Proceedixgs of the Fabmers* Club. 429 



sew it up yourself, and save your carpet and shoe tacks for tlieir more 



appropriate uses. AVben you take a barrel to the cooper's to be 



re-hooped, see how he prepares the hoop, the " lock," and how he 



drives it on. Then go home, and cut some slim straight poles of 



hickory, white oak, yellow birch, or water beach, of suitable size and 



length, split and shave to proper dimensions, and then bend them to 



the proper form and hang them up to season. When jou have 



another barrel requiring to be hooped, do it yourself, and pray that 



the cooper's meal barrel may never be empty. There are a thousand 



little jobs a farmer can do to kill time on a rainy day, nearly as well 



as a mechanic, if he will only keep his eyes open and see how 



mechanics do. 



Adjourned. 



November 24, 1868. 



Mr. Nathan C. Ely in the chair ; Mr. John W. Chambeks, Secretary. 



]^Ew Excavator. 



Mr. A. P. Plumb, Denver," Colorado, sent a photographic sketch 

 of the above, stating that it will cut a ditch, well, trench land, and 

 throw up embankments at one-eighth of the cost of doing the same 

 by hand. It is worked by an engine of eight or ten-horse power, set 

 on large wheels, aijd it operates wherever the ground is free from 

 stumps and large stones. 



Mr. Solon Kobinson. — I could tell better about such an invention 

 after seeing it, but I doubt whether a locomotive engine can work on 

 the soft ground of the west. The English method, using a stationary 

 engine, seems the only practicable one. 



Earth Closets." 



Mr. A, B. Crandell read the following paper : 



The public wealth, says a thoughtful writer, runs to the sea through 

 the city sewer. In consequence the land is impoverished and the 

 water infected. Hunger rises from the furrow and disease from the 

 river. How to remedy this evil is an important question. The 

 difficulty is that, under the present sanitary sj-stera, sewage becomes 

 so diluted as to be generally unavailable, an ounce of solid fertilizing 

 matter being mixed with ten or fifteen gallons of fluid. At Edin- 

 burgh something was done in the way of precipitating the valuable 

 constituents by means of milk of lime, and thus was produced a 



