1848. 



GENESEE FARMER. 



265 



The Farmer's Calling. — As much as many 

 farmers deplore the responsibility, the endless 

 toil of their professioii, its uncertainty, its 

 dependence on the season, tlie markets, &c., 

 &c., &c., with all these drawbacks, if they are 

 such, farming has a thousand advantages over all 

 other callings. The farmer of capital is never 

 ruined by the competition of bankrupts, as men 

 never farm on a credit. Tlie productions of the 

 farm are always cash, rarely or never sold on a 

 credit by an intelligent farmer. How often I 

 have seen a laborer or mechanic loathe the very 

 name of store pay, when at the mention of pay- 

 ment in pork and Jlour his eye glistens. The 

 credit system has emphatically glutted and ruined 

 every other business but farming. No farmer 

 ever failed unless he essayed to ornament and 

 support the credit system. I once knew a farmer 

 to have the poor ambition to endorse a bankrupt's 

 bank note, merely to show that he was a man of 

 substance ; but such examples are rare indeed. 



Hard- Times. — In these United States hard 

 times may be referred to the effects produced by 

 the struggle of pride against poverty. It is far 

 worse in the old world, for there the battle of 

 life is between poverty and starvation. A pro- 

 hibitory tariff is the panacea proposed for us by 

 some political economists. I would simply ask 

 the dandies of our land if they will wear home- 

 spun ; and the lady sovereigns, if they will dis- 

 pense with the Paris fashions. S. W. 



Gilbert's Filtering Apparatus. 



I\Ir. Simon Pierson — Dear Sir: I have not 

 seen that any body has answered your inquiry 

 for a "Filter," made through the Farmer some 

 months since, and therefore take the liberty to 

 send you the accompanying diagram of a filter 

 which has been used in this city for several 

 years, and found 1o answer the end pretty well. 



Lest the thing intended by this diagram should 

 not be obvious to you at sight, I will, by way of 

 explanation, say, that this filter is simply an oak- 

 en tub, largest at the top, of any required size 

 — say from three to four feet high and 20 to 

 24 inches across the bottom. A hole is bored 

 through one of the staves near the bottom, into 

 which is fitted one end of a piece of 1 inch lead 

 pipe, about a foot long, the inner end bent up so 

 as to open about 4 or 5 inches from the bottom. 

 A common beer cock is then screwed into the 

 outer end of the pipe, which had been previously 

 pressed out by means of a mandril, to make it 

 water tight. A layer of a mixture of charcoal 

 and gravel, equal parts, is then put in to the 

 depth of four inches and pounded in. A stone- 

 ware crock, some ten inahes in diameter and 18 

 high, is then put bottom upwards in the centre of 

 the tub, resting upon the coal and gravel and en- 

 closing the mouth of the lead pipe. Layers of the 

 coal and gravel, pounded in pretty hard, are then 



put around the crock to its top. Two or three 

 inches of coarse gravel, to prevent the displacing 

 of the coal by the pouring in of water, are then 



Gilberts Filtering ApxiaraUis. 



laid over the coal and crock ; or put on a large 

 flat stone, not a lime-stone. The crock has a hole 

 in its bottom, or rather upper end, for the inser- 

 tion (through a piece of cork, to make it water 

 tight,) of a piece of one-fourth inch lead pipe for 

 a vent, which reaches to the top of the tub ; or 

 it may be conveniently made to go through a 

 hole of the right size within an inch of the top 

 of one of the staves. If it be inconvenient to 

 procure a crock with a vent hole a common one 

 vnW answer the purpose, by having the vent pipe 

 long enough to reach from the top of the tub 

 down through the coal and gravel, diving under 

 the rim of the crock, Bnd ascending to the high- 

 est part of the inside. 



The filter being thus completed and placed in 

 the cellar, where it will be kept cool and not 

 freeze, fill the space above the gravel with rain 

 water. Lime water will spoil the filtering prop- 

 erties of the coal, I don't know why — Professor 

 Dewey can tell you — but 1 have seen that filters 

 into which a pail full or two of well water had 

 been put would never filter rain water afterwards. 

 Don't be alarmed if the first few pailfuls of filter- 

 ed water should taste a little alkaline, as a small 

 amount of ashes will unavoidably remain with 

 the coal, which the first water will wash out, — 

 The coal is the common blacksmith's coal from 

 hard wood, and is prepared by igniting it — which 

 may be well done by firing a small pile on the 

 ground, and then quenching the coals in water 

 and pounding them in a barrel or kettle about as 

 fine as wheat. The gravel should be of the pea 

 and bean size washed clean. It will supply your 

 family with all you need for drinking and culi- 

 nary purposes, for three or four years, without 

 renewing the filtering matter. 



These filters are made and sold in this city by 

 John Kedzie, No. 11 State street. It is not a 

 " patent." Yours, &c., 



Rochester, Oct., 1848. G. S. Gilbert. 



