56 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[Febeuaet, 
How to Bring Swamp Meadows into Tame 
Grasses, etc. 
First, shut off the water. This we discussed 
with considerable detail in our last year's vol- 
ume. A wall of puddled clay, not less than 
14 inches wide, should extend from the hard 
pan of the meadows to the height desired, 
protected by au embankment wide and solid 
enough to resist the action of both frost 
aud water. — This embankment, with its im- 
pervious clay wall within it, must be pro- 
vided with tide-gates to let water out, but 
not in, and these must be muskrat proof. 
Ditches within the embankment convey the 
surface and spring water to the main drains 
aud the outlets. These may be open or cov- 
ered, according to the depth to which the 
water can be drawn down below the surface. 
If possible, they should be tile drains, laid at 
least below the action of frost and the reach of 
the plow. If the soil is of a black mucky char- 
acter, containing little inorganic matter, a liberal 
dressing, say 30 to 50 loads to the acre, of the 
surface soil of the neighboring upland is all that 
is required to prepare it for timothy and clover. 
Thirty to fifty bushels of dry slacked lime, har- 
rowed in after plowing, will fit it for potatoes 
or cabbages, and 20 bushels of lime, and an 
equal quantity of leached ashes, will be an 
excellent preparation of most land of this 
sort for a good corn crop, which, however, 
may well be quickened by dropping a 
handful of some good fertilizer in the hill. 
This is a tolerably fair showing for profit, 
for the crops from such land are very good, 
and the culture is quite easy for several 
years ; the limings, moreover, will last for 
several ysars, aud little manure will be re- 
quired. But, but — there is always a but, 
and well it is if you find it out in time — 
there are places where the muskrats will 
undermine the dykes and let in the water. 
"A Young Jersey Farmer" writes us in distress, 
endorsing our views about dykes and salt mea- 
dows, but is in despair on account of the musk- 
rats. He suggests the availability of a thin con- 
crete wall in the middle of the dyke. This, he 
says, he knows will stop them. But the ques- 
tion still is how deep it must needs be to prove 
effective, for they will burrow. He proposes 
that the wall should be constructed simply 
by filling a narrow ditch with cement concrete, 
and allowing it to remain where it is formed; 
or making long thin concrete slabs, cast in 
moulds and fitted close together in the 
trench. The suggestions strike us as 
eminently practical and sensible. There 
has been a plan proposed for dyking the 
extensive Newark meadows which con- 
sists in driving prepared iron plates into 
the swamp to the required depth, which 
is supposed to be economical because 
no digging will be necessary, nor will 
any moving of earth be needed, except 
to raise an embankment high enough to 
shut out the tides. This is not so thor- 
ough to appearance as the concrete wall 
plan ; and neither plan so surely water 
tight as the clay wall. In these works 
there is nothing like thoroughness — get- 
ting well down to the hard pan, or to 
an impervious stratum for one thing, and using 
a rat proof wall for another. The value of these 
lands is so great, that projects of reclaiming 
them should readily command not only the co- 
operation of owners, but capital enough to se- 
cure the best skill and most thorough work. 
If our readers meet with decided success, or 
have important facts to communicate, we hope 
they will tell them to one another through the 
American Agriculturist, for it is a subject 
which interests many thousands of its readers. 
Tig. 1. — WOODEN WHEELBARROW. 
About Wheelbarrows. 
Our correspondent, Gilbert J. Greene, Hud- 
son, N. Y., sends us some practical notions about 
wheelbarrows which, however, need a word of 
preface in favor of one-wheeled barrows, for 
which he has nothing to say. The fact is they 
are just as useful in their place as two wheeled 
ones. In " navvy " work for instance, such as 
grading roads, parks, etc., digging cellars, mak- 
ing railroads and canals, where gangs of a num- 
Fig. 2. — IRON WHEELBARROW. 
ber of men each go back and forth on the same 
track, which can ordinarily be only of the width 
of a single board, and where of necessity they 
must dump at the side, the navvy-barrow is by 
far the most convenient form. The fact that it 
will only carry a small load is counter-balanced 
by the fact that such a load is all that can be 
easily moved up and down the inclines which 
ordinarily exist where such work is done ; be- 
sides, the barrows may be filled without the la- 
borers being obliged to shift the position of the 
barrow, and this expedites the work materially. 
Fig. 3. — TWO-WHEELED BARROW. 
The common wheelbarrow with side boards, for 
ordinary use about the bam and garden, has not 
so specific an adaptation to its uses ; neverthe- 
less, this has a great advantage over the two 
wheeled one in going through narrow garden 
walks, and in the convenience with which rails, 
stakes, bean-poles, and such things may be load- 
ed upon it. Two- wheeled barrows find in Mr. 
Greene an able champion. He writes : 
"I would contribute a small sum to erect a 
monument to the memory of the man who in- 
vented the wheelbarrows, but it would be 
on the condition that no more should be 
built with a single wheel ; how he came to 
adopt the # single wheel is past my compre- 
hension, unless it be that he had but one 
wheel and could not get another. A two- 
wheeled barrow possesses so many advan- 
tages over a single wheeled one that to me 
it is surprising that it has not long since 
been adopted. 500 pounds can be carried 
upon a two wheeled barrow as easily as 150 
can be on a single wheeled one. It is more 
reliable, as it is not easily upset while being 
loaded or in wheeling it. It is very much 
more easily turned round, and more easily un- 
loaded. The wheels being on the sides, the load 
is balanced upon the axle, and there need be lit- 
tle or no weight upon the hands. There are no 
sideboards to take out or put on each time you 
unload it. The two wheels do not cut in the 
ground so much as one does. The body and 
frame being solid, and resting upon an axle, it 
is stronger than the other. Fig. 1 represents a 
wooden two-wheeled barrow of the form I pre- 
fer for ordinary use. The wheels are twen- 
ty-six inches high, with iron axle. The body 
is similar in shape to that of the single 
wheeled barrows. When constructed of iron 
(fig. 2) they are made of an oval or dishing 
form. Fig. 3 represents a two wheeled bar- 
row in the position of being unloaded ; the 
load being nearly balanced upon the axle, 
the handles are easily raised and the load 
dumped over the front. Such a barrow can 
be made so as to sell for $12 to $16, but 
would cost a man, tolerably handy with 
tools, a good deal less if he made It himself." 
[Pretty broad wheels are advisable if heavy 
loads are to be wheeled over soft ground, or if 
neat garden walks are to be travelled over. — Ed.] 
Feeding at the Stack in "Winter. 
o 
We still see examples of this barbarous and 
unthrifty custom in our journeyings. Truth 
compels us to say that some of our neighbors 
practice it. If the country only had a society 
for the suppression of cruelty to brutes, as your 
city has, somebody would get into trouble. — 
What is laying a turtle on his back, or boring a 
hole through one of his flippers, in com- 
parison with keeping one of the mam- 
malia, with a nervous organization like 
that of man, under slow torture during 
the whole winter ? With the best of feed 
at the stack, the shelterless beast shivers 
and pines. With corn stalks and bog 
hay, it loses much of the flesh laid on in 
summer. It takes a good part of the 
spring and summer, in flush feed, to make 
up for the loss, and the profit of the 
animal to the farmer is nowhere. 
The animal system is only a living 
stove, to be kept in heat by food. The 
lower the temperature the more wood it 
takes to keep up the heat of the stove. 
The colder the weather the more hay 
and provender it takes to keep up animal heat. 
At least a third of the fodder consumed at 
the stack is required to keep up animal heat, 
and so is wasted. Boards in' the shape of 
good tight stables are much cheaper than hay. 
Do not keep any more stock than you can 
