C8 



<% .farmer's iHontl)lp bieitor. 



every feeding-time, so that in the fourth week 

 the calf receives 8 J „ in the fifth 9, and in the 

 sixth Pif quarts of milk daily ; the animals also 

 receiving more and more linseed meal, crushed 

 peas, or rye-meal in their drinks, which are al- 

 ways lukewarm. 



5. In the next six weeks I gave then) their 

 food cold — with, however, more of these mix- 

 tures; the latter are always increased with the 

 quantity of the milk, hecause too much liquid 

 food is very apt to make the calves poor and pot- 

 bellied. During this period ] also take from 

 them a portion of their milk, adding in its place 

 such a portion of the linseed or other substances 

 mixed with warm water as still to make the total 

 quantity of each day's drink (increased, as I have 

 said before, by half a pint at each meal) in the 

 seventh week I0i quarts, and in the twelfth 

 week 14,} quarts per day. 



6. Whoever pays proper attention to the feed- 

 ing of his cattle will soon discover whether the 

 proportion of food named he sufficiently rich or 

 not, and can easily add or diminish the proper 

 quantity. 



7. There can he no animal so stupid about its 

 food as the calf; it must therefore he taught 

 from its earliest infancy. For this purpose, in 

 teaching them to take their food when mixed 

 with linseed meal, &c, we generally begin by 

 giving a small handful of oatmeal, and placing 

 within their reach some good hay, or, if the sea- 

 son will afford it, some green food. 



8. When the calves are twelve weeks oh), the 

 milk is entirely taken from them, and thev re- 

 ceive in its place rye-meal or crushed peas, made 

 into pulp with »ater, and then thinned; the 

 daily ration being increased until the end of the 

 second quarter from 14£ to 30 quarts. 



0. When the calves are half a year old, the 

 drinking fond is gradually lessened and thinned 

 —the quantity being regulated by the natural 

 thirst of the animals, as it gradually takes on to 

 more substantial food. 



®f)c btsitor. 



CONCORD, N. H., MAY 31, 1848. 



Embankments and Drainage. 



' In that beautiful region of country upon the 

 Delaware river below Philadelphia, there are 

 many thousand acres of reclaimed lands abun- 

 dant in their production as they are brilliant and 

 splendid in appearance in the vernal season.— 

 Much of these lands has been recovered by the 

 shutting off the waters in a continued levee or 

 embankment along the bank of the river, or its 

 appendant creeks. All small streams in the 

 southern and middle States are called creeks, as 

 our own Contoocook, Souhegan and Nashua. 

 The fashion of embankments or levees on the 

 Delaware was probably brought from Holland 

 and the Low countries of Europe, where the 

 land shutting out the waters by artificial em- 

 bankments has been cultivated many centuries. 

 Mr. J. Jones, of Delaware, gives us in the last 

 Baltjpiore American Fanner interesting details 

 in relation to the reclaiming of lands aiong the 

 Delaware. He says — 



There is no State in the Union, except it may 

 be Louisiana, in which more draining has beeii 

 done, or where it has been attended with greater 

 success than in Delaware. A great portion ol 

 the Eastern, or Delaware front, of New Castle 

 county, from Naauian's Creek to Bombay Hook 

 was formerly marsh, which has been reclaimed' 

 by embankments at great cost. These embank- 

 ments are in some instances full twenty-four feet 

 wnle at the base, and six to eight feet high, slo- 

 ping at the river side at least a foot and a half to 

 one foot in height, and about one toot to one and 

 a hall on the land or inside ; leaving the toil about 

 four feet wide. The earth from the construc- 

 tion ot these embankments is generally taken 

 from the outside, from ditches or pits cut per- 

 pendicular to the embankments— of length ami 

 depth, so as to afford a sufficient quantity of 



earth for that purpose. Great precaution must 

 be taken when first locating these embankments, 

 to set them sufficiently hack from the river, that 

 the growing reed may be a protection against 

 the storms. Where they are exposed to the 

 healing surf, they must he protected by heavy 

 stone walls. Sluices of masonry or wood, of a 

 capacity to vent all back waler, should be con- 

 structed previously to pulling up the outside em- 

 bankments; and so ought the leading drains or 

 main open ditches. 



Great precaution and care is necessary in put- 

 ting down a sluice, so us to prevent it from 

 blowing out. The sluice if made of wood, with 

 one chamber of 3 feet wide, by 2 feet high 

 would be sufficiently wide to vent all surplus 

 water from a meadow or valley of one or two 

 hundred acres of level land, where water moves 

 sluggishly, and if the top of the embankment is 

 not more than eight feet high above the bottom 

 of the meadow ditch. 20 feet will do lor the 

 length of sluice,— to construct which, two sills, 

 side timbers or plank, sawed specially for the 

 purpose, 2 feet wide by 4 inches thick", 26 feet 

 long, is first to he procured. Upon which spike 

 or tree-nail on 2-inch plank, cm 3 feet by 8 inches 

 long, both for the bottom and top of sluice, leav- 

 ing the chambers of the sluice 2 feet by 3 in the 

 clear. The gate of sluice should be hung with 

 an inclined plane, say about six inches to die 

 foot, so as to open easy when meadow water is 

 highest, and close when river water is strongest. 

 The sluice, when so made, should rest on five 

 good mud sills, the two outside ones should ex- 

 tend at least six feet beyond the width of sluice, 

 on either side. Sheet piling should be drove 

 down full three feet below the top of both the 

 outside sills, and spiked fast to the said sills so 

 as to guard against the working of muskrals, or 

 leakage from other causes. Grating should be 

 drove at the head or meadow side of sluice, so 

 as to prevent logs, brush, grass, or other floating 

 substances from getting into the sluice, and either 

 obstructing the tree passage of the water, or 

 closing of the sluice gate against the river. If a 

 greater volume of waler is to be vented, ihe 

 width and capacity of the sluice may he increa- 

 sed by an additional foot in height, or an in- 

 creased number of chambers, which may be 

 easily made by an additional sill or side timber 

 of four inches thick or more, of the necessary 

 height, as occasion may require, and if the em- 

 bankment is higher than eight feet, the length of 

 sluice must be increased— so as to observe the 

 same figure as of first described dimensions. 



If sluices are constructed of solid masonry, 

 they may be done with cut stone or good hard 

 brick, in all cases to he laid in hydraulic cement, 

 resting on good firm foundations of wood, well 

 shed-piled, covered with flat stone, arched with 

 brick; chambers in no case should be higher 

 than three feet, or wider than six feet, each, but 

 may be increased to any desired number, so as 

 to vent off, quick, all surplus water. Sluices are 

 best when sunk well down. If submerged, they 

 are all the heller, as the greater the depth they 

 sink, allows a greater depth of covering, and 

 weight gives strength to this kind of structure. 

 Good heavy stones well fastened in the wall will 

 he necessary for sluice gates to work upon. If 

 the water is salt, copper fastenings are best and 

 cheapest in the end. The length of piles must 

 be increased (as well as the extent of wing- 

 piling) if the foundations are built on soft mud." 

 Previous to the construction of the Chesapeake 

 and Delaware Canal through the St. George's 

 meadows, it required three ranges of sluices, 

 each capable of venting a volume of sixty leet of 

 water, through several chambers of various di- 

 mensions. The extern of meadows and upland 

 slopes, which was drained through these sluices, 

 was near ten miles long, by near an average of 

 four miles wide, or more than 20,000 acres.— 

 There Here six mills of various kinds upon the 

 streams above, but they were at all times liable 

 lo waste water, and their dams ever to break, 

 which made it necessary to provide sufficient 

 width of sluices to guard against all such con- 

 tingencies. 



Several thousand acres of prime meadow now 

 in good condition, are being grazed with bit cat- 

 tle li>r the shambles of Wilmington, Philadelphia 

 and Ne« York. Besides which many dairies for 

 milk, butier, and cream for the ice-cream saloons 

 of Wilmington, Philadelphia and Baltimore.-* I 



These meadows when thus improved, sell from 

 20 to $200 per acre, according to the quality and 

 facility for reaching market. For grazing pur- 

 poses they are particularly well adapted. I was 

 informed by John Ball," formerly an agent of 

 Martin Dubbs, late of Philadelphia, that they fed 

 twenty-four bullocks on only twenly-five acres 

 on the St. George's meadows, near Port Penn, 

 w Inch cattle cost forty dollars and sold for ninety 

 dollars when tat, netting fifty dollars clear profit 

 to the acre. The neatest and best arranged of 

 these marsh fauns that I have seen for a rong 

 time, was Long Island, owned and occupied 

 then by John Barney, late of Philadelphia. It 

 was then far more beautiful and profitably culti- 

 vated than was ever that of Blannerhasselt in 

 Ihe palmiest days of its proprietor, situated as 

 Long Island is, at the- head of the broad and 

 beautiful bay of Delaware, where in the hottest 

 day of summer a sea-breeze can always be en- 

 joyed. There is much other marsh yet in its 

 wild state on Appoquinimink, Blackbird and 

 Duck Creeks, in New Castle, as well as on the 

 creeks in the lower counties of Kent and Sussex 

 that might he equally well improved and profita- 

 bly employed. The numerous steamboats now 

 plying on ihe hay and inlets, add greatly to the 

 advantages of marsh owners, as well as to the 

 upland owner, as a quick, safe and cheap mode 

 of conveying their several products to market. 



In Kent and Sussex, besides some well im- 

 proved river marsh meadows on [he creeks lead- 

 ing up from the river, ihe western border of the 

 Slate has much flat land, that has been brought 

 into profitable cultivation by open ditches of 

 great extent. This draining "both in the interior 

 and on ihe Delaware front of the State, is done 

 by chartered companies. In one of these— (the 

 Marsh Hope, or Tappahanock, I am not sure 

 which companies)— the ditch is near twenty miles 

 long, varying in width from six to twenty-four 

 feet, and from two feet at the upper part to suf- 

 ficient depth to vent the water. These lands 

 when once well drained, are equal in fertility 

 with the lauds of the great American bottom of 

 Illinois, the Eldoruilo of the West, and are as 

 well adapted to the growth of corn, rye, grass, 

 &.c. 1 was shown a field near the village of 

 Vernon, a few weeks since, which my informant, 

 Mr. Tharp, told me had been in corn for more 

 than twenty years in succession without being 

 manured, and was then supposed by some to 

 yield filiy bushels of corn to the acre. His Ex- 

 cellency, Governor Tharp, informed me, thai he 

 had gathered ninety-six bushels of corn from an 

 acre of his meadows, which is pretty much the 

 same quality as many of those reclaimed flat 

 lands. The draining of these lands adds much 

 lo the beauty and health of the country and 

 neighborhood in which ihey lay, as well as to 

 their wealth. Within a few years, many farmers 

 of New Castle- county, have greatly beautified 

 and increased the value of their lands, by under; 

 draining. 



The most interesting part of Mr. Jones' com- 

 munication in the American Farmer is that in 

 which he gives an account of Mr. Jackson's im- 

 provement of an unsightly bog, by drainage. 



Hundreds and thousands of acres of low meadow 

 land have been improved in New England with- 

 in ihe limits of the circulation of the Monthly 

 Visitor since we first took up the subject nine 

 years ago. We have passed and re-passed these 

 reclaimed grounds, and we have often thought 

 how much has been added to the tons of hay or 

 other vegetable products by these improvements. 

 Rightly understanding this subject, we think 

 much greater continued benefits might have 

 been gained. 



All heavy, wet lands may be made light^md 

 lively by suitable drainage. This object gained 

 the rich soil may he made just as deep as the 

 cultivator desires. Drains covered deep below 

 the frost and atmospheric action, if such can be 

 laid, leading the superabundant water into ils 

 main outlet, are always to be preferred. Almost 

 every unsightly hog morass has a stream and a 

 fall below il, through which the water is carried 



