154 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[April 
cellar. Every particle of vegetable and ani¬ 
mal matter should be removed, and the cellar 
windows be kept open from spring until 
freezing weather comes. There is a still 
greater peril to health in the drinking water 
used upon the farm. The well in itself may 
have an abundant supply of pure soft water, 
and yet be poisoned by filtration from the 
surface. It is desirable to have the well near 
the house, for convenience in furnishing 
water, and the cesspool and water closet near 
for convenient use. The possibility of drain¬ 
age from these places into the well, does not 
seem to have entered the minds of house 
builders in past generations. The sink drain 
discharges, as a rule, only a few feet from the 
house, and not infrequently upon the surface, 
where all the foul water and much of the filth 
of the kitchen lies festering for months in 
the summer sun, polluting the atmosphere, 
and soaking away through a porous subsoil 
into the well water, twenty feet from the 
mouth of the well. Nothing is more certain 
than that water will find its level, without 
any regard to quality, and if the cesspool is 
deluged with barrels of soap suds and kitchen 
waste every day, some portion of it will reach 
the well, if gravitation can caiTy it thither. 
The reports of sanitaiy committees show that 
the poisoning of wells from the sink drain 
and the privy is not an infrequent source of 
disease , and death, in the rural districts. The 
danger is always greater in summer, espe¬ 
cially in seasons of drouth, when the water 
level sometimes sinks ten or fifteen feet, and, 
of course, receives the drainage from a greater 
distance. A cemented cistern for these re¬ 
ceptacles of filth will effectually guard the 
well against impurities, and prevent this 
source of disease. It will furnish, also, what 
is always wanted upon the farm, a valuable 
fertilizer, and pay a large interest on the in¬ 
vestment. Pure air and water are the first 
essentials to health, and cheap at any price. 
Another Milking Stool. 
Mr. Jacob Seidel, Seward Co., Neb., writes, 
“In the January number of the American 
Agriculturist you picture a milking stool. 
We have been using a similar one which we 
think more simple and easier to carry. The 
drawing shows the whole thing. Inch-boards 
will do. The handle need not be as large as 
represented in the drawing.” The accom- 
a milking stool. 
panying emgKiving is made from the sketch 
sent by Mr. S., who omits giving the measures. 
Selecting' Farm Stoclf.—If we were 
as careful in choosing our farm stock as in 
picl*ng out the cloth for a coat or dress, bet¬ 
ter animals and more profit would be the 
result. The farmer should know what he 
wants in his animals, and select accordingly. 
Be not misled by appearances nor overruled 
by blind fancy or popular fashion in “ points.” 
A Cheap Field Roller. 
The importance of a roller for crushing 
the clods in a plowed field, or to smooth the 
surface of meadows in spring is felt upon 
every farm. Mr. Frank Riddle, Venango Co., 
Pa., gives his method 
of making a cheap 
and effective field 
roller as follows: 
Fig. 1.— END OF STAVE. t( j first bought twQ 
sets of old mowing machine drive-wheels 
at the price of old iron, and took them 
to a blacksmith shop and had the “warts” 
on the face of the wheels removed. This was 
easily done with a cold chisel. Three-eighths 
inch holes were bored in the face for bolting 
the staves to the wheels. For staves I used 
2‘/a by 5 5 /e inch plank 3 feet 4 inches long. 
The edges of the staves were bevelled and the 
Fig. 3.— THE ROLLER FINISHED. 
ends cut in to fit. When the staves were 
fitted I took a 4 by 4 scantling and ripped it 
diagonally, making triangular-shaped pieces, 
which were laid upon the face of the staves, 
as shown in figure 1. The bolts pass through 
both pieces, and are firmly fastened to the 
wheel. I used a l 9 / e -inch iron rod, each 
section being adjusted to revolve indepen¬ 
dently.” The roller complete is shown in 
figure 2. A roller with the surface ridged as 
in the above, is preferred by many to a 
smooth one for cloddy or lumpy land, espe¬ 
cially if a harrow is to follow the roller. 
Substitutes for Glass in the Garden. 
Those who have no hot-bed can do much in 
forwarding early plants, whether of vege¬ 
tables or flowers, by means of some kind of 
a cold frame. The cold frame proper is an 
enclosure of boards covered with glazed 
sashes, and these again covered at night with 
a straw mat, board shutter, or some other 
covering. Plants raised in such a frame will 
not of course be so early as those in a hot¬ 
bed, but properly managed, much earlier than 
in the open garden. Many are so situated 
that they cannot readily procure sashes, or 
do not care to be at the expense of them. 
They can, nevertheless, gain something by 
using a frame covered with shutters of thin 
boards. These should be of a convenient 
size to handle readily. Make a frame of 6 or 
8 inch wide boards, nailed to small posts 
set in the ground. It may be six feet wide, 
and as long as convenient. Make shutters 
of thin boards, battened on one side, and as 
long as the width of the frame ; about four 
feet wide will be a convenient size for hand¬ 
ling. Select a sunny locality for the frame, 
and one sheltered by a close fence or a build¬ 
ing from the cold winds. Enrich the soil and 
prepare it thoroughly with the spade and 
rake. If the soil is still cold, expose it to the 
sun during the day and put on the shut¬ 
ters about three o’clock in the afternoon. 
After a few days the soil will be warmed and 
dryer ; when it is in good condition sow the 
seeds, just as in an open bed. Continue to 
expose to the sun and close as before. After 
the plants are up, watering, thinning, etc., is 
needed, as if they were in the open ground. 
Plants in a frame so treated will be consider¬ 
ably ahead of those sown in an open bed. A 
great improvement on this, and the best sub¬ 
stitute for glass, is to make frames of the size 
advised for the shutters, of stuff two inches 
wide and an inch thick, with two light strips 
running lengthwise. Cover them with cheap 
white sheeting tacked on, or better still, let 
the sheeting be hemmed at the ends, and 
furnished with rings at the comers and about 
a foot apart elsewhere ; these rings are to be 
hooked over small nails, so placed in the 
frame as to stretch the cloth as tight as pos¬ 
sible. The muslin is then to be coated with 
a varnish made as follows. Put into an iron 
vessel a quart of Linseed Oil, and add finely 
pulverized Sugar of Lead, 1 oz.; pulverized 
Rosin, 4 oz., heat over a gentle fire until 
these are thoroughly melted together and 
mixed. This is to be applied, while warm, 
with a brush, doing it on a clear day, and 
when dry give a second coat. When sashes 
like these are used, the rear end of the 
frame (that farthest from the sun) should be 
about two inches higher than the front, to 
allow the water from rains to pass off. With 
such sashes, the frames may be kept wholly 
or in part covered during chilly days. At 
night cover them with the shutters. Frames 
covered in this manner are also useful to hold 
and harden off plants that have been raised 
in hot beds. In using them, as with glass, 
care must be taken to open for airing, and 
not allow the interior to get so warm as 
to injure the plants, and when the weather 
is not too chilly to remove them altogether. 
Tlie Weiglit of Soils.—It is impos¬ 
sible to determine the exact weight of any 
soil, as it varies according to its porosity; 
amount of water contained ; the per cent of 
sand, gravel, clay, etc., present. No one 
handful or bushel of soil from a field is iden¬ 
tical with any or every other like quantity. 
The following figures are from Johnson’s 
“ How Crops Feed ” : 
Dry sand weighs about 110 pounds per cubic foot. 
Heavy clay “ “ 75 “ “ “ 
Half sand and clay “ 96 “ “ “ 
Rich garden mould “ 70 “ “ “ 
Peat “ 30 to 50 “ “ 
A sandy soil which is spoken of as “ light,” 
is so because worked with greater ease than 
the “heavy” clay that weighs some 35 
pounds less per cubic foot. “ The resistance 
offered by soils in tillage is more the result 
of adhesiveness than of gravity.” The Speci¬ 
fic Gravity of a soil is its weight compared 
with the weight of an equal bulk of water. 
The water is taken as the standard of com¬ 
parison, and its specific gravity (sp. gr.) 
is called one (1). A cubic foot of water 
weighs 68*/. pounds. By comparing the 
weight of various soils with this, their speci¬ 
fic gravities are obtained. The sp. gr. of 
good agricultural soils is not far from 2.68, 
that is, such soils are two and sixty-eight 
hundreths times heavier than water. A cubic 
foot of it would weigh about 167‘/ a pounds. 
