1877.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
99 
furnished with a suction cylinder, which may be 
placed in the well out of reach of frost, or for use 
in deep wells. At figure 2 is shown a high stand¬ 
ard, deep-well force pump for out of door use, 
Tig. 3.— SUPPLYING WATER TO HOUSE AND BARN. 
which will throw a stream strong enough to he use¬ 
ful in case of fire, or to supply the barn as well as 
the house. (In the figure the body of the pump 
is broken off to save space.) Pipes may be laid 
as shown at figure 3, to supply the house and 
barn, or at figure 4, either to pump soft water 
Fig. 4.— ONE PUMP FOR BOTH WELL AND CISTERN. 
from a cistern, or to force the water from a well 
into the kitchen, or the tank, or to the barn or 
water-trough. By arranging the pipes with taps, 
as at figure 5, which can be done by the mak¬ 
ers if ordered—all these services may be performed 
at the well while protected from the weather in a 
covered well-house. A pump by which all this may 
be done, certainly deserves the appellation of “ Uni¬ 
versal,” and in its application to these purposes, 
iFig. 5.— ARRANGEMENT OF PIPES FOR A WELL-HOUSE. 
will meet the necessities of many persons whose 
Inquiries about water supply are here answered. 
These pumps are made by “The Nason Manufac¬ 
turing Company,” whose advertisement has been 
In the American Agriculturist for some time past, 
and who will send, upon application, catalogues 
describing the pumps and containing full details. 
Animal Portraiture. —In the several criticisms 
with which our remarks upon the prevailing style 
of animal portraiture have been met, the main point 
■at issue seems always to escape observation. It is 
not that the accepted pictures are unattractive, or 
not models of what the animals are desired to be, 
that they are objectionable, but because they are not 
real. The portraits of noted animals are for the 
purpose of educating the masses of farmers who 
have not opportunities of seeing the animals them¬ 
selves, or else presenting them has no purpose 
whatever, unless it be to tickle the vanity of their 
owners. Educated breeders are not deceived, they 
know better than to suppose that they are like the 
animals, and accept the pictures as types of what 
they may perhaps arrive at by and by. The point 
at issue is very well met in the following remarks 
concerning the portraits of the Centennial Jerseys 
in the American Agriculturist for Jan., 1877, from a 
more than usually courteous correspondent of the 
“ Country Gentleman ” : “ It is just this essential 
element of life and action that is beyond the reach 
of photographic art. Indeed, to recur to the really 
excellent specimens of this style of art—the Jersey 
portraits in the American Agriculturist —that paper 
expresses regret at its inability to add to the col¬ 
lection the portrait of Chetten Duke ,the prize bull, 
‘ as it was not possible, after many endeavors, to 
procure a photograph, on account of the animal’s 
restlessness.’ Fancy Paul Potter’s Bull, or the 
Toro Farnese, standing meek and quiet while a 
gentleman with his head under a black cloth level¬ 
ed a camera upon him and obtained a profile view! ” 
—Now, in reality, it is not life and action that we 
want; it is form, figure, massiveness in the beef 
animal; udder and other conspicuous points in the 
milk cow. Paul Potter’s bull is a creature of the 
imagination, it may have been modeled from a live 
animal, but the life and action belong to the paint¬ 
er’s art. It is very funny, though, for this writer 
to associate “ life and action ” with the style of 
portraits to which we object. A wooden box with 
four legs, or a Raw-horse, is more lively and active 
than these remarkable representations of what ani¬ 
mals might be, could breeders induce nature to 
adopt their ideas. We illustrate for educational 
purposes, in the endeavor to popularize a desire 
for better things amongst farmers, and this is 
done better by giving pictures which they can 
easily believe to represent real animals—although 
the legs may be thick—than those in which the 
proportions are seen at once to be unreal. 
Guinea Grass—A Forage Plant. 
In an article last month on Durra, ( Sorghum vul- 
gare,) we mentioned that Durra, being sometimes 
called “ Guinea Com,” had been confounded 
with “ Guinea Grass,” and thus writers were dis¬ 
cussing two different plants under the same name, 
with the natural result of difference of opinion, and 
general confusion. The plant known in the South¬ 
ern States as “Guinea Grass,” and also called 
“Cuba Grass,” is, like the Durra, a species of 
Sorghum. That was described as S. vulgare, while 
this is Sorghum halepense, a name (from the Arabic 
name for Aleppo) which indicates its eastern origin. 
It is found in Southern Europe, the East Indies, the 
Cape of Good Hope, and in Australia; in the West 
Indies, and in Brazil; how far its occurrence in the 
western hemisphere is due to its escape from culti¬ 
vation, is impossible to tell, but in Georgia and 
Florida, where it is not rare, it is evidently a natu¬ 
ralized plant. As a part of the history of this 
grass, it may be well to state that it has given bota¬ 
nists at various times some trouble, and those who 
have occasion to trace its botanical relationships, 
will find that some authors, probably from having 
incomplete specimens, have referred it to various 
genera, while others have made a new genus for it. 
It is not necessary to give all these synonyms ; suf¬ 
fice it to say that it has at different times been 
placed in Andropogon, Eolcus, Milium, and Sorghum. 
While the habit of the plant, as shown in the en¬ 
graving, given on page 100, is very different from 
that of the Sorghum figured last month, a careful 
study of the flowers in specimens from Florida and 
from the East Indies, shows that the two must be 
placed in the same genus. Unlike the other, this 
is a perennial, and forms a strong, creeping root- 
stock, as large as one’s finger ; this root-stock or 
tuber is abundantly supplied with buds, and serves 
as a means for its propagation. The root throws 
up an abundance of stems, from three to four feet 
high, which are clothed with an abundance of long, 
narrow leaves, and surmounted by a panicle or 
flower cluster, which is very loose and open; when 
it first comes into flower, the branches, being erect, 
make the cluster quite narrow, but it afterwards 
becomes more spreading and loose, but is never 
dense and compact, like the head of Durra. The 
individual flowers in this, as in the rest of the 
genus, are in small clusters of two and three to¬ 
gether, consisting of one fertile one, and one or 
two others, on short stalks, which are abortive or 
staminate. A cluster is shown at the lower part of 
the engraving; it has a central fertile flower, with 
a long awn or bristle, and lifted above it, on slender 
stalks, are two others, which are awnless, and each 
bear three stamens. After the stamens have shed 
their pollen, these two flowers sooner or later fall 
away, and then the flowering appears so different¬ 
ly, that it is not at all surprising that botanists 
should have been in doubt where to put it. The 
manner of cultivation and the uses of Guinea Grass, 
must be deferred until another number. 
The Sweet Potato. 
BY CnAS. A. PEABODY, MUSCOGEE CO., GA. 
Producing Improved Varieties—How to Start 
the Plants — Method of Culture-May he 
grown Profitably at the North—Direction*. 
Some time ago we received a letter from 
Chas. A. Peabody, Esq., Muscogee Co., Ga., in 
reference to the Sweet Potato. He thought it 
strange that northern cultivators, while they 
had done so much in producing from seed im¬ 
proved varieties of the common potato, had 
in a similar manner not turned their attention 
to the Sweet Potato. He mentioned his own 
success with new seedlings, and suggested that 
with better sorts and improved methods of 
cultivation, the sweet potato crop might be 
made much more certain and more profitable 
in the Northern States than it now is. We re¬ 
plied that the difficulty in procuring seeds was 
the great obstacle to experimenting with varie¬ 
ties; that in cultivating the sweet potato some 
12 or 15 years, we had seen flowers but once, 
and they came too late to ripen seed, and asked 
him to give an account of his experiments, 
with his methods of culture, for the benefit of 
the readers of the American Agriculturist. This 
he complied with, and we bring together from 
several different letters a summary of the whole. 
In the Southern States, sweet potatoes are 
classified as the Yam, and the Spanish varie¬ 
ties. The Yam potatoes, often called Yams 
simply, are not to be confounded with the 
Yams proper of the West Indies and othei 
tropical countries, which are very different 
plants. The Yam potatoes are usually larger and 
lighter colored than the others, have lobed 
leaves, and are much later in maturing; they 
are cultivated for the main crops, to be stored 
for use in winter, when they become very sweet, 
almost too sweet to suit the taste of persons 
from the North; these are only propagated 
from slips or cuttings. The Spanish varieties 
are numerous, of various shapes, and colors 
being of different shades, of yellow, red, and 
purple. They have nearly entire leaves, and on 
account of their earliness, are planted for the 
first crop; they are propagated from slips, like 
the others, but also from cuttings of the potato 
itself. With reference to flowers and seed, Mr. 
Peabody says that he has known farmers, who 
have cultivated sweet potatoes all their lives, 
to assert that they never saw a bloom, but that 
