344 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 6 



indebted subscribers ; and, besides, we should be very 

 unwilling to take that mode of reminding debtors, who 

 had not been very forgetful of, and remiss in, perform- 

 ing their obligations. But neither objection applies to 

 cases of long-continued neglect and denial of pay- 

 ment, even after a year or more has elapsed after the 

 names have been erased from the subscription list, for 

 non-payment of still older arrears. Such a list as this, 

 may be published before another volume of the Farm- 

 ers' Register is commenced ; and we fear (from pre- 

 sent appearances) that it will be a long one. 



From the American Journal of Science and Arts. 



HYDROGEN GAS IN A LEAD PIPE, USED AS 

 AN AQUEDUCT. 



In a Utter to the. Editor from Nelson JValkly. 



I was at the house of a friend during the last 

 sun:imer, and while there, he was engaged in lay- 

 ing lead pipe, from a spring to his house, for con- 

 ducting the water, a distance of three-quarters of 

 a mile. 



Between the spring and his house was a hill 

 several feet higher than the spring, and several 

 whose summits were not as high. His house 

 was fifteen feet lower than the spring. He in- 

 formed me that he had laid down his pipe several 

 times and set the water running, but it never had 

 continued to run over ten days at a time. He had 

 repeatedly taken it up and tried it, supposing it 

 contained a leak. He called on the man whom 

 he had originally employed to lay his pipe, for a 

 cause, and found that he knew nothing, except 

 that the stoppage was occasioned by air, and that 

 air could not get in, unless there was a leak in the 

 pipe. My friend, when 1 arrived, was taking up 

 his pipe for the last time, to try whether there was 

 a leak. After trying it with a pressure of 50 lbs. 

 to the inch, he found no leak and laid down his 

 pipe, and by means of a forcinc: pump set the wa- 

 ter running again. As formerly, afier running 

 less and less for about ten days, it entirely ceased. 

 I then took it in hand, determined to find out, if 

 possible, the cause of the obstruction. I made a 

 puncture in the pipe at one of the high places 

 lower than the spring, and found that the pipe con- 

 tained not air, but hydrogen gps. 1 was now 

 more embarrassed than before, as I could not ima- 

 gine what was the source of the hydrogen. I 

 happened about that time to take a tin cup of wa- 

 ter, and noticed a row of minute bubbles along 

 the seam ; the thought struck me, that it xvas the 

 combination of metals in the pipe that occasioned 

 galvanic action sufficiently powerful gradually to 

 decompose the water. 



To try it, I put a small piece of the same pipe 

 into a tumbler of water, and after standing two 

 days, I found the pipe covered with a coat of white 

 oxide, with the exception of the seam where it 

 was soldered together, and there the tin which 

 composed the solder was perfectly bright. From 

 this I inferred, that the galvanic action of the pipe 

 on the water produced decomposition, the oxygen 

 combining with the lead, and the hydrofjen car- 

 ried along by the water until it came to the high 

 places in the pipe, and there accumulated until it 

 filled the pipe and entirely obstructed the water. 



To remedy this difficulty, I made holes into the 



pipe at every high place, and soldered over them 

 a vertical tube, open at the top, excepting the hill 

 that was higher than the spring, and to that part 

 of the pipe I soldered a tube similar to the others, 

 with this exception, that I soldered it up at the 

 top. The first mentioned tubes let the gas es- 

 cape as it came along, and the one on the highest 

 elevation suffered the gas to accumulate in it until 

 a small bubble protruded below the end of the ver- 

 tical tube, and was detached from the body of 

 the gas in the tube and carried on by the water. 

 After the above arrangement was effected, the 

 water was set running, and has continued to run 

 without any sensible diminution ever since, up- 

 wards of eight months. Query, Is not the action 

 of water upon lead, mentioned in vol. xxxiv. p. 25, 

 of this journal, occasioned by a combination of 

 some other metal with the lead ? 

 Tuscaloosa, Ala. May 25th, 1838. 



From tlie Genesee Parmer. 

 WHITE-WASHING TREES. 



The practice of white-washing trees, particu- 

 larly fruit trees, which at one time prevailed ex- 

 tensively, seems to have been mostly disconti- 

 nued, but for what reason, is not, we apprehend, 

 generally understood. Washing trees with lime 

 was adopted for the purpose of removing mosses, 

 cleaning the bark, destroyincr insects, particularly 

 the aphis, and that it was efficient for these pur- 

 poses, few who have tried it will deny. The ob- 

 jections made against the practice were that the 

 coating of white-wash excluded from the bark 

 the action of air and moisture, and that by caus- 

 ing the rough bark to scale off, the tree was de- 

 prived of a covering which might be beneficial in 

 protecting it fi-om frosts in our severe winters. 

 These objections we are inclined, from our own 

 experience and observation, to consider of little 

 weight when compared with the positive advan- 

 tages of the application. We have never known 

 a tree injured from the white-washing process ; 

 on the contrary, we have seen trees covered with 

 the aphis, or with dead rough bark, efl:'ectually 

 cleaned, and rendered vigorous and healthy, the 

 bark looking green and the foliage vigorous. To 

 produce the beneficial effects, it is not necessary 

 to have the white-wash laid on of the consistence 

 and thickness of a coat of mortar; but thin and 

 even with a common brush. If the tree is very 

 mossy, or has much dead bark, rubbing it with a 

 stiff broom, or otherwise cleaning the trunk, 

 should precede the application of the white-wash. 

 Experiments have shown, that in nurseries of 

 trees, those that have been washed either with 

 lye or lime, grew much more rapidly than those 

 not subjected to the process. We should be 

 pleased to have the opinions of our farming friends, 

 on this subject. 



From the Genesee Farmer. 



OIL-CAKE AND BONES EXPORTED FR03I AME- 

 RICA TO EUROPE. 



A vessel lately sailed from New York for Eng- 

 land, carrymg out more than one hundred tons of 

 oil-cake, tor stall-feeding cattle. This shows that 

 the Enfrlish farmers understand the nature and 



