446 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[Decembeh, 
The New Seedling Potatoes. — This has 
been a season to test the new varieties of pota- 
toes. The long continued rains have induced 
rot, and the disease has prevailed to a much 
greater extent than for several years. We 
planted the Cnzco on gravelly loam, and had a 
good crop, with no appearance of disease. A 
neighbor planted the Peachblow on the same 
kind of soil, and did not get his seed back again. 
A. second neighbor, in an adjoining field, plant- 
ed the same, and did not get enough to pay for 
his labor. The disease was probably owing en- 
tirely to the varieties of the potato planted. 
The Cuzco is one of Goodrich's Seedlings which 
we have planted for six years with uniform suc- 
cess. The Garnet Chili and Pink-eyed Rusty 
Coat are equally free from rot, yield well, and 
are of fair qualitj'. The Early Goodrich and 
the Harison are also sound, and very produc- 
tive. The new seedlings are generally much 
more free from rot than the old varieties, and 
ought to be universally adopted. Millions of 
dollars would have been saved to the country if 
these seedlings had been planted this season. 
Get your stock of seed potatoes early, while 
they are plenty and comparatively cheap. 
Smoking Meats in a Small Way. 
Economical farmer folks and others are often 
put to their wits to arrange for smoking the 
small quantities of meat they require for their 
own households, and to have at the same time 
a safe place to keep such meats away from 
flies. Barrels are occasionally used to smoke 
meat in, and they do very well to give the flesh 
the smell and flavor of smoke, but that is all. 
Long exposure heats the meat, and often re- 
peating the operation is apt to cause decay at 
the centre, the smoke not penetrating, and the 
warmth affecting the meat. We are inclined to 
adopt, at least to make trial of, the following 
suggestion, and propose it to our readers as 
susceptible of such mod- 
ifications as may be 
deemed expedient. The 
figure represents one of 
the casks in which British 
hardware is imported, 
though any hogshead 
will do. They are made 
of heavy, hard wood, 
thick and strong, and 
very strongly hooped. 
The heads are easily re- 
moved, and the casks 
may be made tight by 
pitching the seams, if 
not by simply tighten- 
■- -■' — :'""" --~— • - —■- 
APPARATUS FOB SMOKING MEATS. 
ing the hoops. We mention these because 
they are cheaply obtained in most of our 
large cities. Take out one head of the cask, 
and set in it a number of hooks, upon which 
to hang the hams, shoulders, or sausages, cut 
a hole in the top in which to insert a 3-inch 
tin pipe, extending half way or more to the bot- 
tom, and, replacing this head, take out the other. 
If the position of the hoops is such that it can 
be done, a door may be cut, as shown in the 
engraving, through which the interior may be 
reached conveniently. If we dig a channel in 
the grouud some 8 or 10 feet in length, and lay a 
course of 3-iuch drain tiles init, putting in a piece 
of old stove pipe in which to make the smoke- 
fire at one end, and turning the last tile up per- 
pendicularly out of the ground at the other, the 
smoke will be sufficiently cooled in its pas- 
sage through the tiles, not to affect the meat. 
Should the draft be too great or the smoke too 
warm, a flat stone might be laid over the end 
of the tile, and an inch above it, being support- 
ed on stakes or bricks. Our cask may be set 
over this; the smoke will 
rise and fill it, the tin pipe 
drawing it off when filled 
down to its end. and provid- 
ing a draught, which, if ex- 
cessive, may be checked by 
pressing the conical top on 
tight. Should a door be cut IP! 
it would be necessary to 
have it close as snugly as 
possible, and if one cannot conveniently be 
made, the plan is still feasible, for by a block 
and tackle the cask may be lifted and held up- 
right, and meat put in or taken out. 
The cask should be set in a cool shed, or 
out-buildiug, with an earth floor, so that in 
warm weather, when it w T ill remain some days 
unopened, the earth may be brushed up around 
the chine to keep flies and insects away more 
effectually. During the warm weather an occa- 
sional "smudge" would, we think, enable us 
to keep well cured meat without difficulty. 
• ■ .a »— *-m 
Tight Embankments in Draining— Secu- 
rity against Muskrats. 
say to within three feet of the surface — so that 
there shall never be a body of water standimr 
within that distance of the dam. It should be 
a cardinal rule with all who are engaged in the 
construction of such works, never to allow two 
bodies of water, one on each side of the bank, 
to be nearer than twenty-five yards of each oth- 
er, and fifty yards would be better. Muskrats 
do not bore through a bank, as is often supposed, 
to make a_ passage from one body of water to 
another, (they would find an easier roa'd over 
The great obstacle to success in reclaiming 
salt marshes is the muskrat, as every one knows 
who has much experience in this business. You 
can shut out the water very readily by making 
your embankment high enough and thick 
enough. Perfect security against the encroach- 
ments of water is only a question of a little more 
earth taken from the inside ditch. But while 
you are glorying in the completeness of your 
work, a family of muskrats locate generally 
near the outlet or tide-gate, and commence 
their mining operations. They burrow above 
and below the tide-gate, and meeting in the mid- 
dle the water immediately follows, and a breach 
is made in your dyke, the first spring-tide. To 
head them off various devices have been sug- 
gested and tried ; concrete walls, filling a sec- 
tion with clay and ramming, iron plates, planks, 
and lastly, plates of burut clay. This last is 
suggested by a correspondent who asks : "AYhy 
could not the tile men make and sell suitable 
tiles — a merchantable article, say 1 foot by 3 feet, 
and a half-inch thick ? To facilitate the driving 
of these brick plates into the mud, an iron driver 
might be made with a blade a foot wide to cut 
through the sods and the mud. Do you not think 
these could be made cheaply, and that the}' 
would answer even better than iron ?" No doubt 
brick plank could be made and put in position, 
but we do not see the need of them. For mak- 
ing the dyke tight immediately around the tide- 
gate, we doubt if anything can be found cheaper 
and more effectual than good hemlock or chest- 
nut plank. These will last fifty years or more, 
and if the instincts of the muskrat be studied 
a little, we may guard against his assaults. 
Col. Waring, in his able work upon Draining 
for Profit, says : " The bed of the creek should 
be filled in back of the dam for a distance of at 
least fifty yards, to a bight greater than that at 
which water will stand in the interior drains — 
EOTANKMEN'T. 
the top;) but they delight in any elevated 
mound in which they can make their homes 
above the water level, and have its entrance be- 
neath the surface, so that their land enemies can 
not invade them. When they enter for this 
purpose, only from one side of the dyke, they 
will do no harm, but if another colony is at the 
same time boring in from the other side, there 
is great danger that their burrows will connect, 
and thus form a channel for the admission of 
water, and destroy the work. A disregard of 
this requirement has caused thousands of acres 
of salt marsh that had been enclosed by dykes 
having a ditch on each side, (much the cheapest 
way to make them,) to be abandoned, and it 
has induced the invention of various costly de- 
vices for the protection of embankments against 
these attacks." These the author condemns. 
We have, then, only to keep in mind this in- 
stinct of the muskrat to make a dyke perfectly 
secure. In fig. 1, we have a view of a dyke 
and an inside ditch well adapted to ordinary 
locations. The only change we would make in 
it, suggested by our experience, is the enlarge- 
ment of the border between the dyke and the 
ditch. This is put at three feet. We should prefer 
tweaty, for greater security against the musk- 
rats, and for better drainage. The rats would 
probably be content with the ditch border aud 
would not touch the bank at all. The drainage 
nearest the ditch is most perfect, and the mead- 
ow would have the benefit of it, instead of the 
bank which does not need it. The strip between 
the bank and the ditch is as good as any part of 
the reclaimed land, aud could be more conven- 
iently mowed aud raked with machines if it 
were twenty feet wide, than if it were only three. 
It would cost a little more to make this broad 
border, but it would be the cheaper in the end. 
The greatest inconvenience we ever suffered 
from muskrats was their attacks upon the ditch 
borders and upon the tide-gate. The borders, 
in some places, were honeycombed, and the 
tide-gate was repeatedly eaten through until 
we lined it with 3-ellow metal, which proved a 
little too tough for them. But with all their 
assaults, the gate that was put in, in November, 
1855, is still doing good service. The idea of 
resorting to iron plates, to dam out the sea wa- 
ter from the Hackeusack meadows, is simply 
ridiculous. That great improvement needs no 
such costly outlay. The clay or tenacious mud 
found just beneath the surface of a salt marsh 
is usually as good a material as could be desired 
for an embankment. For a fuller discussion of 
this very important matter we refer our readers 
to Col. Waring's work. 
