VIII. Water, and the Watering of the Fields and Plains

Mark it well, Tornik: the soil alone can bring forth nothing, nor give increase, if water and rain bedew it not; of itself the soil is barren and unbearing, unless the quickening power of water and of rain be joined with it. The whole wide-spread world is watered by rain; but there are many places which are watered by rain and running water together. Yet you must know that rain and snow have this great advantage: first, that coming down from heaven's clouds they can water the highest mountains and the plains alike and together; whereas the springs that gush from the ground, the running brooks and the rivers, water only the smooth and low-lying plainlands. And you must know, Tornik, that the greatest reservoir of all the waters that run upon the face of the earth is formed of the rain and the snow: it gathers, as into a storehouse, in the bosom of the earth; and then out of the earth's bosom gush forth the springs, and form brooks and great rivers. Sometimes too, without sinking into the earth's bosom, they run over the ground's face from the hills, and swelling with the pouring rains raise up a mighty flood.

Giving you this much of instruction only, my quick-minded Tornik, learn by your own thinking how these two elements, the soil and the water, joining together, beget and nurse the whole myriad-kinded, matchless children of the world of growing things.

If we account the soil as the mother womb that receives the seeds, it is fitting that we account the water as father, which gives drink to the soil's womb and makes it fruitful; whereby are born growing things so boundless and unnumbered. Let me begin now to speak of the sown, watered fields — with how much care the field must be prepared, that it be watered easily and drink its fill of water. When the spring order of rains is past, naturally the watered fields begin to thirst; and this is the sign of it, when they take a dark green color: then must you know that they are sore athirst and ask for water. If your water is plentiful, you must take up two or more channels at once, and share out the water over the other thirsting fields; and you must watch well over the watermen laborers, that they water the field with care. The water must touch every part of the field evenly; let them not leave one spot dry and parched, nor let the water, gathering overmuch in another, stand in a pool — for that too is hurt to the plants. It is hurt likewise if the waters be left to run flooding out at the field's lower sides, so that they sweep away the soil of the field's face and lay bare the roots of the plants: oh, then the plants, unrooted, are plucked from the mother bosom, and thereupon they wilt and wither.

The fields of our village of Archak are prepared by nature, without labor: so even and level are they, that one waterman, turning a millstream of water upon a field, can govern it, and in one day waters a kila's breadth of ground;¹ and he has such ease withal that he can work by night also. Only, the field's evenness is not enough: needful it is besides, according to the field's lie, to draw fitting guide-furrows and to bind water-turning banks; whereby the waterman's labor is eased yet more.

I know not, Tornik, whether you have seen and marked the fields of the monastery of Varag² — what hardship they have at watering-time, and what day-wages the watermen take. Do you know the cause? First, that the fields for the great part are uneven, all ridge and slope; second, they water without drawing the guide-furrow; third, they say the soil is crumbling and will not hold water, and so forth. All these are part pretexts and part prejudice; the greater cause is the not thinking, and the not loving of labor: for sloping, water-swept fields may little by little, with plain labor, be so set in order that they have those hardships no more — whereof I shall speak apart.

When the husbandman has water more than plenty, he must see not only to the sown fields' water; it is very profitable also if he water the dry places and the stubble-fields too, which has a double gain: it furnishes the beasts pasture of plentiful self-sown grasses; and the field itself takes its nourishment from its own grass-growths — both from the grass's fallen leaves, which rot and become dung, and from the very roots of the grass it takes strength. This is why the villagers leave a field fallow two years and three years, that the soil may strengthen; yet they know not whereby it is that it strengthens: it is these grass-growths that give the field strength. And you will not marvel, Tornik: our sown grain-crops, it is plain, take the soil's strength out of it; while the soil's own self-sown growths, in the stead of taking, give strength.

So also, together with these self-sown grasses, the water too has its own peculiar properties for the giving of strength; for it holds within it — who knows what enriching juices. I know, Tornik, you will be curious to learn the natural properties of the soil and of the water; but consider that your Papik is a peasant — he comes not from the university, that like a natural philosopher he should expound everything to you. You must hold my plain lessons enough.

For agriculture the need of water is very great; and very happy is that village which has abundant-welling springs and streams: it is plain that such a village's yield is twofold. But those villages whose natural springs are few — or which have rivers and streams that come down from above and, passing through the plains, go their way to empty into the lakelets, or to mingle with the great rivers — to the grass-growing plains and the tilled fields these render no profit at all.

Here, let me give you an example, Tornik, that lies before your eye. Through the lands between our Archak and the village of Kharakonis a river passes; well-nigh from spring's beginning, for above two months, that river's water runs to waste, and empties into the lakelet close by; and neither we nor the men of that village take thought to draw profit from that river's water — to form small artificial ponds in the upper grounds. And for that, how many places we have that nature has fitted, whose lie is hollow and bosomed! It is enough that banks of earth be drawn round about, and only at the water-course's mouth one sluice-eye be built of mortared stone; and letting the river's water in, in the spring season, to keep it until the time of the fields' watering. Our forefathers had wiser, more toiling, more careful minds than we: in their time they built such ponds, the places of whose ruins appear to this day; and we have no care so much as to repair the ruined ponds. Within the circuit of Van's eastern mountains there is a wide vale, round about which are a thousand springs, which run into the vale's bosom and gather in a lake. In that time there was, in the parts of Van, a good and skillful priest, who outside his office thought also of the people's field-water; so, building a dam of mortared stone at the vale's narrow lower mouth, he made ready that lake; wherefore the people of the place call it Keshish Göl.³ The water of this lake is so plentiful that it waters the fields round about Van, which are very wide, and likewise the new-planted vineyards; whose fruit-laden plenty is owed to that priest's great work — who, with his spiritual husbandry, cared for the husbandry of bread besides. His name is unknown to us; but by his fruitful memorial he is blessed of the people to this day. There are many other provinces through whose plains great and small rivers pass without giving a palmful of water — as the Euphrates and the Meghraget in the plain of Mush. There is now to be seen, on the upper side of the river Euphrates, the trace of a great water-channel, which, they say, a provident lord of the land opened in time past, and watered a good great part of the plain of Mush. Alas that the people has no care to dig out and open that great channel, and water so many fields left waterless! A river of Paradise⁴ passes and goes by — does it grudge its water to the home-born people dwelling round about it? No: the people is slothful and sluggish; it would have everything ready-made: as the rain falls from heaven, so too must the rivers' water run of itself and water its fields. The provident God has prepared much beforehand for man; but a little portion of labor He has left for us also — that His lordly, unalterable sentence might be fulfilled, and man get his bread by the sweat-earnings of his brow.

You know, Tornik, water is of great moment for the village people; and you see, at the watering of the fields, what strife and fighting they raise — even blood is mingled with the water. For this I wished to be free of those fearful quarrels: I, apart, laboring for myself, made ready with my own hands two little ponds for our fields, which suffice. And from this hour I give you charge, Tornik: labor always to keep those ponds' banks firm, and at every autumn's end repair the places where the water wears through. Thereby you will give your fields plentiful water and reap plentiful fruit; and you will stay free of the villagers' rude quarrels; and withal you will show your village neighbors a profitable example — that they too, following your example, may labor, every master of a house for his own fields, to make ready ponds of the same kind; whose gainful yield is manifold: for the artificial ponds not only furnish water to the fields, but the pond-grounds, turning to meadow, grow plentiful grass, and become withal a green-growing pasture-place for the beasts. There are yet many divers ways of preparing water-stores; this much only is enough. I pass on now to speak of the fields' division and ordering, which is most needful, and hangs together with this my lesson.