywhere.
What this race will do with steam, wind,
water and science, applied to agriculture, in
,ur vastly superior climate, time will reveal.
Holland has no wood and no coal; and the
old weather is sometimes 30 below freez-
ng.
Think of the scarcity ofbuildiDg material,
nd of the necessity of burning water-moss
~ Tk Il