266 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
Cheap Cisterns- 
Cheap cisterns have fallen into some disrepute, 
of late, through the impositions of certain travel¬ 
ing cistern-builders. A few years ago, numerous 
quacks went through the rural districts in various 
parts of the country, proclaiming that they had 
invented a new plan for building cisterns. And 
not the least attractive part of their method was 
its superior cheapness: five dollars would do the 
whole. Their wonderful new method was simply 
this: They dug a hole in the ground, large enough 
to contain 25 barrels of water. The hole tapered 
gradually from the top to the bottom, and was 
shaped like many stone-jars. After being exca¬ 
vated smoothly, it was plastered over upon the 
ground itself, and then the top was covered with 
planks. This method answered very well for the 
Summer months; but, if built where the frost 
could reach the cistern, its fate was sealed in 
the first Winter : the frost heaved the earth and 
plaster into the cistern, and “ the patent, cheap, 
and durable water-holder ” was no more. 
An improvement on this style of cistern can 
easily be made, as follows: Excavate of the 
size wanted, and in the shape above-mentioned, 
for its obvious utility in plastering. Choose, if 
possible, stiff, clay soil, and a sheltered position. 
Cover the bottom with flat stones or with brick 
laid in water-lime cement, and plastered over 
with the same. The bricks must be hard and 
well burned, and the cement made of water-lime 
mixed at the rate of one-third lime with two- 
thirds sand. Lay up the sides with one course of 
brick, putting a good coating of water-lime mor¬ 
tar, as you go, between the bricks and the earth 
behind. When you reach the top, lay across the 
opening several stout joists or locust timber, and 
cover with thick planks. An opening should be cut 
out in these plank, for the curb ; and this should 
be large enough to allow the descent of a man to 
clean out the cistern. Then cover the whole 
platform with soil enough to exclude frost. 
n i Taa O f ■ —► o-- ■ . 
Farming by Machinery. 
We hail gladly the introduction of every good 
labor-saving machine ; and we rejoice to see 
that the prejudice against such implements is 
disappearing from the public mind. It is becom¬ 
ing plain to every one, that the substitution of 
mechanical forces for mere muscular strength 
tends to elevate mankind. Men are changed by 
it from machines to makers and controllers of 
machines. Instead of going the same round of 
hard, wearing labor, from generation to genera¬ 
tion, like a blind horse in the tread-mill, they 
may now throw very much burdensome toil 
upon machinery ; may subject the powerful but 
blind forces of nature to the control of the human 
will. If wood and iron can do much of the drudge¬ 
ry of life, just as well as human sinews, surely it 
is better that they should do it. If by the aid of 
a horse and a cultivator, one man can till as much 
land, as ten men with ten hoes could do their 
work, surely, there is a great gain. §o with all 
substitutes for the expenditure of human strength. 
To us, the great argument for machinery in 
agriculture is not its cheapening effect, but the 
relief it gives the farmer from wasting toil, and 
the opportunity it affords him for self-improve¬ 
ment Its tendency is to elevate, as well as to 
make him rich. Its tendency is to make farming 
attractive, no less than profitable. Well has a 
writer observed : “ Machinery, regarded as a 
means to banish man’s slavery to toil, by substi¬ 
tuting brain '"ork for the labor of the hand, is the 
high road to that fuller and more perfect develop¬ 
ment of society, which poets have painted, phi¬ 
losophers predicted, and revelation, it is believed 
by many, expressly predicted.” 
Economical Hints. 
1. Have a work-bench and a few tools in your 
woodshed, or in a little room at one end of your 
barn. There are many small jobs, in the course 
of a year, which any man of common ingenuity 
can do as well as a professed carpenter. And 
there are many rainy days and “ odd spells ” 
when these jobs can be done. And how much 
running to the village, and how much waiting and 
patience this would save ! 
2. Have a place for everything, and everything 
in its place. Those tools—why should they be 
lying around, the auger here, the jack-plane there, 
and the saw yonder, and the adz and screw¬ 
driver no where 1 Don’t put away a shovel, hoe, 
spade or any implement without cleaning it. This 
may seem needless care, but in the long run it is 
a saving of time and money. Rust corrodes and 
weakens the best made tools. There are men 
who leave their plows standing in the furrow, or 
lying by the side of the fence from one year to 
another. And the “ bran-new ” scythe is often 
left dangling from the crotch of an apple-tree, 
month after month. Hear what a sensible farmer 
says : “ Drive in stout, wooden pins to hang your 
yokes upon, nail strips of board from joist to joist 
to hang chains upon, make a rack overhead for 
pitchforks, rakes, turning sticks,” &c. To all of 
which we respond : So let it be 1 
♦ - *~r— 
Blinks from a Lantern.Ho. III. 
BY DIOGENES REDIVIVUS. 
A NEW LOCATION FOR FARMS. 
I have hitherto looked for a good farmer upon 
the farm, with very little success. I now purpose 
to change the process a little and look for a good 
farm in the farmer. For I have made up my 
mind, that this, after all, is the true location of the 
farm. Man is a sort of walking photograph es¬ 
tablishment, realizing, in form and color, the 
ideas that are floating in his mind One man is 
born a carpenter. He has a natural tact for 
making boards smooth, and framing timbers to¬ 
gether. The sight of a chest of tools always 
gives him pleasure, and he loves nothing so well, 
as to saw, hew, plane, and bore. He realizes his 
ideal of blessedness, at an early age, in a carpen¬ 
ter’s shop. Another is born a poet, has a lively 
sense of the beautiful, and an ear for rythm. He 
is thrilled with music from childhood, catches 
every song that he hears sung by enchantment, 
and begins to rhyme long before he learns to write. 
The epics, the lyrics, the odes, that make him 
immortal, are all in his soul before they get into 
books. 
Now Diogenes is decidedly of the opinion, that 
this is true of every man’s life work ; as true of 
workers in dirt, as of workers in marble, and in 
letters. The thing formed must first be in the 
mind, before it can have expression in material 
forms. 
Here perhaps is the great difficulty in finding 
good farms. It would be a very curious picture 
gallery, if we could go into a hall, and see it hung 
all around with the ideal farms which men have 
in their minds.. 
The minds of many who cultivate the soil are a 
perfect blank as to their calling. They have no 
love for it. They only look upon the farm as a 
machine for producing corn and potatoes. They 
have about the same affection for it, as the boy 
has for the crank of the grind stone. It is a ne¬ 
cessary evil, from which they mean to be deliv¬ 
ered as soon as possible. Now with this idea in 
a man’s mind, it is clearly impossible for him to 
make a good farm. It would be miraculous if 
such a man ever attained one. 
Other’s have no objection to the labors of the 
husbandman, but they have no perfect plan of a 
farm that they would like to realize. They have 
correct ideas of certain points in farm economy, 
fancy good horses and fine stock, a smooth mead¬ 
ow, or a clean grain field, but they have no con¬ 
ception of the details of the work, by which these 
things are realized. So the horses they own are 
likely to be any thing else, than the horses they 
admire, and the brood mares they keep are likely 
to be old broken down animals, unfit for work. 
The meadows they cultivate, quite likely are full 
of rocks and stumps, and the fences lined with a 
row of brush, that would almost serve for a hedge. 
The barns they have are without cellars—with¬ 
out convenience for feeding, for watering or for 
saving the manures of the animals stabled. If the 
stables are in the right place, the hay mow is 
where it ought not to be. There is no adapta¬ 
tion of means to ends, in any department of the 
farm. Whatever is known is not known to any 
good purpose. 
There are others, a very few, who are born 
with the map of a farm in their brains. They 
seem to understand at a glance what needs to be 
done on a given farm, to adapt it to a given de¬ 
partment of husbandry. In looking over a place 
for a day, they would make up their minds, 
whether it could be best worked as a dairy farm, 
a stock farm, a sheep farm, or for a mixed hus¬ 
bandry. They would not purchase a piece of 
land until they had judged of its capabilities, and 
determined what to do with it. They would have 
this matter as definitely settled in their minds, as 
the carpenter who should purchase a lot of lum¬ 
ber, with which to build a house, the plan of which 
he had already drawn. Most farms purchased are 
only the raw materials of farms. The man, who 
has a farm in his brains knows just what to do 
with this material, the moment he comes into 
possession. The farm is not only a machine for 
raising crops, but for doing this economically. If 
the farm buildings are to be located they ara 
placed with reference to economy, in carting thr 
manures and crops to it from the farm. Diogenes 
during his long search with his lantern, 
for a genuine farmer, found one culti¬ 
vator whose error in this respect has done 
more than all other causes combined to keep him 
poor through life. Instead of having a compact 
farm, with the buildings near the middle, his land 
is scattered in a half-dozen different plots, some 
of it a mile-and-a-half or two miles from home. 
He has wasted labor to the amount of several 
hundred dollars annually, in this unfortunate loca¬ 
tion of his fields. This alone, saved, would have 
made him a rich man, at the close of fifty years, 
the period for which he has cultivated the land. 
The man who has a farm in his brains, also 
sees what improvements are feasible Here are 
certain small lots, whose walls have always been 
in the way of cultivation, The fences are at once 
