1858. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



281 



We never yet saw a piece of stony ground 

 covered with shrubs of any description, but had 

 many young forest trees intermingled. These 

 are often kept browsed down by cattle, but the 

 short time required to make a forest of them is 

 surprising to one who has not given attention to 

 this point. There are many thousands of acres 

 of rough land in this State which ought to be 

 devoted to timber, and of all others — mountain 

 ledges excepted — the old pastures, cold and heavy, 

 full of stone and covered with moss, brakes and 

 useless shrubs, stand first. This is, in our view, 

 the only way in which these lands can ever be re- 

 stored to fertility. Manuring is out of the ques- 

 tion, and the extirpation of shrubs from rough, 

 wet ground is next to impossible, and in the ex- 

 hausted state of the soil, moss and brakes would 

 soon fill their place were the shrubs desti'oyed. 



For the Nete England Farmer. 

 HOW TO MAKE A GOOD SHINGLE BOOP. 



Mr. Editor: — An article on this subject in 

 your November number for 1857, has led me to 

 make the following remarks. 



It appears that the writer of that article was a 

 carpenter ; I also am a carpenter ; have had an 

 experience of over fifty years in making and re- 

 pairing roofs, and would wish to lay before your 

 readers a few considerations as the result of my 

 long experience. 



In the first place, it is important, in order to 

 make a tight shingle roof, that it should have a 

 good pitch ; forty-five degrees is none too much 

 when it can conveniently be had ; this, in a krge 

 building, may be a little too much to look Mell, 

 but in small buildings more is better, both for 

 looks and utility ; it gives opportunity for the 

 water to run off freely, and the roof soon dries. 

 One reason ■why roofs decay so soon, and become 

 leakj^, is their flatness, — they hold the water for 

 a long time ; it penetrates the wood, the heat of 

 the sun causes a kind of fermentation, and de- 

 composition takes place, and the life and strength 

 of the wood is soon destroyed. 



Shaved shingles I conceive to be better than 

 sawed, for this reason : they are free from that 

 roughness which the sawed shingle possesses, 

 serving as a sponge to hold the water, and caus- 

 ing the shingles to decay, and then the general 

 surface of the shaved shingle is not so level as 

 the sawed, and of course they do not lay down 

 so close to the shingles below, which gives the 

 air free circulation to dry the shingle, which pre- 

 vents it from rotting. 



Another thing in favor of shaved shingles, is, 

 they run with the grain of the wood, and do not 

 so readily absorb the water as the cross-grained, 

 sawed shingles. 



It is my opinion that a roof covered with 

 shaved shingles will last a third longer than one 

 covered with sawed shingles made out of the 

 same kind of stuff". 



Various methods have been tried to prevent 

 shingles from decaying when laid, but all have 

 not proved alike successful. Smearing over with 

 tar has been tried, but has not succeeded well. 

 Painting roofs after they have been shingled has 

 been tried, but this is really worse than useless. 

 Oiling or painting shingles and drying them be- 



fore they are laid, is a good way, but is too ex- 

 pensive for common use. A better and much 

 cheaper way is to make use of lime. In the 

 course of my experience and observation on roofs, 

 I have always found that where shingles have 

 come in contact with lime, they are in a much 

 better state of preservation than where they have 

 not been exposed to it ; even the small quantity 

 that comes off" a whitewashed chimney, in the 

 course of years, will have a surprising effect on 

 the shingles around it. There are three impor- 

 tant advantages to be derived from making use 

 of lime on shingles. 



The first is, it preserves the shingles in a good 

 degree from moisture. Whoever will take the 

 pains to examine a well whitewashed roof in the 

 morning when the dew is on, will readily see that 

 the moisture does not penetrate through the 

 whitewash, and th-s it serves as a shield to pre- 

 vent the shingles from the decaying eff"ect of wet- 

 ting and drying, and although it is not a perfect 

 preventive from moisture, yet it, in a good de- 

 gree, preserves the shingles from that process of 

 welting and drying to which unprotected shingles 

 are exposed, and which is the great cause of the 

 speedy decay of so many roofs. 



Another important advantage from using lime 

 on shingles, is, it fills the pores of the wood with 

 the salts of the lime, which hardens the wood 

 and renders it more impervious to the water. 



A third advantage from the use of lime, is, it 

 serves to keep the shingles clean from all impu- 

 rities, and especially from moss, which so com- 

 monly grows on roofs, and which serves as a 

 sponge to hold the water, and prevents the roof 

 from drying. 



In order to prepare the shingles for laying, I 

 would observe — take a cistern or long tub, put 

 in about half a bushel of unslaked lime, slake it 

 with warm water, reduce it to the consistency of 

 whitewash, immerse your shingles in the liquid, 

 let them lay about two hours, take them out and 

 cast them promiscously into a pile, let them re- 

 main two or three days, and they will be fit for 

 laying. When the shingles are laid, whitew-ash 

 the whole roof over anew, and you will have a 

 roof that will do good service. 



New Hampshire Carpenter. 



Dernj, N. E., 1858. 



DUST. 



From whence does it all come? You may 

 sweep your room twice every day, and you will 

 find that a cloud of dust arises every time the 

 broom and the floor make acquaintance. You 

 may dust every article of furniture, every book, 

 every picture ; you may take care to shake your 

 duster out of the window, and your own clothes 

 out in the yard ; you may wipe all about the 

 book-shelves and the floor with a damp cloth ; 

 and yet after all your labor, there will be dust. 

 Dust flying in the air; dust settling on the books 

 and tables ; dust on the pictures, on the flowers 

 — dust, dust everywhere. It is discouraging. 



You think, perhaps, 'tis because the room in 

 which you sit is so large ; you think that if you 

 were in snugger quarters, there would not be 

 much of this annoyance; you, therefore, move in- 

 to a smaller apartment, but you are worse off" now 

 than you were before. You can't turn around 



