Seo. 17.] WATER FOR THE FARMERY. 317 



a great many other places wliere it is worth a dollar a day to tute the water 

 up the slippery rocks in buckets, where all that labor could be saved by an 

 expenditure ot §50, and an annual expense lor repairs of a shilling a year. 

 Yet those who own such places do not improve them, because they do not 

 know tliuy can. 



3il. Durability of Wooden Pipes for .^qv.cJuCkS.— Charles Stearns, of Spring- 

 field, Mais., lias proved liv a somewliat lengthy experience that wooden 

 pipes are nearly indestructible, if laid dccjp — deep enough to prevent atuios- 

 l)heric action upon the wood. Ilis rule is six feet deep in sandy or porous 

 earth ; four feet deep in compact, clayey earth, and three ieet deejj in 

 swampy earth, where the peaty condition of the soil, which is antiseptic, i)re- 

 servcs wood from decay. Tims laid, Mr. Stearns tiiinks wood will outlast iron 

 or lead ; and the wooden pipes are cheaper than any material that can be 

 used, where a bore of two to six inches is required. In one instance, an 

 aqueduct laid by Mr. Stearns of three fourths-inch caliber lead pipe, cor- 

 roded and failed in fifteen years, and had to be replaced. Another one, 

 made with very heav}' lead jiipe of two-inch caliber, laid through a wet 

 meadow, in the very kind of soil that preserves wood the most perfectly, 

 failed so as to need repairs witiiin three or four years, and at the end of ten 

 years had to i^e replaced with new pipe, which he then made of wood, and 

 which, after twenty years of use, is still in good order. The aqueduct pipes 

 supplying Springfield with spring water, that comes to the surface on the 

 tandy plains above the town, have been in use fourteen years, and bid fair 

 to lust many years longer. The bore of the logs is from one and a half to 

 seven inches, charred on the inner surface by forcing flame thrpugli 

 the bore, or by the insertion of a heated rod, to prevent the timber from 

 giving any unpleasant taste to the water. Mr. Stearns thinks, from experi- 

 ments made, that lead pipe will last enough longer to pay for liic expense 

 of burying it deep, or packing it closely ill clay. lie also thinks that the 

 interest upon the dili'erence in cost between well-made and proj)erly laid 

 wooden pipes and those of a more costly material, called indestructible, will 

 keep the wooden pipes in repair forever. For the branch pipes leading into 

 the houses, Mr. Stearns Used lead pipes in all the houses supplied from the 

 Springfield "Water- Works, and has never known any injury to occur to any 

 one using the water; and his own family have used water passed through 

 lead pipe a long distance for many years, without eutlering any of the 

 cflects frequently ascribed to such water ; nor has lie ever lieanl of a case 

 based upon any better testimony than " they say so." The water that 6U|>- 

 I)lies Springfield comes from several springs, improved by digging, and we 

 have no doubt that there are hundreds of other villages tiiat might be 

 watered in the same way, greatly to the comfort and health of the inhabit- 

 ants. There is another advantage Ijcsides chea])nes3 in wooden ])ipC3. It is 

 the ease with which they are tai)ped, wherever and whenever a branch is to 

 be taken oft", and they are also easily repaired. We hope that not only vil- 

 la-^es, but farmers, wherever a spring exists above the level of the farmstead, 



