1861 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
337 
box containing one bushel. Divide this rule into 
10 equal parts, marking them plainly, as inches 
are marked on a pocket rule. Subdivide the 
spaces each into tenths: these divisions will 
represent tenths and hundredths of the scale, 
and in measuring will be considered as decimals 
of a bushel. To use this rule, measure with it 
the length, breadth, and depth of the bin, multi¬ 
plying together the dimensions given by the 
scale, and the product will be bushels and deci¬ 
mals of a bushel: Thus a bin measuring by the 
scale 8.5 in length, 6. in width, and 4.5 in depth, 
will contain 229.5 bushels. This measure (12| 
or 12.9075 inches) is not perfectly exact, but near 
enough for all practical purposes; as in buying 
and selling grain, it is usually weighed or mea¬ 
sured by the standard. J. W. B. 
“Land-Poor.” 
This expression is well understood at the 
West, where at present it is almost impossible 
to sell land except at enormous sacrifices, and 
where if held, it is burdened with heavy taxes. 
It is a common proverb, in such cases, that 
“ the more land a man owns, the poorer he is.” 
But there are land-poor men everywhere. 
They are those whose farms pay only a fraction 
of the interest on their cost. They are those 
who are carrying on some grand system of ag¬ 
riculture, which, though very splendid and im¬ 
posing to spectators, does not yield a profit on 
the money and labor invested; for, that only 
is the best farming which renders the greatest 
proceeds from the least toil and expense. It 
does not avail us to be able to show great crops, 
if meanwhile the cost of producing them is pro- 
portionably great. Gentlemen of fortune can 
amuse themselves with such fancy-farming, if 
they like, but ordinary farmers can not. The 
grand thing to be aimed at, is to increase the 
productiveness of our lands, faster than we in¬ 
crease the cost of working them. 
It is often a great mistake for one to enlarge 
his farm. It gratifies a man’s pride to be known 
as a large landholder; and it is a source of much 
satisfaction to look out over one’s broad acres, 
and to walk across them, and to gather in their 
teeming crops. But not everybody is able to 
own such a luxury. Increase of land brings in¬ 
crease of taxes, labor and care. Seldom is it wise 
to run into debt for much land. By no means 
wise, unless one is quite sure to raise enough 
from it to pay the increased taxes, interest mon¬ 
ey and labor. Let Naboth’s vineyard alone. 
Keeping Apples in Germany—An 
American Fruit Cellar. 
John Rossbach, Essex Co., N. J., writes to the 
American Agriculturist that he formerly superin¬ 
tended a large orchard in Germany, where the 
fruit was kept as follows: A large cellar was 
provided, seven feet in depth, half of it being 
built above ground'. The walls were 2i feet 
thick, and 12 windows were made; shelves, 2 
feet wide, and one foot apart, were erected 
around this room and through the center, leav¬ 
ing passages to walk between. The fruit was 
all picked carefully by hand, and placed in sin¬ 
gle layers on the shelves. Except in freezing 
weather the windows were left open, and during 
severe cold they were covered with straw. All 
decaying apples were removed at once, being 
readily detected as they lay upon the shelves. 
The fruit kept in good order until late in Spring. 
Remarks. —This is an excellent method, if not 
the very best one for preserving apples well all 
through the Winter and Spring. We began a 
similar practice twenty five years ago, and suc¬ 
ceeded well in the colder latitude of 43°. The 
cellar then constructed, and still in use, is 
arranged as follows: It is 8 feet high, well 
drained, and free from dampness—the walls be¬ 
ing laid in mortar, well plastered on the inside, 
and the floor made as solid and dry as stone by 
a coat of hydraulic mortar. The windows are 
hung on hinges, and are double glazed—glass on 
the outer and inner sides of the sashes. Frost 
is kept out, but the windows are always open 
except in the coldest weather. The cellar is di¬ 
vided into two distinct apartments. The warm¬ 
er one under the constantly heated kitchen and 
living room, is devoted to potatoes, root crops, 
and general family use. The other one, the 
fruit cellar, is kept down nearly to the freezing 
point. The fruit shelves are arranged around 
the outside, near the walls, and in tiers across 
the middle portions of the room. Posts or 
scantlings are set up in pairs—the pairs being 
six feet apart, and the posts 2) feet from each 
other. Cross pieces for holding the shelves are 
nailed across the uprights—one 8 inches from 
the ground, the next 18 inches above the first, 
the next as much higher, there being 4 shelves 
in each tier, arranged like berths in a ship or 
canal boat. Narrow boards are laid on for 
shelves, with large cracks between them to ad¬ 
mit a free circulation of air. Narrow side pieces 
keep the fruit from filling off. The outside tiers 
of shelves are far enough from the walls to al¬ 
low a passage way. The apples are carefully 
placed on the shelves, two to four deep, accord¬ 
ing to their abundance. Beginning at one end 
the fruit is sorted over every eight or ten days, 
and any apple slightly diseased or injured is 
thrown out. The apples thus placed on these 
shelves, and in a constantly cool dry atmos¬ 
phere, keep sound for many months. For 
smaller quantities, fewer shelves will be needed, 
but the cellar should always be kept cool and 
airy, whatever the quantity of fruit stored.— Ed.] 
For the American Agriculturist. 
Apples Preserved in Sawdust. 
Mr. Editor : The inquiry of one of your 
subscribers, in the Sept. Agriculturist , concerning 
the packing of apples in dry leaves, reminds me 
of an experiment I made many years since, 
which may throw some light on that subject. 
I packed them in dry hard-wood sawdust, taken 
from a cabinet shop; placed them in a cold, 
open garret, intending to remove them to a 
warmer place before cold weather; but forgot 
them till the coldest month, January, was past. 
Thinking that they were then frozen of 
course, I did not meddle with them till Spring. 
On opening them, I found a few, not more than 
one in a dozen, entirely decayed, not a speck of 
sound tissue in them, and almost as dry as dried 
fruit, appearing much like it, excepting the dark 
color; while all the others were in a state of 
perfect preservation. From the fact that the 
decayed ones were wholly decayed, and that 
there were none half rotten and half sound, I 
concluded that those which were rotten, must 
have been imperfect at the time of packing, that 
they had probably received a slight bruise, by 
which the tissue was broken, and incipient de¬ 
cay commenced. Another conclusion was, that 
the fine sawdust, made with a circular saw from 
highly seasoned wood, was so good an absorb¬ 
ent, that it took up all the moisture from the 
decayed apples and held it fast, communicating 
none to those that were* lying near them. 
But why were not these apples frozen ? Or 
had they been frozen, and thawed so very grad¬ 
ually as not to injure their texture? The ther¬ 
mometer, that Winter, had been down to zero 
many times; and in one “cold spell” it had 
been in the neighborhood of zero for more than 
a week. My impression from that experiment 
was, that if apples be put into fine, perfectly dry 
sawdust, and kept in a cold place, those which 
are sound throughout when packed, will remain 
so until Spring, and that those which decay from 
any imperfection at the time of packing, will 
not communicate dampness, in any hurtful de¬ 
gree, to their neighbors, provided not more than 
a bushel and a half be put into a barrel, and the 
relnaining space be occupied by the sawdust. 
Coldness, (not as severe as in the case above, 
and dryness should, I think, be recommended 
as the requisites for preserving apples and other 
fruits. For securing dryness, some other ab¬ 
sorbent, (to take up the moisture from such as 
decay from imperfection or injury,) might be as 
good as sawdust; but I doubt whether leaves 
would, and whether any thing else would, 
which could be so cheaply obtained. J. A. N. 
Remarks. —It is dangerous to allow apples to 
freeze under any circumstances. Some varieties 
occasionally remain sound when both the freez¬ 
ing and the thawing are very slow. In the above 
instance, probably the sawdust and the partial 
protection of the garret, together prevented se¬ 
vere freezing—sawdust of the kind described is 
quite as poor a conductor of heat, as are the 
best woolen garments. Mr. J. A. N. does not 
seem to have had much faith in the method, ac¬ 
cidentally successful many years ago, or doubt¬ 
less he would have followed it up himself, and 
been able to give the results of further and more 
recent experience.—E d.] 
- •-* - —» !— - * - 
A Hint or Two for Tree-Lovers. 
Those who love trees for their beauty, will be 
pleased with the following paragraph which 
we have just met, and copy from a rare volume: 
“A careful and eloquent observer of Nature 
describes the leaf as a sudden expansion of the 
stem that bore it; an untrollable expression of 
delight on the part of the twig, that Spring has 
come, shown in a fountain-like expatiation of 
its tender green heart into the air. And to hold 
this joy, Nature moulds the leaves as vases into 
the most diverse and fantastic shapes—of eggs 
and hearts, and circles, of lances and wedges 
and arrows and shields. She cleaves, and parts, 
and notches them in the most cunning ways, 
combines their blades into subtle and compli¬ 
cated varieties, and scollops their edges and 
points into patterns that involve seemingly 
every possible angle and line of grace.” 
And this reminds us of a Mat derived from 
a recent botanical authority, on the natural and 
proper training of trees. He maintains that a 
leaf with a leaf-stalk, implies that the tree to 
which it belongs has naturally a bare trunk for 
a certain distance; but that a leaf without a stalk 
shows that its parent tree is naturally branched 
from the ground. He also shows that there is a 
correspondence between the disposition and dis¬ 
tribution of the branches of the trees. 
If the first of these points is true, it shows 
that evergreens should be trained with their 
lower branches reaching to the ground; and 
that the practice of hewing them off is unnatur¬ 
al and absurd. Whether this principle does 
not also apply to some deciduous trees, we have 
not yet examined. It is worthy of observation. 
