18 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



Jan. 



"CuLTi'RE ON High Land.— Much may doubtless 

 be done to advantaofG on high land. We iiave seen 

 the cranbori-y starting spontaneously on very hard, 

 tJDierably moist grass upland, and spreading rapidly, 

 yielding good fruit. We saw fine cranberries of 

 "natural growth in a field, close by which the owner 

 was reajjing a good crop of barley. We examined 

 the soil, and it was dry and sandj', with a layer of 

 shallow vegetable mold at tiie surface : yet apparently 

 wet in spring, from its level situation. Wliere a 

 gravelly knoll had been reduced, for a road, we saw 

 excellent cranberries, of spontaneous production, on 

 drv, hard, and poor soil. On another spot, we saw 

 fine fruit by the roadside, on a very poor, dry, liard soil. 



" With these cases of good crops under every dis- 

 advantage, it would be surprising if cranberries should 

 not grow well on high land, under good culture. — 

 FowLKR thinlcs they will not endure the heat of sum- 

 mer, nor cold of winter, on dry land. He manures 

 with peat or mud, in winter protects plants and fruits 

 with evergreens, and has fine crops. 



" In raising on high land, it would be well to select 

 rather moist tillage, and use peat and muck for ma- 

 nure, which is tlicir natural soil. We think that a 

 Mack, moist, sandy loam would be best. It would 

 be well to make experiments in the use of salt and 

 other manure. Those plants that naturally grow on 

 high land, would, doubtless, be better for this purpose. 



•' Natural meadows yield 100 to 200 bushels to the 

 acre — 100 is most common. By cultivation, in some 

 instances, the yield has been at the rate of 200 to 300. 

 With a rake, a hand will generally gather 15 to,20 

 bushels in a day. More experience is necessary to 

 show a profit by high land culture, and the most suc- 

 cessful mode ; also tlie best mode of improving low 

 lands. By setting thick, in transplanting, a good 

 crop will be obtained sooner ; and vines transplanted 

 with sods will be the surest. 



TO RAISE WATER BY THE SYPHON. 



Messrs. Editors: — Seeing in my "Farmer" for 

 November, your letter of inquiry from Joseph Briggs, 

 of Willet, N. Y., respecting Syphons, together with 

 the-answer of the editor, I take the liberty of offer- 

 ing Mr. B. the result of my experience in the Syphon 

 line. 



I have one in successful operation under the fol- 

 lowing circumstances. Water is conveyed to the 

 house, a distance of sixty-six rods, over a ridcre of 

 land sixteen feet high, in half inch lead pipe, No. 1. 

 It is discharged four feet lower tl)an the surface of 

 the water in the spring, and at the rate of eighteen 

 gallons per hour. The pipe is tliin, and had to be 

 soldered in seven or eight places. I had a vast deal 

 of trouble and tribulation with it before I got it tight, 

 but it now works so beautifully, that 1 am satisfied. 

 The whole question turns on this point. Syphons 

 w-ill continue to work, provided they are perfectly 

 tight, and that there is a moderate amount of fall from 

 the surface of the water in the well to the place of 

 delivery. Water is raised in a Syphon on the same 

 principle that it is in the suction pump, and may be 

 elevated to the same height, to wit, thirty-two feet. 

 The objection to raising it very high in a Syphon is 

 that air separates from water when thus raised, and 

 the higher it is drawn the more. It ia essential that 

 there should l)e sufficient current to carry out this air 

 as fast as it is evolved, other'vise it would accumu- 

 late and stop the water. Fo jr feet of fall answers 



the purpose in my case, but I do not believe that 

 much less than that would do. The amount of fall 

 required depends, of course, on the length of the 

 Syphon. 



Small beads of air issue from my pipe along with 

 the water every minute or two, to ascertain the quan- 

 ■tity of which, I collected them by means of a bottle 

 of water and fimnel inverted over the mouth of the 

 pipe in the tub, and found the quantity to be one-half 

 pint in twenty-four hours, or the bulk of one ounce 

 of water to every fifty-four gallons. 



I at first constructed, at a cost of some money and 

 a great deal of labor, an apparatus similar to that 

 described in Ewbanks' Hydraulics, for taking out the 

 air at the summit, but I found it entirely unnecessary, 

 nay worse than useless, and I have taken it out and 

 have now only a plain pipe. 



At one time despairing of getting the Syphon to 

 work, I procured a ram and applied it^ but' the sup- 

 ply of water not being sufficient to keep it going, I 

 made another examination of the places where the pipe 

 was joined together, and fortunately discovered the 

 cause of all the trouble I had had, which was an im- 

 perfection in the soldering ; as soon as that was 

 remedied, I had no furtlier use for the ram. 



With your permission I will make the following 

 suggestions. If you do not wish to convey the 

 water more tlian thirty rods, and if you have six feet 

 or more of fall, I would recommend to use heavy three- 

 eighths pipe, and if possible have it all in one piece. 

 I think you can procure it so by ordering it from the 

 manufacturer. It will deliver an abundant supply of 

 water for any farm, will cost less and be less liable 

 to get out of order than pipe of larger calibre. You 

 are probably aware that the longer a tube is, the less 

 water will pass through it in a given time and with 

 the same amount of fall. In my case, half inch pipe 

 is not too large. To avoid raising the water, I would 

 dig the ditch four feet deep, or more, at the summit, 

 if the nature of the ground will permit. Then to 

 start it, it would doubtless be a good way to fill it be- 

 fore putting it down, as suggested by the editor of the 

 Farmer, or you can charge it at any time with a 

 common beer pump, which may be obtained at the 

 hardware stores, without the counter fixings, for 

 about twenty shillings. To adapt it to your purpose, 

 you have only to attach about three feet of lead pipe 

 to each end of it and fasten the wooden frame to a 

 piece of plank large enough to stand on. It may be 

 worked either as a suction or force pump, but I pre- 

 fer the latter. To couple it to the Syplion, make a 

 quill of hard wood, say locust, five inches long, and 

 introduce one end of it into the Syphon and the other 

 into the force pipe : then tie a piece of strong twine 

 from one pipe to the other, leaving it slack in the 

 middle, and then take a large nail and make it taut 

 by twisting it after the manner of an old fashioned 

 saw-strain. I charge my pipe in this way and the 

 operation requires about twenty minutes of hard 

 work. To do it by suction takes longer, and requires 

 that the valves, couplings, Sec, should be in perfect 

 order. 



As to festlntr the pipe, it must bo borne in mind 

 that when a Syphon leaks, water does not escape from 

 it, but air sucks in ; it is therefore not easy to detect 

 an imperfection. I would recommend to start it and 

 see if it continues to work. If it does not, you may 

 be certain that it is not somid. A leak, if tolerably 

 large, may be discovered by forcing water in hard, 

 but air will enter through a crevice when water can- 



I 



