506 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[December, 
Among the Earners— No. 59. 
BY ONE OF THEM. 
About “ Rockeries ” or “Rockwork.” 
There is something distressing to me about what 
are called “rockeries” or “rockwork.” I mean 
those heaps of stone, and the sham grottoes which 
are so much admired by some. They either look 
like stone piles which have been “ tidied up” a lit- 
Fig. 1.— FOUNDATION OF ROCKWORK. 
tie, and made to support some trailing vines, 
bunches of houseleek, or stone-crop—or they look 
like a great effort to do something which turns out 
a lamentable failure. I have seen now and then an 
artificial bit of rockwork in a corner, well filled in 
with earth, half covered with creepers, and shaded 
by some overhanging tree, where ferns and other 
shade-loving plants seemed to enjoy the moist cool 
stones and their retired life, which I rather liked 
A Rockwork Well-curb. 
Our old 6tone house and its surroundings are so 
rustic, that when we replaced the ancient well- 
sweep with a modem pump several years ago, there 
seemed something incongruous about it. We had 
one pump in the house drawing water through a 
pipe 80 feet long, but raising it only 12, which was 
really all the pump wc needed, except when we 
wanted to use the garden hose. So as the platform 
needed renewing, and we found that the upper 
stones of the well had been disarranged by the 
frost, we determined upon a change, and a return 
to first principles. The well is only about ten feet 
deep, and is several feet back from the bank which 
drops off suddenly towards the meadow. I dug 
out the ground around the well, had the top stoned 
up to the level of the ground, laid in cement, and a 
grouting of cement aDd broken stones filled in all 
around, making this upper part of the stoning of 
the well a solid wall, compact as one stone, two ft. 
wide and high. This foundation is shown in figure 
1, which is a perpeudicular section of the well. 
Fig. 2.— VIEW OF CURB LOOKING DOWN. 
For the curb proper we used angular stones of all 
sizes, the largest as big as a man could conveniently 
handle, and laid them up with some pains not to 
make a uniform wall, filling every crevice with ce¬ 
ment, and making niches, for pots of flowers, and 
fiat projecting stones for the same purpose, to hold 
the pots. The curb was drawn in towards the top, 
and at the hight of 2i feet was finished in a flat 
surface, no where less than six inches wide, and 
every seam “ pointed,” as seen in figure 2, which is 
a view looking perpendicularly downward. 
To provide a place to stand when drawing the 
water, to set the water-pail, and a spout, two flat 
stones were laid a little above the level of the 
ground, and semi-circular places left as the wall 
was built. At the proper hight for the spout, a hewed 
stone was laid in. When the cement had set, a 
stone-chisel dressed the standing and the pail 
places. This dressed stone appears in strong con¬ 
trast to the rough work all around, and shows evi¬ 
dence of design in the whole. (See figure 3.) In 
the flat stone supporting the pail we chiseled a 
basin smaller than the pail, so that it stands firm¬ 
ly. It holds aDout two quarts of water, and hens, 
chickens, dogs, and cats, come constantly to drink. 
In its summer dress the well-curb—we call it the 
old well-curb now, looks very well. It is a place 
where stand a number of house-plants, which re¬ 
main in the tubs or pots all summer, such as century 
plants, cactuses, oxalis, the little striped tradescan- 
tia, and other such-like things. English ivy has 
been planted all around, and so has the little pale- 
green sedum, commonly called stone-crop. The ivy 
is protected at the roots, so that in a severe winter 
it dies down, but the shoots clamber up to the very 
edge before midsummer, and the dark-green leaves 
contrast beautifully with the bright yellowish- 
Fig. 3.— SHOWING STANDING PLACE IN CURB. 
green of the stone-crop. Besides, there is on one 
side a bed of gay bedding plants : horseshoe gera¬ 
niums, asters, and marigolds; on the shady side a 
bed of ferns, and on the side of the spout, which is 
south, a bed of roses receives all the overflow of 
the well, as also many a bucketful of water which 
is drawn on purpose to dash over it. 
The Old Well-sweep. 
When a well-sweep and bucket at a well, 12 to 20 
feet deep are properly balanced, and well set and 
arranged, which it is easy to do, they form, in my 
opinion, the best water drawing apparatus that 
has ever been devised. The bucket in our well is 
so balauced that a child of eight years can draw a 
bucket of water, and a grown person can draw 
water easily with one hand—and very rapidly. The 
post or crotch is of red cedar, which is lasting, 
and has a rustic look. The sweep is of chestnut, 
which dries very light, is stiff, runs straight, and 
stands the weather a long time without paint; and 
the pole is of pine—yellow pine is best, but itmust 
be w ell seasoned, or it will be pitchy in hot weath¬ 
er for some time. White oak or ash are both good 
if free from knots, straight, and straight-grained. 
The sweep and the stone-curb are shown in fig. 4. 
On a still summer night we can hear the rattle and 
clatter of chain pumps, the squeak of the patent 
rig, with the self-filling and dumping bucket, in dif¬ 
ferent directions, and we look with dread upon the 
modern patent well-curb—and the more we know 
about them , the better we are pleased with our si¬ 
lent, picturesque, old-fashioned, efficient well- 
sweep, with its rockwork curb—beautiful even in 
winter, and always attractive from its cleanliness, 
and the absolute exclusion of snakes, mice, and 
toads, which we used to fish up dead, and alive. 
An Adjustable Saw-buck. 
Those of us who run small farms near the city 
change “help” too often for our own good But 
we may pick up a good many good ideas from the 
ways men of different nationalities have of doing 
things. A Danish man, while working for us, made 
Fig. 4.— THE OLD WELL-SWEEP. 
a pair of saw-bucks, to be used singly or together, 
thus adapted to sticks of any length. They have 
been in use for several years, and are very simply 
made, see figure 5. Two forked apple tree limbs 
were taken, and a two-inch hole bored at the proper 
angle through each ; then sticks were thrust through 
from the lower side, each one with its mate form¬ 
ing a tripod, that always rests firmly upon the 
ground, while the upper end is a crotch to hold 
the wood. Both of these tripods together form an 
adjustable saw-buck which we find very convenient 
for cutting up stove wood, or for holding lumber 
and timber of any kind that we wish to saw. 
The Reaper in the Eield. 
If we were all artists and were seeking the 
picturesque, then ruins iu all their stages would be 
in order everywhere. The old tumbled down mill 
makes a fine subject for the painter, but it does not 
help to make our bread. A country may grow rich 
in subjects for the sketch book, and at the same 
time be a poor place for people to live. Ruins are 
expensive luxuries wherever they are found ; but 
none more so than those that exist on many farms. 
The farmer that leaves his reaper in the field for 
the winter, with its four reel arms extended to the 
four winds of heaven, is doing something for the 
picturesque ; is furnishing an object, which, when 
the snows of winter come, cannot but strike the 
eye of every passer-by. With practical persons 
the question, “Does it pay ?” comes boldly to the 
front. If the machine costs $140, it will perhaps 
last five years with such treatment, or cost about 
$36 a year, while if carefully housed, it will last at 
least twice as long, and reckoning interest at 6 per 
cent, the yearly cost would be $22, or an expense 
of $14, for the sake of the rustic scenery, not to 
Fig. 5.— AN ADJUSTABLE SAW-BUCK. 
mention the greater expense to run a rusty, warped, 
and decaying machine, than one in good trim. But 
it maybe said, “It costs to build shelter,” and so it 
does ; but $14 is the interest on $234, and with the 
loss on the plows, drills, cultivators, carts, and 
other farm implements, a good tool house could be 
built, and more than half of the present loss from 
exposure be money put into the pocket, besides the 
appearance of the premises will be greatly improved. 
