1879 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
465 
white patches. The coat was glossy, fine and short; 
the head was hornless, fine, and had the Jersey fea¬ 
tures; the milking qualities, so far as could be as¬ 
certained by the appearance of the cow, promised 
to be good, and on the whole, the neat, small figure 
of the animal, nearly approaching to a well-bred 
Britanny cow, was prepossessing and attractive. It 
is doubtless a desirable cross, and it would be inter¬ 
esting if some one having the opportunity of making 
it, would test it to a certain issue. A polled cow is 
highly desirable for the dairy, and a polled race, 
with all the good points of the Jerseys, and the Gal¬ 
loways combined, would be a valuable acquisition. 
An Experiment With Canada Ashes. 
The use of leached ashes, brought mainly from 
Canada, is largely increasing upon our shore farms. 
They are shipped from Oswego and other lake ports, 
in canal boats, brought down through the canals 
and the Hudson River, and towed to the ports on 
Long Island and in Connecticut, where they are 
sold to farmers, who carry the ashes in their own 
teams to the fields where they are to be used. 
These ashes are not very thoroughly leached, and 
contain a considerable quantity of potash, as well 
as other kinds of plant food. They have long been 
used to great advantage in the onion growing dis¬ 
tricts, and more recently their use has extended to 
all farm crops. Last year, William R. Fish, of 
Mystic Bridge, purchased about 1,500 bushels, and 
used them upon his farm. They were put upon his 
grass lands and upon other crops, with very satis¬ 
factory results. They were spread upon his mead¬ 
ows, at the rate of 100 bushels to the acre. The 
cost of the ashes was seventeen cents a bushel, 
making seventeen dollars an acre for the manure. 
The increased yield of hay was at least one ton to 
the acre, doubling his crop wherever the ashes were 
used. He thinks the increase in the hay will pay 
one half the cost of the fertilizer the first season. 
It is well known that the effect of ashes is visible 
for a long time upon grass lauds, some say for 
twelve or fourteen years. Meadows can be kept 
much longer in grass where the ashes are used as a 
top dressing. The ashes were also applied to corn 
and potato crops, with equally satisfactory re¬ 
sults. The best evidence of the value of this fer¬ 
tilizer, is the fact that the farmers who use them 
are making larger investments in them every year. 
They are most economically applied to farms near 
sea ports and river landings, where they can be 
taken directly from the canal boat. They are not 
a concentrated manure, and cannot be carried long 
distances by rail with profit. Connecticut. 
Well Boring Tools, and How to Use Them. 
In many localities flowing wells may be procured 
by boring to a moderate depth. A flowing well is 
worth a large sum of money, merely estimating its 
value by the labor it saves in drawing the water, 
and distributing it to stock. To consider that 800 
may be thus yearly 
saved, is not too 
high an estimate. 
This represents a 
sum of $1000, with 
interest at 5 per 
cent, and $500 at 
10 per cent. A 
complete set of 
tools can be pro¬ 
cured for less than 
the latter sum, 
with which a well 
can be bored 250 
feet deep, and the 
tools will be still 
on hand, for sink¬ 
ing other wells in 
different places 
on the farm, or 
Fig. 1. 
Fig. 2. 
for neighbors, by which a large profit can be made.; 
the economy in this is very obvious. Flowing or 
Artesian wells—a true Artesian well is not simply a 
deep well, but a flowing one—can generally be pro¬ 
cured in low ground, between low hills underlaid 
with clay, which rests upon rock or gravel. The 
water sinking in the soil upon the high ground, 
finds its way under the clay upon the rock, and 
through the gravel, and es¬ 
capes in the lower ground 
in springs. Where springs 
abound, one can almost 
certainly procure a well 
in which the water will 
rise and flow over the top, 
so that it may be led in 
pipes into yards or build¬ 
ings. Where such wells are 
not likely to be found, as in 
regions underlaid with sand 
or gravel, it is still an ad¬ 
vantage to have a deep well, 
on account of the permanent 
supply, and the purity of the 
water; especially as there is 
no lack of pumps of the 
best character, made ex¬ 
pressly to raise water from 
great depths with much ease, 
and force it wherever it may 
be required. Deep wells are 
made by boring instruments 
or augers, which cut out the- 
soil, and hold it while it 
is drawn up, and disposed 
of. At figs. 1 and 2 is shown 
an auger for boring in clay, with front and side 
views. The edge is of steel, sharp and chisel¬ 
shaped, and so bevelled, that as it is turned it cuts 
down into the clay, and takes out a piece the shape 
of the pod of the auger. When this is filled, which 
Fig. 4.— wooden well curb. Fig. 5. 
needs eight full turns, it is drawn up by means of a 
windlass, and the contents discharged. At figure 3 
is show n the auger used where the ground is filled 
with loose stones. The augers are usually from 6 
to 30 inches in diameter, the deep wells being 6 
or 8 inches, and the shallower ones 24 to 80 inches 
in diameter. Forty or fifty feet in depth can 
thus be bored in a day, where boulders are 
not met with. The larger wells are protected by 
wooden curbs, fig. 4, made of boards, or by cement 
tiles, which are settled down as the boring goes on 
below them, and which are a little larger than the 
auger, so that it can work inside of them. The 
augers are fitted to a square iron rod by sockets 
and keys, and the rod is turned by means of heavy 
wrenches with long handles, turned either by two 
men or one horse, or by horse-power machines, 
with suitable gearing. A three-legged derrick with 
a geared wheel and axle, is provided for hoisting 
up the filled augers, and letting them down into 
the well again. In this way the boring goes on 
through water or quicksand, or any other ma¬ 
terial, until a sufficient depth is reached. 
The narrow wells are usually protected by pipes 
of sheet iron, figure 5 ; or in case the pipe need§ to 
be driven down, a strong wrought iron lap-welded 
pipe with flush screw joints, figure 10, is used. 
This latter pipe is required for deep or flowing 
wells, when there is much pressure of water. 
When rock is met with, a different method is re¬ 
quired. Soft rock can be bored with steel-pointed 
augers made for the purpose, but drills are com¬ 
monly used in all kinds of rock. Drills are of dif¬ 
ferent shapes. The wedge-bit, with a curved edge 
(fig. 6), is most frequently used, when the rock is 
hard; in softer rock the Z shaped bit (fig. 71 is 
used, which cuts more quickly. In rock of unequal 
hardness, or in soft rock, with inexperienced per¬ 
sons, the holes will ruii to one side or another, or 
become oval instead of round ; in these cases a 
reamer, figure 8, is used to trim and straighten the 
hole, so that the drills may be able to work, as a 
straight drill can not work in a crooked hole. The 
Fig, 6. Fig. 7. Fig. R. 
drill is screwed by means of a powerful wrench 
into the drilling-bar, which is a square or round bar 
of iron, or wrought iron gas-pipe, 11-inch in diame¬ 
ter, and the top of the bar is furnished with an eye 
and ring by which the hoisting rope is fastened to 
it (fig. 9). The drill is not twisted, but is jumped, 
that is, raised and let fall several feet, and is turned 
a quarter round at each fall, so as to cut the rock 
out in pieces at each blow. A hand-machine for 
raising and dropping the drill is shown at figure 12, 
and a power machine for horses or steam-engine at 
figure 13. From 40 to 60 strokes a minute are 
made, and the drill is able to cut a 6-inch hole from 
6 to 15 feet a day, according to the hardness of the 
rock. The chippings of the rock are made into 
mud by pouring water into the hole while the drill 
is at work, as the drill works more easily and the 
borings are more readily removed. A sand pump is 
used to remove the waste. This is an iron tube, 
provided with a valve at the bottom, figure 11. It 
is let down into the hole, and is churned up and 
down for a short time, so as to stir up the mud, and 
is then raised; the mud and fragments of rock re¬ 
maining in the tube. So the work proceeds, a few 
feet at a time, until a sufficient supply of water is 
reached, when the well is tubed by screwing sec¬ 
tions of the tube together and putting them down 
to the rock through the clay or earth, if this has 
Fig. 9. Fig. 10. Fig. 11. 
not been previously done, driving-them down to 
make a close joint with the rock, and fitting the 
surface pipes to the upper length of tube. It is in 
this way that all the oil wells from which our sup¬ 
ply of petroleum is gathered, and all the deep, or 
shallow, Artesian wells that are now in use, have 
been bored, although the process is now mnefr 
