1880.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
309 
nure that is produced by them. Both of these ends 
are accomplished by having enough bedding or 
litter to absorb all the moisture and cover the 
droppings. The yard should be so constructed 
that it is not washed by the dashing rains of sum¬ 
mer, but being comparatively level the litter holds 
the excess of moisture. In this way a good supply 
of the best manure is made. The straw stacks that 
often stand by themselves in the open field should 
furnish the necessary litter for the barn-yard, in¬ 
stead of slowly rotting away where they stand. 
A Barn-Door Holder. 
A simple apparatus for holding a swinging barn¬ 
door open at any point, was described to us in 
Livingston Co., N. T. (We did not note down the 
name of the contriver—an aged farmer, who busies 
himself with making new devices for ordinary 
Work.) This is a stick, 2 to 3 feet long, with an 
iron ring or thimble around the lower end, to 
prevent splitting. A sharpened iron rod of any de¬ 
sired length is driven in. The other end is sup¬ 
plied with a hook to catch into a staple driven into 
the door. When not in use, it is turned horizon¬ 
tally, and the lower end rests on a spike or wooden 
pin, as shown by the dotted line in the engraved 
sketch. A similar stick on the other side could be 
used, if it is desired to hold the door only partly 
open, instead of swinging it back against the side 
of the barn, or against a stray post or other object. 
A Rustic Seat, Quickly Made. 
Among Mr. Judd’s “ Notes by the Way,” we find 
a brief sketch of a Rustic Seat he saw on the shaded 
grass-plot around the residence at the farm of Wm. 
R. McNair, near Lima, Livingston Co., N. Y.—One 
end of a Linden (Basswood) log was found to be 
too knotty and other¬ 
wise unfit for sawing 
into boards. A piece 
28 or 30 inches long 
was cut off with a cross¬ 
cut saw, for fuel. One 
of the daughters found 
a • better use for it. 
First, at 15 inches from 
the lower end, the block 
was cut more than half 
through with a cross-cut 
saw. Then with an axe, 
and finally with a chisel, 
A cheap rustic seat. tlic seat portion was 
split and cut out, as shown in the sketch. All this 
was accomplished in half an hour or so during the 
nooning hour, by a couple of the farm hands. The 
saw-cut under the arms will not affect the solidity 
of the arms. This might be filled with a bit of put¬ 
ty, or a mixture of dry clay and oil, to keep out 
water and prevent future decay. A small gutter 
somewhere in the seat, to carry out rain when fall¬ 
ing upon it, would be useful. Such seats as these, 
quickly made at no cost, may be quite freely pro¬ 
vided for door yards, fruit yards, shady corners, etc. 
Tlie lf-Year Locust, or Cicada.— This 
destructive insect, which, in the same locality, 
makes its appearance every seventeenth year, is 
now exciting attention on a number of places in the 
United States. This brief description of the Locust 
is given in answer to the questions concerning it, 
sent to the American Agriculturist. The mature in¬ 
sect resembles the Harvest-fly, but its head is 
narrower, with red eyes and large wings the veins 
of which are orange red. The females are provided 
with powerful piercers, with which they make nar¬ 
row grooves in the twigs and small branches of 
forest and fruit trees, and in which they deposit 
about 20 eggs, arranged in a double row. After 
thus laying 400 to 500 eggs, the insect dies. It is 
this cutting into the branches that is the source of 
damage done by the Cicada, as it weakens the 
limbs, causing many of them to break away from 
the tree during storms, etc. The males only are 
provided with a tightly stretched membrane, like a 
drum, which when made to vibrate produces the 
sound that, when coming from a large number, 
suggests the rumbling or dull, obscure noise of a 
threshing machine in operation at a distance. The 
eggs hatch in about six weeks, and soon after the 
larvae or grubs drop to the ground. The larva 
is white and by the aid of its lobster-like claws 
burrows at once into the earth, where they feed on 
the roots of plants, during their long unnoticed sub¬ 
terranean existence of 17 years. When its “ time 
is up,” so to speak, the grub comes near the sur¬ 
face of the soil, and remains for a number of days 
in the inactive pupa state; after a while, the perfect 
insect comes forth through a rent in the back of 
the pupa-skin, and the circle of life of the Cicada 
is complete. A new deposit of eggs soon follows, 
branches are again destroyed, the dull drumming 
fills the land, and a second seventeen years of 
underground life is entered upon. 
Wood and Cement Water Pipes. 
Mr. “F. S.,” Brooklyn, N. Y., sends sketches 
and descriptions of cheap home-made water pipes 
to be enclosed in hydraulic cement. A wooden pipe 
is made of two strips of pine plank, inch thick 
by 4 inches in width; these are hollowed out in 
the center by a molding machine and the two 
pieces joined together to make a tube, as shown in 
cross-section in figure 1. The strips should be 
Fig. 2.— WATER-PIPE OF BOARDS. 
about 12 feet in length, their ends are cut square, 
and they arc put together joined end to end, by 
means of a ring of galvanized sheet iron—a ferule 
of such iron as stove pipes are made of. These 
ferules are three inches long; one of them is 
placed between the ends of two sections of plank 
pipe, which are driven together, when the ring will 
have the position shown by the dotted ring in figure 
1. In this way a secure water-tight joint is made. 
The two halves of the pipe are fastened together 
by screws placed six inches apart. The pipe is 
now ready for its encasement of cement, which 
should be made of one part cement, two parts 
clean sand, and two or three parts small gravel 
stones. The pipe should be laid below the frost 
line and after being placed in the ditch the con¬ 
crete as it is prepared should be put around it. 
Another kind of pipe is made of inch pine strips 
joined as shown in figure 2. First nail together the 
strips B, B, and C, C, after which the boards A , A, 
are nailed on as shown in the figure. These strips 
give strength to the pipe; the nails, six inches 
apart, being long and passing well into the strips 
B, B. The pipe thus made which may have a 
“throat” li to 2 inches in diameter is afterwards 
encased in the cement concrete, the same as pipe 
in figure 1. An outlet for the water from the pipe 
may be made as shown in figure 3. A piece of iron 
tubing of the length required, with a bend at the 
upper end is threaded at 
the bottom and made to 
screw into an iron plate, fig. 
4, fastened upon the pipe at 
the point of outflow, below 
which a hole is bored 
through the side of the pipe; 
in fact the tube is screwed Fj 4 _ m0N CAP> 
through both the iron plate 
and the wood of the pipe. An ordinary faucet 
may be made of the upper end of the iron tube. 
The Lettuce Mildew.— Early last spring the 
complaints from the loss of the crop for forced let¬ 
tuce, were so frequent, that we were induced to 
send out a circular asking for further information 
upon this important matter. The results of this in¬ 
vestigation were published in an illustrated article 
in the American Agriculturist for April last, p. 148. 
Since that time other answers have come in, and 
with them the information that the trouble is much 
more wide-spread than we were led to infer from the 
replies up to the time of writing the April article. 
We there stated that: “From the responses to 
these questions, we infer that the Lettuce Disease 
is at present confined to the Atlantic States.” Res¬ 
ponses from the South, even so far as Southern 
Texas, inform us of its ravages in that direction, 
and a letter now before us states that the region of 
the Great Lakes has not escaped; in fact, the grow¬ 
ers of early forced lettuce in Central Michigan, for 
example, have had, in some cases, their entire crop 
almost completely destroyed. There is no doubt that 
the disease is a fungus, and the important question 
is, how to meet it, or, better still, how to prevent 
its coming upon the early lettuce. With the close¬ 
ly related mildew upon the grape-vine, Flowers of 
Sulphur dusted on at intervals has been found an 
effectual remedy; but with the lettuce plant we are 
met by the difficulty that the foliage is the portion 
eaten, and the dusting of it with Sulphur would 
notimprove its taste or healthfulness ; in fact, with¬ 
out thorough washing, it would not be marketable. 
It appears evident that just those conditions that 
produce the most vigorous growth of the lettuce 
plant, namely: rich soil, heat, abundant moisture, 
etc., are those best for the fungus. 
Fig. 4.— IRON CAP. 
