1881.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
151 
A Cheap Home-Made Pump. 
am cisterns, or liquid 
Fig-. 1.—THE VALVE. 
A pump made out of boards may be used 
for drawing water from cisterns, or liquid 
manure out of tanks, 
etc. Mr. Wm. J. Cor- 
lett, Westchester Co., 
N. Y., sends a descrip¬ 
tion of a home-made 
pump which he has 
used for some time. 
The tube part of it is 
made of 7 / & -inch pine ; two of the four strips 
being 4 3 /, inches wide, and the others 3 inches, 
forming a box 3 inches square when nailed 
together. The tube or box should be long 
enough to reach about 2 feet 
above the top of the cistern. 
A valve is needed in the lower 
end, and is made of a piece 
of hard-wood of the size to 
fit into the tube. A 2-inch 
hole is bored in the center, 
and a piece of leather tacked 
on the top to cover it. The 
leather has a piece of wood 
fastened to it upon the upper 
side as shown in figure 1. 
The “plunger ”is made from 
a 7 /«-inch pine strip, 2 7 / 8 
inches wide, and about one 
foot longer than the tube. 
Bevel the lower end of it and 
nail a strip on each side, 
b, one foot long, and one foot 
from the bottom, to make 
the plunger run steady. A piece of stout 
leather is fastened on the end, a, to fit closely 
in the tube. For the spout, a hole is cut in 
one side of the tube 
near the top, and an 
outlet made by fold¬ 
ing a piece of tin 12 
inches long, 9 inches 
wide, as indicated in 
figure 3. Bend the 
; sides up at the dot¬ 
ted lines, the short 
Fig. 2.—THE 
PLUNGER 
Fig. 3. —TIN FOR SPOUT. 
piece at the end being turned down and 
nailed securely to the tube below the hole. 
A Stable Scraper. 
A strip of heavy India rubber, two pieces 
of inch-board, four small bolts, and a hard¬ 
wood handle, constitute the materials neces¬ 
sary to make a scraper, as shown in the en¬ 
graving. The rubber is placed between the 
strips of board, with one edge extending an 
inch or so, and the whole securely fastened 
together by the four bolts. With the handle 
A GOOD STABLE SCRAPER. 
adjusted, the scraper is ready for use, and a 
very handy implement it will be found for 
cleaning the floors of bams, stables, etc. 
Under Draining. —At no time of the 
year are the effects of good under draining 
as apparent as now. Where the soil was 
before wet and unfit for the plow, grain is 
being sown in a warm and finely pulverized 
-.seed bed. But the effects of drains are felt 
all through the year, though perhaps in not 
so striking a manner as in early spring. They 
lessen injurious effects of drouth, and more 
freely admit the atmosphere to the soil, thus 
accelerating the disintegration of minerals 
and other fertilizing elements, organic mat¬ 
ter, etc. As rains fall, they pass into the por¬ 
ous soil, feed the roots, etc., instead of form¬ 
ing in pools upon the surface, or running off 
into the streams, as they do on undrained soil. 
A well drained soil is easier to work, and will 
yield a larger crop for the same amount of 
labor. Quicker returns are obtained from 
any fertilizers applied to a mellow soil than 
when put upon one that is filled with clods. 
How to use Bones. 
Plant food is concentrated in bones, and 
most gardeners, who make a business of rais¬ 
ing fruits and vegetables, appreciate their 
value. The great drawback to their use is 
the difficulty of reducing them to sufficient 
fineness, so that plants may immediately ap¬ 
propriate them. If bone mills were more 
common, and the adulteration of the ground 
bone were less frequent, this excellent fer¬ 
tilizer would be more commonly used. Even 
without bone mills there is no need of wast¬ 
ing the bones, if one has a garden. We have 
applied them with great profit in several 
ways. In tree planting they are almost in- 
despensable. They can be had of village boys 
generally for about twenty-five to fifty cents a 
barrel. They pick them up about the streets, 
gardens, and slaughter-houses, the remnants 
of butcher’s meats sold to families. This 
kind of bone is fine enough to be put into 
borders for grape vines and fruit trees, and 
to bury under old trees, without any prepara¬ 
tion. A bushel of these bones to a newly 
planted tree is none too much, and one may 
safely plant five bushels under a bearing apple 
or pear tree, or grape vine. So large results 
will not follow immediately from these 
coarse pieces as from the ground article, or 
from superphosphate. But there will be in 
the soil a supply of food for many years to 
come, and the roots will appropriate it as 
they have need. The fine rootlets will seek 
the bones, as eagerly as they seek water in a 
tile drain. We have frequently taken up 
grape vines planted in this way, and found 
the whole mass of bone, once solid, penetrated 
with fine roots. We doubt if any invest¬ 
ment in fertilizers pays better than in these 
bones from butchers’ meat, which are quite 
plentiful in all our villages.—Another method 
of using them is with the preparation of the 
hammer or stone sledge. This requires some 
expenditure of muscle or of money. The 
common bones are tough, and require heavy 
blows to crush them. Parts will be crushed 
quite fine and some will remain in inch 
pieces. They may be applied to the soil for 
all ordinaiy crops, especially for turnips, in 
this partly broken state, with profit. It is 
still better, however, to reduce them to a 
finer state, by fermentation in a compost 
heap, or by treating with wood ashes. If 
they are put into a cask and mixed with al¬ 
ternate layers of wood ashes, and kept moist, 
they will soon go to pieces, and the fine mix¬ 
ture will have a large accession of potash and 
be made more valuable and better adapted to 
crops that want a good deal of potash. If 
wood ashes are not convenient, the bones may 
be fermented in a compost heap with good 
garden soil. Put them into any fermenting 
mass of vegetable or animal matter, and the 
bones will add to the heat and become very 
fine. After the fermentation is over, the 
whole mass should be shovelled over, and in¬ 
timately mixed, and it may be spread broad¬ 
cast or put in the hill as a concentrated 
manure. This way is good enough, though 
it requires more time than the reduction of 
bone by sulphuric acid, which costs money, 
and requires more careful handling. We 
have used bones in all these methods, with 
great profit, for thirty years, and expect to 
Use them while we eat the fruits of the gar¬ 
den. Never throw away any of the bones. 
A Fender or Safeguard for a Pigpen. 
In the “ Suggestions of and for the Season” 
for March we mentioned the importance of a 
fender in the pen of a breeding sow, to pre¬ 
vent her from lying upon and killing the 
pigs. The accompanying engraving will 
make the matter plain. The fender or guard 
consists of a board or scantling fastened upon 
A FENDER FOR PIGPEN. 
that side of the pen where the bed is located. 
It needs to be high enough above the floor 
f6r the pigs to pass under it, and at the same 
time extend out far enough to prevent the 
sow from lying close to the wall of the pen. 
If the pigs are between the sow and the wall, 
the fender permits them to escape. It is 
well to make this fender when the pen is 
built; being permanent, it will be very much 
stronger than a temporary one; it will then 
always be in place and is not in the way. 
A Barn Door Fastener. 
“ J. M. B.,” Cecil Co., Md., draws and de¬ 
scribes a fastening used on one of his double 
bam doors. He 
writes: “ Most bam 
doors of this sort are 
fastened by upright 
bars, with slots cut 
in the floor. These 
slots fill with dust, 
ice, etc., and often 
make it difficult to 
fasten the door. 
Hence came the idea 
of substitutinghard- 
wood wedges for the 
slots, one over the 
door and the other 
on the floor, the 
. . , . , . FASTENER FOR BARN DOOR. 
points being placed 
in opposite directions, so that the ends of the 
bar ma r be brought upon them and the bar 
driven securely into an upright position.” Mr, 
