136 



©I)c .former's ittontljlij Visitor. 



From the Boston Cultivator. 

 Cisteru Water. 

 Mb. Eeitor :— 1 have no water in my barn 

 yard, anil as you are supposed to know all aliout 

 farm matters, allow me the privilege of troubling 

 you to inform me, whether a cement cistern filled 

 from my roof, will answer all purposes; will 

 cattle drink cistern water, or will a well be bet- 

 ter ? 



WM. J. PETTEE. 



Lakeville, Ct. 



Remarks.— Cistern water filled from the roof, 

 when preserved in a tank, sunk so deep in the 

 earth as to be out of the reach of frost in winter 

 and heat of the sun in summer, is the best that 

 can be obtained, both for the house and barn 

 yard, and by an easy mode of supply. And 

 when this fact conies to be belter understood, to 

 sink a deep and expensive well, will be consid- 

 ered no longer necessary. It is but to build the 

 cisteru of sufficient capacity to contain the quan- 

 tity of water required for the supply of the fam- 

 ily or stock, and there need be no want of abun- 

 dance at all seasons of the year. It has been 

 ascertained, that sufficient rain falls from the 

 roof of every building for the ample supply of 

 the family it covers, be it ever so large ; and the 

 objection urged against the erection of so large 

 a cistern on account of the difficulty and hazard 

 in rendering it safe, is done away by the substi- 

 tution of two or more placed in contiguity, or in 

 different positions, with a connecting pipe lead- 

 ing from the bottom of one to the other. In the 

 erection of a rain-water cistern, the trunk, or 

 pipe by which the water is received from the 

 roof, must extend to within a few inches of the 

 bottom of the cistern inside, by which means 

 the water will always be preserved fresh and 

 good ; impurities, if any, floating away in a rainy 

 season by the waste-pipe from the surface, 

 changing at the same time a large portion of the 

 water in the cistern. Water from such a source 

 will alwavs be preferable to any other, and for 

 all purposes. We have a friend, whose large 

 stock of cattle are supplied with cistern water 

 obtained in this way from the roofs of his barns, 

 stables, <fcc, which, if left to discharge itself into 

 the yard, would be injurious in the washing 

 away of the most valuable portion of his dung- 

 heap. 



Water Rams. 



The beauty of this instrument for delivering 

 water at any height above the level of the spring 

 is unsurpassed in the history of invention. A 

 very small spring, with a few feet tall, may be 

 made to deliver water at any desired height, the 

 quantity being regulated by the latio of the fall 

 to the height at which it is delivered. A corres- 

 pondent of the American Agriculturist describes 

 the heights and distances as they are with a suc- 

 cessful machine of his. 



"The following is a correct statement of a 

 water ram I have had in successful operation for 

 the last six months: — 



1. The fall from the surface of the water in 

 the spring is four feet. 



2. The quantity of water delivered, per ten 

 minutes, at my house, is three and one-fourth 

 gallons, and that discharged at the ram twenty- 

 five gallons. Thus nearly one-seventh part of 

 the water is saved. 



3. The perpetual height of the place of de- 

 livery above the ram is ten feet, say fifteen feet 

 above the surface of the spring. 



4. The length of the pipe leading from the 

 ram to the house is one hundred and ninety 

 feet. 



5. The pipe leading from the ram to the 

 house has three right angles, rounded by curves. 



6. The ram is of Douglass' inuke of a small 

 size. 



7. The length of the drive or supply pipe is 

 sixty feet. Its inner diameter one inch. 



8. The depth of water in the spring over the 

 drive p'pe is six inches. 



9. The inner diameter of the pipe conduct- 

 ing the water from the ram to the house, is 

 three-eighths of an inch. 



1 consider it very essential that the drive or 

 supply pipe should be laid as straight as possi- 

 ble, as in the motion of the water in this pipe 

 consists the power of the ram." 



To render wood durable. 



In preparing wood for the purpose of building, 

 saw it into such lengths as the occasion demands ; 

 next, plunge the planks or beams into a pond of 

 lime-water. The pond is made thirty or forty 

 feet long, five or six feet deep, sixteen or eigh- 

 teen feet wide ; and the bottom and sides are 

 rendered water-tight. It is then filled with cold 

 water. Before receiving the wood, a quantity of 

 fresh-burned hot lime is thrown into the pond, 

 which is well stirred with the water, to dissolve 

 as much as possible of it. Into this strongly im- 

 pregnated solution of lime-water, the wood, in 

 the various shapes it has been sawn into, is then 

 thrown. As lime-water absorbs carbonic acid, 

 from the atmosphere, the lime previously IipIiI, 

 dissolved in the water, becomes insoluble, and is 

 slowly abstracted from the water, and deposited 

 at the bottom in a solid state, as carbonate of 

 lime; hence the necessity of now and then 

 throwing in fresh portions of recently calcined 

 lime, that the water may be re-saturated with 

 the strongest solution of this caustic alkaline 

 earth. 



The timber remains in the water from two to 

 three weeks. The lime is absorbed by the pores 

 of the wood, and appears to destroy the albumi- 

 nous and saccharine principles, or so changes 

 them that the wood no longer affords the food 

 on which worms subsist. The slight petrifaction 

 which the wood thus undergoes, prevents air 

 and moisture from penetrating it, and renders it 

 almost indestructible. It should be thoroughly 

 seasoned before it is used. 



There are some rivers having the quality of 

 turning ivood into slone, such as a famous lake 

 in Ireland. It is the presence of lime in the wa- 

 ter that effects the change. If wood be satura- 

 ted in strong alum, and then dried at an intense 

 heat, it is very durable, and more so, if a little 

 copperas has been used along with the alum. — 

 Scientific American. 



From the Dollar .Newspaper. 

 Plaster—its action. 

 When sulphur is entirely absent in oils, plas- 

 ter, by furnishing that salt so essential to the 

 growth of clover, wheat, &c, produces a marked 

 and striking effect, especially on red clover. 



The result of the application of so small a por- 

 tion as one bushel to the acre, is almost magical 

 on some soils; so much so, that a spot which has 

 received none, may he seen by the yellow, sickly 

 hue of the grass, almost as far as you can see 

 the land. Although so small a portion of gyp- 

 sum will produce beneficial effects, it does by no 

 means hold good that one bushel per acre is suf- 

 ficient, although some will contend that a half 

 bushel is sufficient. Land which has been much 

 exhausted requires a much larger dose, and even 

 four to five bushels would not be too much for 

 one acre. Il is well known that most micacious 

 and granitic soils contain potash; such soils, af- 

 ter having become exhausted by severe cropping 

 and shallow ploughing on being deeply plough- 

 ed, to throw up fresh portions of soil, the potash 



of which has been consumed by the crops, show 

 surprising increase of fertility upon the applica- 

 tion of plaster. 



Plaster, then, not only acts by furnishing sul- 

 phur to the soil, but also by its chemical action 

 upon the potash of the soil, thereby rendering it 

 fit to enter into the growing crop. That such is 

 the case, is evident from the fact that after plas- 

 ter, upon having been applied for a series of 

 years, ceases to act, and the land, judging from 

 the appearance of the grasses, is growing poor, 

 the application of twenty-five to forty bushels of 

 ashes per acre to the sod, at once restores the 

 land to its fertility, and the crop of grass, in 

 many instances, greatly exceeds the best produce 

 of former years, when the plaster was doing the 

 most good. After having received one or two 

 dressings of ashes, plaster acts upon the same 

 soil as beneficially as when first used. 



It is perfectly plain, that the failure of plaster 

 to produce beneficial effects upon the land to 

 which it has been repeatedly applied, arises first, 

 from an excess of sulphur in the soil; and sec- 

 ondly, from the exhaustion of the potash con- 

 tained therein. 



We not unfrequently hear farmers complain 

 that plaster injures their land, and upon inquiry, 

 almost invariably find, that they uniformly sell 

 all their hay, and never think of ploughing their 

 fine crops of red clover under. This always 

 "taking out the meal tub and never putting in, 

 must soon come to the bottom." They might as 

 well complain that their plough horses grow 

 weak upon an exclusive diet of buckwheat 

 straw. 



All are well aware that plaster produces no 

 visible effects upon some soils. In all such in- 

 stances there is already a sufficiency, or perhaps 

 an excess of sulphur in the soil. Such lands, 

 like limestone lands generally are more benefited 

 by the application of barn-yard manure, than by 

 lime or any other mineral manure, if the ex- 

 pression is applicable. 



From experience and observation, I would ad- 

 vise that upon exhausted soils, a heavy dressing 

 of plaster, not less than two bushels to the acre, 

 should be applied. I have seen astonishing ef- 

 fects produced by such a dressing, when neither 

 lime nor stable manure had been used. Two 

 things seem, from the foregoing, if allowed to 

 be correct, to suggest themselves to the mind. 

 First, that upon worn-out soils the allowance 

 should exceed one bushel to the acre; and sec- 

 ondly, that upon plaster ceasing to act, ashes 

 should be at once applied to restore the potash 

 to the soil ; and a third may he added, plough 



under clover. 



AGRICOLA. 



Long Green, Md., 1849. 



Agriculture is the art of arts; without it man 

 would be a savage, and the world a wilderness. 



The more I am acquainted with agricultural 

 affairs, (says George Washington,) the better I 

 am pleased with them; insomuch that I can no 

 where find so great satisfaction as in those inno- 

 cent and useful pursuits. In indulging those 

 feelings, I am led to reflect how much more 

 delightful to an undebaticbed mind is the task of 

 making improvements on the earth, than all the 

 vain glory which can be acquired from ravaging 

 it by the most uninterrupted career of conquests. 



Western Agricultural Products. — Twenty-six 

 towns in Ashtabula county, Ohio, according to 

 the assessor's returns, in the past year manufac- 

 tured cheese to the value of $284,057 50, and 

 butter to the value of $26,057 46. 



