350 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



great mistake in not substituting more hardy kinds 

 for it. The crop of apples is very unequal iu differ- 

 ent sections of New England. In some sections it is 

 great, in others nearly a total failure. 



SETTING KETTLES FOR BOILING FEED. 



The importance of cooking food for fattening ani- 

 mals having been conclusively settled, and now uni- 

 versally admitted, the cheapest and most economical 

 manner of performing this process, as relates to the 

 consumption of fuel, is worth the inquiry. Some 

 over-particular persons, in constructing a furnace for 

 this purpose, build a spiral flue around the caldron, 

 on the supposition that the longer they can keep the 

 heat in contact with the kettle, the more economical. 

 This form of construction is bad : it destroys the 

 draft and renders the fire black and sluggish ; and to 

 form the spiral draft requires so much masonry to 

 touch the kettle, that not more than one half the sur- 

 face is in contact with the heat, and therefore is lost 

 as a conducting agent. ,, 



It is not advisable to set a caldron capable of con- 

 taining less than sixty gallons ; and if ninety gallons, 

 or three barrels, the better. 



In laying out the plan for the brick work, take the 

 diameter of the kettle at the largest point ; add to 

 this twelve inches for a six-inch space on each side, 

 and to tliis twice the thickness of both walls ; and, 

 in the direction that the flue or arch is intended for 

 receiving the wood, add two feet, so that the struc- 

 ture shall be two feet longer than its width. 



Kettles now-a-days have a projecting flange at the 

 top, and two horns to rest them upon the brick work. 

 By means of chains or ropes, suspend the kettle over 

 the exact point where it is intended to be fixed — its 

 bottom at the right distance from the bottom of the 

 fii-e pit, to allow a proper quantity of wood to pass 

 under — then carry up the walls to the height of the 

 mouth of the arch, which is to be in one end of the 

 longest direction of the furnace. At this point place 

 some iron bars over the arch and one across, near to 

 that side of the kettle, and lay over the arch, and up 

 to the kettle and half way round it, two courses of 

 bricks, touching the kettle at a point where the sides 

 commence rising — by which arrangement the hre is 

 made to impinge against the entire bottom, and, pass- 

 ing past the centre, returns around the sides, and 

 passes up the chimney over the mouth of the arch. 

 The structure is then complete by bringing the walls 

 to the height of the kettle — gathering in towards the 

 top, so that the entire flange rests upon the brick 

 work. 



By this construction it will be seen that the fii-e 

 strikes against the bottom, and passes up the end and 

 back around the whole body of the boiler, not injur- 

 ing the draft, and brings the blaze in contact with 

 the entire surface, except where the two thicknesses 

 of bricks touch it over the arch. 



A seven or eight inch stove pipe, of which a cheap, 

 second-hand article can always be procured, answers 

 all the purposes required for a chimney, and costs 

 less. 



A smaller kettle, fitted with steam pipe and a 

 steam chest, is probably altogether the most desirable 

 method of cooking food for animals ; but its prepara- 

 tion in a proper and substantial manner involves an 

 expense of fixtures — an outlay that but few farmers 

 are willing to encounter, for merely fattening the 

 animals for household use. — Rural New-Yorker. 



People seldom improve when they have no other 

 model but themselves to copy. 



PUMPING A LAKE DRY. 



Dr. J. V. C. Smith, the editor of the Boston Medi- 

 cal and Surgical Journal, who is now on a visit to 

 Europe, gives an interesting description, in his edito- 

 rial correspondence from Holland, of the manner in 

 which the Lake of Haarlem is drained by steam 

 engines, and its waters sent to the sea. 



"Six miles from Amsterdam is the inland Lake of 

 Haarlem, twenty-one miles long by eleven wide, 

 which three hundred years ago was found to be per- 

 ceptibly increasing by shooting its waters farther an'' 

 farther, and covering up the land, threatening th,^ 

 first commercial port of the realm with destruction by 

 flowing in upon its back. Various schemes, at that 

 remote epoch, were devised by able counsellors to 

 stay the threatening danger. Throe Dutch engineers, 

 of acknowledged ability, proposed draining off the 

 water, first raising it by windmills. They are entitled 

 to remembrance, from having suggested the very 

 plan adopted in 1819 for averting an impending ca- 

 lamity. Seven years since, delay no longer being 

 safe, a canal was dug around the whole circumference 

 of the lake, averaging two hundred feet in width by 

 nineteen deep. Three monster steam engines are 

 housed on the sides of the lake, some six or eight 

 miles apart, each moving eight monstrous iron pumps. 

 All the pistons are raised at once, at every revolution 

 of the machinery, raising twenty-five thousand gal- 

 lons of water, which is emptied into the canal, 

 whence it is hastened on, by a fourth engine, faster 

 than it would otherwise move to the Zuyder Zee ; 

 and it thus reaches the sea fifteen miles distant. In 

 April, 1849, the pumps, worked by three of the 

 mightiest steam engines perhaps ever constructed, 

 were set in motion ; and up to this date, July 25, 

 18o0, have lowered the contents of the lake seven 

 feet. By next April, it is anticipated that the bot- 

 tom will be fairly exposed, and all the water con- 

 veyed away from its ancient basin. All this is exe- 

 cuted at the expense of government." 



LARGEST GRAPE-VINE IN THE UNITED 

 STATES. 



Under this head the Natchez Free Trader, of the 

 loth instant, has the following paragraph : — 



Mr. William Casey, corner of Union and State 

 .Streets, in the city of Natchez, can boast of a grape- 

 vine which is, undoubtedly, the monarch vine of the 

 United States. It rises from the ground in a single 

 trunk of some three inches in diameter, nearly 

 straight and well proportioned, to the height of about 

 nine feet, when it spreads into branches, and covers 

 and embowers the trellis work of quite a large gar- 

 den, besides climbing a tall tree. The weight of the 

 immense clusters of grapes hanging upon it, now 

 about half grown, is estimated at a ton. To stretch 

 out any of the branches in a direct line, they would 

 measure from three to four hundred feet. The vari- 

 ety of this grape is not natural to the country, but 

 was brought up to Natchez in the old Spanish times. 

 It is called the "Jack Grape," from " Spanish Jack," 

 the nickname of the Spaniard who planted it. Some 

 years ago, Madame Bingaman, now dead, offered Mr. 

 Casey five hundred dollars if he would remove the 

 vine safely to her garden in the environs of the city ; 

 but no sum of money whatever would induce the 

 owner to part with it. It produces a wine which has 

 the taste of hock. 



Brave actions arc the substance of life, and good 

 sayings the ornament of it. 



