1881 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
91 
the cow pea has proved very satisfactory as 
a crop for enriching the soil by green manur¬ 
ing. In some localities rye is ranked very 
high as a green crop to be plowed under. A 
few years ago there was much said in favor 
of fodder corn as a green manure, but re¬ 
peated trials proved it too difficult to plow 
under, unless turned when quite small. The 
best treatment of fodder com is to let it 
grow to a good size, and feed to live stock, 
and apply the manure thus made to the soil. 
A Cistern for Gravelly Soil. 
A good cistern is an essential upon every 
farm where the well is a failing one. With 
a supply of cistern water there would be 
much less driving of thirsty stock over long 
dusty roads to a distant watering-place, where 
the water is frequently unfit for the animals 
to drink. A cistern holding 100 barrels can 
be constructed for $50, and, in some places, 
for much less. This would give two barrels 
of water daily for 50 days, enough to supply 
a number of animals through our longest 
drouth. A cylindrical cistern is the most 
economical in both cost and space, but when 
the soil is a compact gravel, it is better to 
make it with the walls spreading, as shown 
A CHEAP CISTERN WITH A FILTER. 
in the accompanying engraving. Make the 
excavation in #he most convenient situation, 
as it is an easy matter to lay a pipe from it 
to the place where the water is wanted. The 
cement, Rosendale—or for the best work, im¬ 
ported Portland—should be mixed dry, with 
six to seven times its bulk of clean sand. 
Mix this with w&ter, as needed, and apply as 
a soft mortar to the earthen walls of the cis¬ 
tern. It is best to put it on in a spiral band, 
passing from the bottom to the top, making 
the joints between the spirals very carefully, 
leaving scratches in the first coat to receive 
the finishing coat, which is one part cement, 
to three of fine sand ; this is to be laid 
upon the main body of cement, and smoothly 
finished. Upon this a thin wash of pure 
cement is laid with a brush. Let the cistern 
remain for a time, and should any cracks ap¬ 
pear fill them with the pure cement. If the 
soil is a stiff clay the walls may be perpendic¬ 
ular, but if it is dug in a loose sand, the walls 
must be bricked before cementing. All 
house cisterns should be provided with a 
filter. It may be made of a wooden box, or 
a side pit with cemented walls, two or three 
feet square. The filter consists of layers of 
coarse gravel, sand, and powdered charcoal, 
the whole covered with a slab of stone with 
small holes broken through, or a sieve-like 
layer of cement. Tke water enters from a 
pipe at the bottom, and rises through these 
layers of sand and charcoal before passing 
into the cistern. The construction of such a 
filter is shown on the right of the cistern in 
the engraving. Cisterns for stock, to receive 
the water from the roofs of bams, etc., need 
not be provided with filters, but the gutters 
should be cleared occasionally, and dead 
leaves, etc., removed. A larger cistern than 
the one here given can be built at propor¬ 
tionately less cost. Let us have a cistern. 
The Kentucky Blue-Grass at Rothamsted, 
England. 
The systematic and costly experiments 
that Messrs. Lawes & Gilbert have been 
carrying on at Rothamsted, Eng., for the 
past twenty-five years, are of great value 
to farmers in every part of the world. There 
are seven acres in permanent grass divided 
into various plots, one of which has received 
no manure for the twenty-five years, while 
others have been enriched regularly and uni¬ 
formly with different chemical and other 
fertilizers. No stock has been allowed upon 
the land, and no grass seed has been sown 
since the experiments began. By careful 
examination at the beginning of the experi¬ 
ments it was found that the natural herbage 
of the land contained about fifty species. On 
the permanently unmanured plot the Blue- 
grass made a poor fight; the tenth year 1,644 
pounds of hay were made from the plot, and 
in this there was but l‘/ 3 pound of hay from 
Blue-grass. On a plot that received a larger 
quantity of potash, phosphate of lime and 
ammonia salts, the Blue-grass on the tenth 
year made up 22 per cent, of the whole herb¬ 
age. The effect of a still higher manuring 
was not so favorable for the Blue-grass, and 
instead of an increase it gave way to the 
more vigorous Orchard-grass (Dactylis glom- 
erata ). The lesson to be gained by these ex¬ 
periments is that good grasses require good 
soil for their growth, and also that old worn- 
out grass lawns can be improved by the ap¬ 
plication of manure. Dr. Lawes, in a letter 
to the “ Indiana Farmer,” writes : “ It is my 
opinion that if at any time the Blue-grass 
should retire from a pasture before an invad¬ 
ing army of weeds and inferior grasses, the 
manure from cotton cake will furnish the 
proper weapon to rout these adversaries.” 
Kerosene for Hen Lice. 
“ W. C. ” writes : ‘ ‘ For tlie last few years we 
have used kerosene as a preventive of hen lice. 
It is not more effective perhaps than some 
other remedies, but is applied more easily than 
lard, tobacco, sulphur, or whitewash. We 
apply it to the perches in the hennery from 
the common lamp-filler. Turn a very small 
stream from the spout, and move the can rap¬ 
idly from end to end of the perch. The oil 
gets upon the feet and feathers, and is soon dis¬ 
tributed all over the fowl. The lice leave on 
very short notice, and the fowls are entirely 
relieved. An application three or four times 
a year will keep the roosts free from vermin. It 
is a great safeguard against lice on chickens 
when first hatched, to use the oil in the boxes, 
before the nest is made for the setting hen. 
It takes but a small quantity applied to the 
comers of the box to keep away insects. Take 
care that the oil does not touch the eggs.” 
[In using a substance like kerosene about the 
farm buildings, remember that it is inflam¬ 
mable, and must be employed with caution, 
avoiding every chance of fire.—E d.] 
Houghton Farm. 
The New Horse Stalls. 
Last month a description was given of the 
new arrangement of the cattle stable with 
the adjustable stalls. An important change 
has also been made in the horse stalls, as il¬ 
lustrated by the accompanying engravings. 
Figure 1 gives the front of one of the horse 
stalls as constructed when the barn was 
built. The stall is 9 by 4y 2 feet, with a 
manger 1 foot 9 inches from front to rear. 
The manger has an iron feed trough at one 
end, indicated by the dotted line at G. The 
bottom of the hay box is shown below H. A 
Fig. 1.—THE OLD HORSE STALLS. 
door in the front allows the feed trough to be 
cleaned, and also gives access to a closet be¬ 
low. The top of stalls is finished with per¬ 
pendicular iron rods, so that the horses can 
be easily seen from the front. 
With the stalls thus constructed, it was 
found that a horse would be free to throw its 
feed upon the floor, thus causing trouble and 
more or less waste, and some animals would 
find it imposible to resist the temptation to 
bite their neighbors through the rods which 
made the partition between tiie mangers. 
This biting at times led to kicking, and when 
there were twenty horses in the stable th j re 
was sometimes a lack of desired quie. 
Figure 2 shows how the fronts of the stalls 
have been reconstructed. The front’ posts 
have been made of full length, and the 
manger is shut in by two wire-screen doors— 
the large one for the hay manger opening- 
downward, and the small one to the feed box 
swinging out by hinges on the side. Above 
these doors the stall is shut in by iron rods, 
the same as the upper side of the end stall, 
Fig. 2.—THE RECONSTRUCTED HORSE STALLS. 
shown in the engraving. The space between 
the mangers has been boai-ded up solid, and 
all interference of the horses thus prevented. 
