51 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER 



ried expeiimcnts, and that no farmer will come to 

 tlio conclusion that he cannot raise wheat until he 

 has tried it thoroughly. A single experiment on 

 one location is not sufficient. A'arious soils, modes 

 of management, manures, &c., should be tried. I 

 Tiie wheat crop is an important one, and we now 

 liavc to depend upon other States for the staff of 

 life, which is assuming more and more importance, 

 for in the largest grain-gtowing States this staple, 

 is declining, and it must cnevitably decline, as the 

 process of culture is wearing out the natural fertil-j 

 ity of the land, and when that is gone, the land can 

 l)e enriched and wheat grown only at higher prices.! 

 —Ed. 



BBAUTIFUIi FLOWBRING TRS2S. 



In the tropics, vegetation is generally of a fresh- 

 er verdure, more luxuriant and succulent, and 

 adorned with larger and more shining leaves than 

 in our northern climates. The "social plants," j 

 which often impart so uniform a character to Eu-| 

 ropeau countries, are almost entirely absent in the' 

 e<^uatorial regions. Trees almost as lofty as curl 

 oaks are adorned with flowers as large and beauti-j 

 ful as our lilies. On the shady banks of Rio Mag- 

 dalena in South America, there grows a climbing^ 

 Aristolochia, bearing flowers four feet in circum-j 

 ference, which the India boys draw over their heads! 

 m sport and wear as hats or helmets. In the is- 

 land of the Indian Archipelago, the flower of the 

 Refflesia is nearly three feet in diameter, and 

 weighs over fourteen pounds. — Huinf>oIt\fAspects of 

 Nature. 



iHccljauica' Di'p.Ti tnuiU, 2lits, S^i. 



GRAVEIi CEMENT FOR BUILDING. 



A correspondent of the Phrenological Juurnal, 

 writing from Wisconsin, describes a method of 

 building from gravel and (juicklime, which is ex- 

 ceedingly economical, and neat in appearance. 



A gentleman (Mr. J. Goodrich), occupying a 

 prairie farm in Wisconsin, came to the conclusion 

 that where timber were thus sca'fce nature had un- 

 doubtedly provided other building material. He 

 knew that under the prairie soil and subsoil, which 

 is there about three feet deep, there existed a coarse, 

 clean gravel, and often gravel banks, and also that 

 lime abounded tlironghout the West; hence he rea- 

 soned with himself — Why will not this coarse 

 gravel and lime make good walls for dwellings 1 

 He was not long in reducing his reasonings to a 

 jiractical test. 



The correspondent of the Journal thus speaks of 

 the subject: — "I have seen Mr. Goodrich, exam- 

 ined this mode of structure thoroughly, and pro- 

 nounce it, in my judgment, every way better than 

 either brick or wood, and yet not one-fourth as ex- 

 pensive. The principal expeii.se consists in draw- 

 ing the material and lifting the mortar into the 

 walls. Sand abounds almost everywhere, and can 

 \v3 got — especially coarse gravel — for nothing; and 

 lime is cheap, say tv/elve or fifteen cents per bush- 

 el, unslacked. In this way, one bu.shel of lime 

 serves for twenty bushels of gravel, .so that 100 

 bushels of lime will put up 2,100 bushels of mortar. 



or some 2,500 cubic feet of wall, which, supposing 

 your wall is one foot thick — enough, doubtless, for 

 all practical purposes — would build the outside 

 walls of a house thirty feet square and twenty feet 

 high; and if the inside walls were eight inches 

 thick, and run through the house each way, one to 

 form the entry and the other to divide the house 

 into front and back rooms, it would take only about 

 thirty bushels more, or 130 bushels in all, at a cost 

 less than twenty dollars ! And how many days' 

 work is it likely to require to slack this lime and 

 shovel the gravel into it, and stir up the two to- 

 gether — for no working is needed , only mixing — 

 and carry it up into the walls? There are about 

 3,300 cubic feet of mortar. Cannot a man mix up, 

 on an average, one hundred cubic feet per day? I 

 should think he could double this, yet at this rate 

 the naked walls would cost thirty-three dollars for 

 labor — and the commonest laborer can do it — sup- 

 posing labor to be one dollar per day; and say, per- 

 haps seventeen dollars for lime, or only fifty dol- 

 lars. The chimneys can be cairied up in the wall, 

 as is now done in brick walls, and with trifling ad- 

 ditional labor, and with no additional cost of brick 

 and mortar. The walls of a good sized dwelling- 

 house were put up in Elgin, 111., last year, for 

 about forty dollars, as I was informed by a Mr. 

 Quigley, who was then building a church in that 

 place." 



The question may arise, are walls thus con- 

 structed sufficiently solid, and will they stand? 

 The first building put up by Mr. Goodrich has 

 stood for six years, without any plastering or ce- 

 ment on the outside, and shows no signs of decay 

 whatever; on the contrary, it has become harder 

 and stronger every year. The-Fournars correspon- 

 dent, in travelling through Illinois, Wisconsin and 

 Michigan, saw probably one hundred houses and 

 some fences built in this way — all looking well 

 and substantial, with the exception of a few that 

 had cracked on account of defective foundation. 



Mr. Goodrich, the inventor, has had considerable 

 experience in the business, being the builder and 

 proprietor of the greater portion of the beautiful 

 village of Milton, situated at the head of Prairie du 

 Lac, in Rock county, Wisconsin. The success he 

 has met with is known to many, who have visited 

 that section of the country, as he has already sev- 

 eral fine dwellings, a tavern house, a large block 

 of stores, an academy and various other buildings 

 completed, presenting a very pleasing appearance 

 from their neat exterior, and giving the amplest 

 evidence of the utility of cement in the construction 

 of buildings of all classes. 



"My buildings are made of clear, coarse gravel, 

 and common quicklime. I use twelve parts of the 

 former to one part of the latter; but if the former 

 is fiee from dirt, soil, or clay, and the lime well 

 burned or fresh, you cannot hit amiss, for it will 

 cement in any proportion from one part of lime to 

 one of gravel, to one part of lime to twenty parts 

 of gravel. I prefer laying the foundation with 

 stone laid in mortar, the same as for a brick house. 

 The gravel walls are made of any thickness, ac- 

 cording to the size and height of the house to be 

 built. I have made the walls from ten to fifteen 

 inches thick in my buildings. For curbing, we use 

 pine plank, straight grained, one and a half inches 

 thick, and twelve inches wide, and have enough to 

 curb all the walls around the building at once. The 

 planks are held up by narrov>' strips of boards, s»t 



