1880 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
4:67 
that we have already encroached too much upon 
our woodlands. It is not so much more land, as 
better land, that we want in all the older States. 
One acre well fertilized and tilled will yield more 
profit than ten acres half starved and neglected. 
We may safely reduce the breadth of our pastures 
and increase the depth and fertility of our meadows. 
Among the Farmers—No. 58. 
BY ONE OP THEM. 
Chemists tell us that the bodies of men and 
animals consist of water, to the extent of 80 to 87 
per cent. What wonder, then, is it that water is so 
important a part of our diet. Next to pure air, 
pure water is the greatest necessity of our nature. 
Whenever a new country is settled, the first bouses 
are always built near springs. Where men colonize— 
that is, settle a country in groups of families, the 
settlements are when possible clustered about 
Springs of Water. 
Springs are less likely to be contaminated by 
organic impurities than wells, because they are the 
out-cropping of usually underground streams, and 
are independent of local sources. Hence spring 
water is almost always agreeable to the taste, pure 
and limpid, and uniform throughout the year. 
There are not a few wells in this region (Bergen 
County, N. J.), which were originally flowing 
springs—now stoned up and appearing as if they 
had been dug. With these there is always an out¬ 
flow through the soil, or by some artificial channel. 
Wells and Health. 
The ordinary source of water in any tolerably 
well settled region, is the well. Scattered springs 
are indeed used, but there are not enough of them. 
So the settlers dig wells, happy if they strike per¬ 
manent water within 25 feet from the surface. 
These wells are located with reference solely to the 
convenience of getting to them from the house, 
unless, indeed, the striking of a vein of water proves 
to be an uncertain thing, and the wells are located 
by the witch-hazel rod, in which cases they may be 
placed in all sorts of inconvenient positions. The 
idea of placing them where the source of the water 
will be uncontaminated is never—hardly ever—con¬ 
sidered at all. It is no unusual thing to see the 
privy vault and the well in near proximity. A well 
placed half way between the house and the barn, 
is quite common, and if the barn-yard is fully fifty 
feet away it may be regarded as a piece of good 
luck rather than an evidence of design. 
The pig-pen generally has a yard which soon 
becomes a pit full of water in wet seasons—often 
overflowing and soaking away into porous soil. 
The house slops are thrown, more often than 
not, where they will run off into the vegetable 
garden, or upon the ground close to the privy, 
where a pool is formed, the overflow of which gets 
into the vault, perhaps, or evaporates into the air. 
Pure and Impure Air. 
Defilement to the well water, and certain con¬ 
tamination to the air, come or may come from all 
these sources. 
We get on very 
well for years. 
The pure air of 
heaven is a bles¬ 
sed thing. It 
blows from the 
north-west cool 
and bracing; it 
comes from the 
east laden with 
the beneficent 
rain, and the 
balmy breezes 
of the south 
come to us 
Fig. 1.— flan OF grounds. freighted with 
the odors of the ocean and the shore, salty and 
health-giving. It is near home that the air is 
polluted. I have noticed the odor of a pig-sty two 
miles off with a piece of woods between, and I have 
no doubt, had my perceptions not been blunted 
with the many odors of civilization, or had I come 
fresh out of the mountains, the odor might have 
—-B 
been oppressive twice as far away. The ozoue in 
the air, and the sunshine, and the frost destroy 
the germs of disease with which we load the air 
around our dwellings, but the water retains them. 
A Notable Case of Well-Poisoning;. 
One of the most ancient dwellings in this vicinity, 
used as headquarters by American officers in the 
Revolution, and 
occupied ever 
since by people 
of wealth,many 
of whom moved 
into the coun¬ 
try for the Fi S- 2 .-WATEK level. 
health of their families, has a privy vault located 
some 60 to 80 feet from the dwelling on lower 
ground. The well stands near the house, and quite 
as far from the vault, on ground higher still. The 
roots of an Ailanthus tree some how penetrated to 
the water, and were supposed to cause a change in 
it. So the tree was cut down, the roots cleaned out 
of the well, and it was supposed to be purified. 
This season, that dreaded disease, diphtheria, has 
been in the neighborhood, attacking only those 
whose systems were adapted to give it a lodgment 
through the subtle influences of foul air or foul 
water, decaying vegetation in the cellars, obstructed 
sink drains, putrefaction in privy vaults, or some 
such cause. The family occupying the old man¬ 
sion was visited; nine out of perhaps fourteen per¬ 
sons in two households were attacked, and, for a 
wonder, only 
one died—a lit¬ 
tle girl. Then, 
of course,every¬ 
thing was ex¬ 
amined, clean¬ 
sed and puri¬ 
fied. The privy 
was found with 
some four or 
five feet of wa¬ 
ter in the vault, 
as it had been 
from time im¬ 
memorial, ex¬ 
cept in very dry 
Fig. 3. THE DRAWER SYSTEM. season8 , This 
was a bubbling, seething mass when disturbed— 
odorous and vile. Half a barrel of strong solution 
of copperas was poured into it, and a great change 
was at once perceived, and not here alone. The 
well water, which had been used both for drinking 
and washing, suddenly became very “ hard,” and 
upon examination was found to contain large 
quantities of copperas, showing absoulutely that 
there was then, and doubtless for years had been, 
a direct communication from the privy vault to the 
well. In the accompanying sketches, figure 1 shows 
the position of 
the house, well, 
and vault, and 
figure 2, the 
probable rela¬ 
tions of things 
beneath the sur¬ 
face of the 
ground. W is 
the well, V the 
vault, and S in¬ 
dicates the posi¬ 
tion of the 
low and part¬ 
ly swampy 
ground. The 
dotted line, A, 
B, in figure 2, 
indicates the supposed level of the water in the 
soil during a wet time, when it is quite probable 
the flow of water might be from B towards A. But, 
after a dry time, when the water level might be as 
low as the surface of the water as represented in 
the well, if a heavy fall of rain should take place, 
the water would rise in the swamp first, and would 
then flow towards the well, carrying defilement and 
death, either directly from the vault, or from the 
soil in the vicinity of it, saturated by its overflow. 
This terrible experience will be unheeded by the 
Fig. 4. —THE PLATFORM SYSTEM. 
great proportion of the population. Other privies 
will contaminate the wells. “ Malaria,” as it is 
sagely called, will cause bilious fevers, and chills 
and typhoid fever, and diphtheria perhaps, and the 
air will take the blame instead of the water. The 
thing to do is to arrest and destroy the germs of 
disease of every form both in the air and water. 
The Plague Spot 
of most farms is the privy vault. The older it is, 
the more dangerous. The only perfect safety seems 
to be in the earth-closet, or something of the kind. 
The proper course is to move off the privy, empty 
the vault and take it up, dig out the discolored earth 
on the old site, and fill up the hole with earth and 
stones. Then to arrange the privy with a strong- 
drawer made water-tight, the ends being strapped 
with hoop iron. This should be placed beneath 
the seat, and about three feet below it. In use, very 
dry sifted earth is spread over 
the bottom of the drawer to 
the depth of about three inch¬ 
es, and the accumulations 
covered daily with additions 
of dry earth, or in winter with 
earth and coal ashes. This 
may be done in any convenient 
way, best perhaps, by lifting 
a shutter at the rear, and scatr 
tering in a few shovelfuls of 
earth and levelling it off. When 
the drawer is full it is removed 
by drawing a stone-boat along¬ 
side, placing the drawer upon 
it by means of a crowbar or 
other lever, when it may be 
taken away and dumped, 
either in a compost heap, or 
directly upon the land. I 
have tried several methods— 
having the drawer upon run¬ 
ners—using no drawer, but a 
platform accessible from the 
rear, the earth being thrown 
on daily, and the accumula¬ 
tions removed by the shovel 
and carted away. For an ordinary family the 
drawer system is best; for a family of, say, ten mem¬ 
bers, the platform plan is perhaps most convenient. 
Figure 3 represents the drawer system. Figure 
4, a privy with a platform. A piece of 4 by 4 scant¬ 
ling, laid down on the platform, keeps the ac¬ 
cumulations in place, and there should be room 
under the extension of the roof for barrels or bins 
of dry earth, or swamp muck, which, if fine and dry, 
is just as good as the fine dry earth. 
Hand-Gauge for Measuring Horses. 
It is often desirable to know exactly the hight of 
a horse. I have found it so, as I wanted from time 
to time to know how my colts were growing. The 
instrument shown in figure 5 is made for this pur¬ 
pose. I found it in use at a sale stable, and con¬ 
structed one like it. The upright is a square rod 
of 11-inch yellow pine', 6 feet 2 inches long, and 
from the 6-foot 
markdownward 
is graduated by 
“hands” — a 
hand is 4 inches, 
consequently 6 
feet, or 72 inch¬ 
es, is 18 hands. 
The hight of 
horses is from 
15 to 18 hands. 
That of ponies 
from 8 to 14 Fig. 6 .—the index. 
hands, so that ° 
we need to have our measuring-rod graduated 
only between 32 and 72 inches. The “ hands ” 
are divided into inches, which, of course, are 
quarter hands, and the inches again into quar¬ 
ters, which is as nearly accurate as it is necessary 
to be. The cross-piece, or index, is also of yellow 
pine, 6 inches wide at the broad end, and of the 
shape 6hown in figure 6. A band of sheet brass, 
with a piece cut out as shown in the engraving, 
is bent at two right angles, so that it will slide easily 
Fig. 5.— measuring 
GAUGE. 
