588 EXPERIMENT STATION EECOED. [Vol.35 



without giving added safety. The water should be kept at a depth of 2 ft. 

 or more over the top of the sand so that the surface of the sand will not be 

 disturbed by any possible currents from the entering water or from other 

 sources. . . . The best results are obtained by using for the filter sand a sand 

 that will pass through a screen having about 20 meshes to the inch, and will 

 not pass a screen having 50 meshes to the inch. . . . The rate of operation 

 should be about 50 gals, per square foot per day." Chemical treatment by use 

 of calcium hypochlorite and quicklime is also described. 



The discussion of water supply systems includes descriptions of centrifugal, 

 plunger, and air-lift pumps and hydraulic rams. It is concluded that "if 

 pumping is done by hand from a well of any considerable depth, the cylinder 

 must be of small diameter and the discharge will be correspondingly small. 

 Even when a windmill is used in direct connection with a pump, it is best 

 to use a cylinder of small diameter so that the mill will pump with light 

 winds (8 to 12 miles i)er hour). But when a gasoline engine or an electric 

 motor is used the power is supplied at a constant rate and the pump should 

 be selected to use this power. This allows the selection of a pump with larger 

 cylinder and consequently less time is required to do the pumping." 



Cost data are also included. 



House heating, J. L. Mowky (Univ. Minn., Dept. Agr., Ext. Bui. 60 {1916), 

 pp. 15, tigs. 21). — This pamphlet deals with the general proposition of house 

 heating and describes the stove, hot-air, hot-water, and combination hut-water 

 and hot-air systems, giving hints on installation and automatic control. 



RURAL ECONOMICS. 



Rural economy in New England at the beginning of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury, P. W. BiDWELL (Trans. Conn. Acad. Arts and ScL, 20 (1016), pp. 243- 

 S99). — The author has classified the changes in the rural economy in New Eng- 

 land into three periods as follows : 



"(1) The period of self-sufficient economy, which had existed since the 

 settlement of the country, reaching the highest point of its development at 

 the beginning of the nineteenth century, a period in which the characteristic 

 features of rural economy were the absence of any market for farm produce 

 and the consequent dependence of each town and, to a large extent, of each 

 household, even, on its own resources for the satisfaction of its wants; (2) the 

 period of transition to commercial agriculture, under the stimulus accorded by 

 the rise of manufacturing enterprises in inland towns and villages and the 

 consequent demand for food and raw materials on the part of the newly arisen 

 nonagricultural population, the years included in this period being approxi- 

 mately the two generations from 1810 down to the close of the Civil War; 

 and (3) the period of decadence of New England agriculture, extending from 

 the close of the Civil War to the end of the nineteenth century, a period in which 

 the increasing pressure of Western competition caused the abandonment of 

 large numbers of New England farms and a decline in both the quantity and 

 quality of the rural population." 



The author presents a survey of the rural economic conditions in Massachu- 

 setts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island at the close of the first period under the 

 following chapter headings : The inland towns and their village settlements, the 

 coast and river towns, commercial relations of southern New England with the 

 Southern States and the West Indies, internal trade and the transportation 

 system, tlie agricultural industry, and home and community life in the inland 

 town. A brief bibliography is appended. 



