1S09.1 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
335 
be no danger of the cutting away of either the 
bottom or the sides by the force of the water. 
The silt and detritus washed during autumn and 
spring freshets from the mountain regions above, 
will be largely deposited in the pond, and during 
the dryest seasons of the year the gate in the 
sluice-way will be opened, drawing the water 
from the pond, and allowing the deposit to be 
removed. This removal will restore the capaci- 
ty of the pond to the original point, and will 
3'ield a valuable fertilizer. 
As the work is to be undertaken by the joint 
action of the riparian owners, the articles of as- 
sociation require that no open ditch shall be cut 
through the banks for the draining of the adjoin- 
ing lands; but all side drains, whether they be 
open or covered, will be taken into the brook 
through covered passages, curving towards 
the outlet of the ditch or down stream and de- 
livering on a level with its bottom, so that in- 
stead of cutting away the sides or leaving rough 
edges against which the stream in the ditch it- 
self could take effect, they will add to the veloc- 
ity of the stream while they add to its volume, 
and will obviate the most serious objection to 
such improvements as ordinarily made. 
The Supply of Water to Farm Buildings. 
Those farmers who live among the springy 
hill-sides of New England have, within their easy 
reach, the means for bringing water (through hol- 
low logs, or otherwise) to their barn-yards or sta- 
bles, in such quantities as to enable them to sup- 
ply their animals at all seasons without undue ex- 
posure, to wash implements without trouble, 
and to easily do whatever else requires a liberal 
supply of pure water. While many farmers 
would hesitate to spend $100 in bringing water 
to their barns, no farmer who has once done it 
would take five times that amount as compensa- 
tion for giving it up. TJufortunately, a very 
large portion of the country is deprived of this 
natural source of water flowing by its own 
" head," and in such case3 it is necessary to raise 
water by artificial means from wells or from 
springs on lower ground. Under these circum- 
stances, recourse must be had to water-rams, 
water-wheels, caloric engines, or wind-mills. Of 
these, the most satisfactory, where there is a 
constant supply of water, flowing in sufficient 
quantity to allow nine-tenths of it to be wasted, 
is to be found in the use of the water-ram, — a 
simple and economical contrivance, which, with 
almost no cost for repairs, and without super- 
vision, keeps up its steady work in winter and 
in summer, often for many years. The water- 
wheel is very effective, and is considerably used 
in the eastern part of Pennsylvania, where 
springs frequently break out near the borders 
of a brook. The water of the brook is used to 
turn an overshot wheel, having about twelve 
inches breast, and three-foot arms, or a diame- 
ter of six feet. This wheel works a little force- 
pump, the constant action of which sends an 
abundant supply of water, often to remote hill- 
tops. 'Where the supply can be drawn only 
from a well, although the caloric engine is fa- 
vorably spoken of by those who know its opera- 
tion, there is nothing so useful as a good, self- 
regulating wind-mill. One of these has been 
working on our own farm for more than a year; 
and, although subjected, without attention, to 
the severest gales, has never required the least 
repair, nor any attention whatever, beyond a 
slight oiling once a week. In selecting a wind- 
mill, it is best to take one having, in ordinary 
winds, rather more power than is required. We 
thus secure the action of the pump during those 
slight breezes, which often are the only inter- 
ruption to long-continued calms, during which, 
with a smaller wind-mill, we might be for weeks 
without the necessary supply ; and nothing is 
more provoking than an intermittent supply of 
water after one has once learned to depend 
upon it. To go back to the old well-sweep 
and tub, after several months' relief from such 
labor, more than makes up for the small saving 
in buying the lower priced wind-mill. 
- ■ «» » ' » 
A 'Warning to Young Book Fanners. 
We took occasion, in a recent number, to say 
that certain works of the imagination, depict- 
ing the delightful independence and the solid 
prosperity of certain new beginners in farming 
and gardening pursuits, were not, in our opin- 
ion, good books. Since our former notice was 
written, we have read again, with much care, 
the "Farming by Inches" to which we then 
alluded ; and we are so strongly impressed by 
it, that we should be doing less than our duty 
did we not again advise our younger readers 
not to be led astray by its apparent genuineness. 
It is not impossible that everything stated in 
this book might actually transpire, but it is so 
far from being probable, that we risk nothing 
in saying that it is, in the main, untrue. A man 
and his wife, with no previous knowledge of 
iarming, go into the country in the spring, take 
possession of an inherited place of only three 
acres, buy some books and plenty of manure, 
hire very little assistance, and, by dint of natu- 
ral shrewdness and hard reading (mainly of a 
seedsman's advertising catalogue), make money 
enough to pay all their living expenses, all the 
cost of carrying on their business, and a good 
interest on their investment. On its face, — and 
probably in the intention of its author, — the 
storv is a simple pastoral tale of the most un- 
objectionable tendency. If it were true, in all 
its particulars, it would be valuable, for the 
reason that what one man has done, another 
may fairly hope to do. If it were a very proba- 
ble story, it would be valuable as an encourage- 
ment to beginners in farming. 
It is neither true nor probable. Humanly 
speaking, it is not possible. Therefore, it is al- 
together bad, and, if read at all, it should be 
read with the understanding that the moral it 
attempts to point does not exist. It is a story 
of almost uninterrupted successes. A true record 
of the first year's experience of any tyro in 
agriculture would be, in almost every instance, 
a story of disappointment, failure, hard work, 
and sunken money. As in every other career, 
the school of experience is a dear and a hard 
school to learn in ; and he who takes one acre 
or a hundred for his practising ground— if he 
has not learned his trade in advance — will, be- 
fore his first year is over, need all his heroism 
to carry him through with a stout heart. 
We believe that there is hardly a limit to the 
possibilities of farming and gardening. One 
who understands his business, who has suffi- 
cient capital for his operations, a good soil, a 
good situation, and plenty of manure at com- 
mand, may hope for a very large reward for his 
labor and superintendence. We rejoice, there- 
fore, when we see any man or woman turning 
from other pursuits with the intention of mak- 
ing agriculture or horticulture a career. Only 
when we see them go headforemost into the 
thing, — undertaking a difficult trade without 
learning it, and seekiDg to get in a month the 
knowledge that a year cannot give, — do we 
shudder at the thought of the bitter things in 
store for them. 
As a rule, — a rule that has few exceptions, — 
they will lose much more than a year's living- 
expenses, and will learn much less than they 
could learn as working hands in the employ of 
a good farmer. If you, reader, want to become 
a farmer, or a florist, or a market gardener, 
take our advice : — Buy as many of the best 
books on the subject as you can find time to 
read, and hire out, as an irregular hand, with 
the best man you can find who is doing, practi- 
cally, what you have made up your mind to do. 
Work for dear life, read, listen, and watch all 
that is going on ; at the end of your year you 
will be able to start judiciously and well. You 
will have saved money, you will have saved 
time, and you will have gained information that 
five years of ignorant and expensive blundering 
could not have given you. There is no royal 
road to good farming, — except the road through 
royal hard thinking, and working, and waiting. 
■ i m^^ — • * 
An Experiment with Weathered Peat. 
The statement that our peats are, many of 
them, worth as much as good stable manure, is 
received with a good deal of incredulity. The 
chemist analyzes and shows his one, two, or 
three per cent of ammonia, but the old-school 
farmer shakes his head and does not take stock. 
He has tried the sour stuff and did not see aiiy 
thing start. Dennis Tuttle, of Madison, Conn., 
on the other hand, has tried it and started some- 
thing. During the peat excitement he had been 
drawn into the purchase of a bog for the manu- 
facture of fuel. When coal went down from 
fourteen to seven dollars a ton, the conditions 
of success in that enterprise were somewhat 
changed. The peat bog looked like an ele- 
phant. But Mr. Tuttle happened to have 
bought with the swamp several acres of poor, 
gravelly soil around the margin. A small lot, 
so poor that it hardly yielded half a ton of hay 
to the acre, was taken for the experiment. The 
peat was gathered from near the surface of the 
bog in the year 1867, and was applied to the 
field at the rate of about twenty-five loads to 
the acre, in the spring of 1868. It had the ad- 
vantage of the frosts of one winter, and was 
worked over so as to make it fine. The field 
yielded a large crop of good hay last summer, 
judged to be three tons to the acre. In a recent 
visit to this field it had a luxuriant growth of 
grass, certainly not les3 than two tons to the 
acre, and the good influence of the peat could 
be seen in the striking contrast between the 
body of the field and patches in the fence cor- 
ners where the dressing had not reached. Mr. 
Tuttle was agreeably surprised at the result, 
and his neighbors who laughed at the elephant 
have a longing for the bank that has such de- 
posits and makes such dividends. Allowing the 
peat to cost twenty-five dollars to the acre, 
spread upon the field, and the gain in the crop 
for the two 3*ears to be only four tons, worth 
$75, he has made a good thing of it. The peat 
will last another year certainly, and when the 
sod is turned over for corn, there will be a heavy 
burden of grass roots to feed it. We could not 
expect any better results than this from the 
same amount of the best stable manure. It is 
not probable that every bog will yield such 
peat as this, but few have been fairly tested that 
do not pay abundantly for working. Why 
should they so generally be given up to toada 
and water snakes ? Connecticut. 
