210 
AMERICAN AaillOULTURIST. 
[June, 
in all ages, is naturally conservative, and it takes 
years, sometimes centuries, to get out of old ruts. 
If, while paying for labor one-third more, we can 
sell our garden products here nearly one-half 
lower than in Europe, the conclusion is inevitable, 
that we have learned how to make our labor more 
effective than they do. 
The adage, that “ A prophet is not without honor, 
save in his own country,” is true in this matter as 
in many others ; for we And that most Americans 
having horticultural tastes, when visiting Europe, 
buy largely there, their plants costing them, when 
duties are added, three times as much for half dead 
trees or plants, as they would pay at home for 
healthy ones. It is often the case, especially with 
fruits, that the varieties purchased are utterly use¬ 
less for our climate. For example, the Jargonelle 
Pear, Ribston Pippin Apple, and Keen’s Seedling 
Strawberry, still hold a first place in the English 
gardens, while experience has shown them to be 
worthless here. So with many ornamental trees ; 
beautiful as are the varieties of English Holly 
and Rhododendrons, hundreds of Americans have 
poured down anathemas on the heads of European 
nurserymen for selling them plants as “hardy,” 
that the frosts of our Northern States or the hot 
sun of the South, utterly destroyed the first season. 
Ogden Farm Papers—No. 88. 
ET GEORGE E. WARING, JR. 
The observation has been made that I have 
shown, in selecting material for these papers, an 
undue partiality for the Jersey race of cattle, while 
Short-horns, Ayrsliires, Dutch, etc., are equally 
entitled to consideration and equally important in 
American agriculture. All this is quite true, but 
the criticism, so far as it is a fair one, would apply 
equally to pretty nearly the whole range of topics 
that I have considered during the past eight years. 
If any justification of my course is necessary, it is 
found in Vne title and in the first number of this 
series of papers. Believing that the most valuable 
thing that a farmer can tell to his brother farmers 
is that which he has learned in connection with his 
own business experience, and that any single 
farm, carefully considered, offers enough for any 
writer’s general theme, I adopted at the outset the 
plan of confining myself almost exclusively to that 
which Ogden Farm should have to teach. 
There has never been at Ogden Farm a Short¬ 
horn cow, nor an Ayrshire, nor a Dutch one. We 
set out at the beginning of our operation with a 
herd of Jerseys, and our experience has been con¬ 
fined exclusively to their breeding and management, 
and to the manufacture of butter from their milk. 
Everything else in our work has been incidental 
to the prosecution of this one industry, which has 
been so interwoven with my text, and has so fully 
occupied my practical contemplation, that my abil¬ 
ity to write about cattle at all has been closely con¬ 
fined to the Jerseys. For nine years past, and since 
its organization, I have been the pedigree-keeper 
of the American Jersey Cattie Club. In short, I 
have been strictly a specialist, and in writing these 
papers, 1 have always acted on the theory—which I 
believe to be a sound one—that the most instruc¬ 
tive writing is done by specialists, and that their 
work is valuably chiefly when they confine them¬ 
selves strictly to their specialties. 
The Short-horn interest is a far more important 
one than the Jersey interest. The amount of capi¬ 
tal invested in thorough-breds of this race would 
buy up all the Jersey cattle in America ten times 
over. Especially in view of the rapidly growing 
business of exporting heavy American beef to Eng¬ 
land—an industry which promises to become one 
of the leading outlets for the products of American 
agriculture; the Short-horn interest comes still 
more to the front as the most important connected 
with the breeding of live stock. The Ayrsliires 
are good cows, wonderfully good, so are the Dutch, 
and the milk and cheese interests of the country 
are so great that the importance of improving these 
breeds can hardly be overestimated. Short-horns, 
Ayrshires and Dutch cattle have very able advo¬ 
cates ; men who are thoroughly well qualified to set 
forth their good merits. I am sure that the man¬ 
agers of the American Agriculturist would be only 
too' glad to receive well-written articles giving 
practical information as to the breeding and man¬ 
agement of these different races. Were I to at¬ 
tempt, as has been suggested, to write about them 
ill these papers, I should enter a field separated 
from Ogden Farm by a very long lane, and should 
show in the first dozen lines a very decided unfit¬ 
ness for the task. Silence concerning these breeds 
must be assigned solely to the above considera¬ 
tions. Repeated reference to the Jerseys must be 
equally ascribed to the fact that my prominent in¬ 
terest and constant observation and investigation 
are applied to this breed. 
Incidental to the business of farming, I have 
undertaken to give to the readers of the American 
Agriculturist a clear understanding of what my busi¬ 
ness has developed and suggested. Just as I was 
led by the draining of the farm to describe the de¬ 
tails and principles of the work ; by the use of 
wind-mills to relate my experience With the differ¬ 
ent kinds of mills, and pumps, and tanks ; by my 
professional work as a Sanitary Engineer to de¬ 
scribe what seemed to be the best means for get¬ 
ting rid of the liquid wastes of farm-house kitch¬ 
ens ; by steaming a poor quality of purchased hay 
and corn-stalks to discuss the advantages and prac¬ 
tical details of these processes ; by soiling, to write 
about green rye and corn-fodder, and later about 
prickly comfrey ; so I have been led by my experi¬ 
ence with Jersey cattle to write about them. 
Had circumstances made me acquainted with 
the more valuable Short-horns, I trust I should 
have been an equally enthusiastic advocate of the 
merits of that race. As it is, the one thing I have to 
say that is worth hearing about in cattle is about 
Jersey cattle, and it must at least be accepted as a 
fact that the value to the agriculture of our coun¬ 
try of the increase in the amount of butter to be 
derived from a given amount of food, and of the 
increase in its market value due to improved qual¬ 
ity, is a sufficiently important interest to claim fre¬ 
quent reference in a little corner of the American 
Agriculturist. 
If it is occasionally hinted that we are “ adver¬ 
tising the Jerseys,” it is fair to reply that this is 
not the purpose of our writing. That, to a certain 
extent, this is an incidental effect of the writing, 
is, of course, true, but it is equally true of every¬ 
thing that is written by anybody about anything 
that anybody has to sell.. In making known and 
in demonstrating by statistics the value of the Jer¬ 
sey as a dairy cow, 1 am simply giving.information 
that any dairyman will be the better for appre¬ 
ciating. If he is led by my writing to buy a Jersey 
cow, that natural result of his acquisition of knowl¬ 
edge can only benefit him. 
I am just now engaged in directing the draining 
of two swamps. One of them is the swamp in 
Massachusetts to which I have previously referred, 
and in which the experimental wind-mill pump 
proved to have too little capacity for its work ; the 
other is in New Jersey, a tide-water swamp sepa¬ 
rated from an estuary of the Delaware river by a 
dyke. Formerly the fall of the tide afforded suffi¬ 
cient drainage, but the drying and compacting of 
the peaty soil reduced its level to such an extent 
that, especially in seasons of heavy rain, the low 
water sluice gate outlet lias become insufficient. 
It can now be kept in good condition only by some 
artificial means. The plan adopted is mechanical 
draining by wind-power, and an 18-foot wind-mill 
is being erected. For each of these swamps I am 
constructing a modification of the drainage pump 
exhibited at Philadelphia, which has long been in 
use in Holland, the “ Fijnje ” draining-pump. The 
drawings exhibited were of a steam-pump of ninety 
(90) horse-power, capable of raising about 9,000 
gallons of water per minute against a head of twelve 
(12) feet. My pump has a capacity of only about 
160 gallons per minute. 
The peculiarity of the primp is, that its water¬ 
way is so large that no appreciable loss of power 
will be caused by friction, as is the case in nearly 
all of our pumps driven by wind or by steam. The 
construction is very simple. The working parts 
are of brass and of iron, and the chambers and 
outlets of wood. The whole pump is placed so far 
below the lowest pumping leyel as to be always 
submerged beyond the influence of ice. The pump 
may be regarded as part of the dam by which the 
land is separated from the outlet stream. It-has 
gates which open freely in the direction of the 
How, so that without reference to the working of 
the pump, should the water inside rise higher than 
the water outside, the flow is automatic—as in the 
case of the common sluice gate. All that the pump 
does is to increase the movement of the water 
when highest inside, and to keep up the flow when 
highest outside. The delivery pipe discharges at 
the lowest drainage level outside the dyke, so that 
the pump has only to work against the resistance 
of the actual head of the water. At low tide, in 
the New Jersey swamp, the lift will never be more 
than two feet, and at high tide, seven feet. With 
a pump arranged to throw the water over a dyke, 
which must be two feet or so above the highest tide 
level, the pump would always have to work against 
a 9-foot head. The economy of power in the 
arrangement adopted is very great, and will allow 
the pump to work in lighter and lighter winds, as 
the tide level descends. With a fair breeze, the 
work would be done by a 14-foot mill, but in agri¬ 
cultural drainage ,it is important that the discharge 
should be as continuous as possible, and it is best 
to use a mill which will work in a light breeze. 
The subject of village life for farmers, which 
was first broached in these papers a year or more 
ago, and which has been subsequently treated of 
in the “Atlantic Monthly,” and in “Scribner’s 
Monthly,” has attracted more general attention 
than had seemed probable. The benefit that would 
result to the farmer’s family, and ultimately, the 
great benefit that would result to the general inter¬ 
ests of farming, from the fact that the life would 
be made attractive to the better class of farmers’ 
sons and daughters, seemed undoubted. The 
drawback, if there is a drawback, lies in the dan¬ 
ger that the cost of living would be somewhat in¬ 
creased. That is to say, a more attractive life 
involves some, attractions, such as better dress, 
which would cost more money. On the whole, an 
investigation of the subject seems to show that, 
so far as the actual business expenses are con¬ 
cerned, the saving in some directions would be as 
great as the enhanced outlay in others. There only 
remains the question whether farming is capable 
of bearing even the slight additional expense that 
improved conditions of life imply. As this cannot 
be answered by any practical experience at hand, 
it would be safer to assume that farming itself 
would not bear this further tax. We must there¬ 
fore seek some means to turn to profit the working 
force which village life would bring together. 
The Shakers have been, thus far, very successful. 
While carrying on their farms in the best manner, 
they have, by a concentration of their forces, so as 
to allow odds and ends Of time, and the work of 
women and children to be turned to account, been 
able to carry on a number of small manufacturing 
interests—making brooms, baskets, chairs, pre¬ 
serves, etc., putting up seeds, herbs, etc., which 
have been eminently profitable, and which have 
in no wise interfered with their farming. 
I am told that in some of the villages of Cape 
Cod, nearly every member of every family who is 
either too old, or too young or too feeble for regu¬ 
lar work, is constantly employed, from one end of 
the year to the other, in tying the strings into Den¬ 
nison’s tags. In another village in Massachusetts, 
which is surrounded by pine lands, and where pine 
trees are the chief .crop of all but the best laud, 
the only money producing industry of the commu¬ 
nity is the manufactory of “ kits ” for mackerel. 
Any one who has the curiosity to investigate the 
extent to which the so-called “notions” are sold, 
will be amazed at the • aggregate amount of hand- 
labor, not requiring the assistance of machinery, 
that is constantly employed. The malting of paper 
boxes, alone, is doubtless supporting thousands of 
families. The braiding of straw for hats is also 
Widely extended, and probably a careful investiga 
