18G0 1 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
235 
inverted syphon joint was added, that is a curved 
piece, the bow turned downward, so as to be al¬ 
ways full of water, discharging at the lower end 
as fast as filled at the upper end. This keeps foul 
air or odors from coming back through the pipe. 
The upper end of this syphon piece has 3 necks. 
Into one of these runs a waste pipe from the sink. 
Into a second runs a 4-inch lead pipe from a 
chamber water-closet. In the third opening 
stands an upright 4-inch glazed pipe, which ex¬ 
tends above the ground, just outside the kitchen 
door. Over this is placed a covered box, lined with 
zinc, and having a strainer over a short zinc pipe 
which fits down into the upright glazed pipe. The 
latter is firmly kept in place by bricks laid around 
it in cement. The box is hollowed at one 
side just over the discharge pipe. It is screwed 
firmly upon the side of the house, and is provided 
with a cover hung on hinges. This box receives 
the washing water, on washing day, and all ordi¬ 
nary slops which would soil the sink. Indeed all 
filthy water is poured in, and vegetable waste, 
and anything too large to run through the strain¬ 
er (16 holes to the inch) is taken out as it accu¬ 
mulates, and carried to the manure vault. 
Here, then, we have, at comparatively small 
cost, an arrangement which takes all the slops 
of every kind clear away from the house, and 
what is of still more importance, all these mat¬ 
ters are saved in the manure where they are ab¬ 
sorbed by the bedding straw, and muck thrown 
in. Taking into account all the sink slops, the 
hundreds of pails of wash water, and the cham¬ 
ber liquids, we think their value can not be less 
than $30 to $40 a year, at the lowest estimate ; 
and it is certainly worth $10 or $15 a year to 
have them thus easily and conveniently disposed 
of, with no labor in carrying, and no unhealthy 
stench about the house, or in the street gutters 
where such liquids are usually carried. The ar¬ 
rangement is a permanent one, good for a score 
of years. Let us look at the cost, and see if it 
will pay. Here are the items : 
210 ft. of glazed pipe (in New York) ®15c. per foot. $31.50 
Freight and Cartage. 1.30 
3-jointed Syphon. 2.00 
Digging 210 feet for pipe... 5.25 
Hydraulic cement for joints.62 
Mason, 9 hours laying down pipes. 1.75 
Filling up Ditch. 1.12 
Cost of box, and lining with zinc. 1.63 
Sand used around pipe... .. .40 
25 Bricks used around upright pipe. .15 
Total cost. $45.72 
We see no reason why the pipes should not 
last perpetually, without any outlay for repairs; 
but allowing 4 per cent per annum for wear or 
repairs, and 7 per cent interest on the cost, the 
expense is only $5 a year. 
Queries. 1.—Is it not worth $5 a year to save 
carrying off wash water, chamber liquids, and 
such fluids as can not be poured through the 
usual sink, even if it have a good waste pipe! 
2. —Is it not worth $5 a year to have all slops 
deposited at a distance from the house, and thus 
avoid all disagreeable and unhealthy odors, around 
or near the dwelling 1 
3. —Allowing only 20 pailfuls of water to be 
used on each “ washing day,” the amount is more 
than 1000 pailfuls a year. In this water there is 
used from 75 to 150 or more pounds of soap, and 
it contains a considerable amount of wool and 
other vegetable matter worn off from garments, 
besides the decayed matter from the skin collect¬ 
ed upon the clothing. Can any one estimate the 
value of these matters, when mixed with the 
manure, at so low a figure as $5 a year 1 
4. —Is not the soap, grease, and vegetable mat¬ 
ters from washing dishes one thousand and nine¬ 
ty five times a year, worth more than $5 in the 
manure heap? 
5. —Are not the chamber liquids collected dur¬ 
ing 365 days worth over $5 in the manure heap ? 
6. —If convinced that some such an arrange¬ 
ment as the above will pay , and pay well, will the 
reader construct one this year, or put it off to— 
some time 1 
Suggestion .—The glazed pipes referred to are 
now quite common and readily obtained, but 
where they can not be, a brick drain, laid in ce¬ 
ment, is nearly as cheap, and about as good. 
---—- 
There is Progress in Agriculture. 
To the intelligent farmer, proud of his calling, 
it is pleasant to compare the husbandry of the 
present and the past. By the aid of monument¬ 
al inscriptions, some of them recently brought to 
light, we can learn what implements the ancients 
used, and how they conducted many of their ag¬ 
ricultural processes. For example, we find that 
the crooked stick now used as a plow on the 
plains of the Tigris, and in Egypt and Syria, is 
just like that used three thousand years ago 
on the same soil. And yet, strange to tell, 
Egypt had her goddess of agriculture, and her 
pastoral songs, and her people honored the call¬ 
ing of husbandry above every other. A Cartha¬ 
ginian general showed his devotion to farming 
by giving his countrymen twenty eight volumes 
upon agriculture. And so valuable were they, 
that the Roman Senate ordered them to be trans¬ 
lated for the benefit of the Roman people. The 
early Greeks were famous for their love of agri¬ 
culture. A thousand years before the advent of 
the Messiah, Hesiod wrote a poem in which he 
discoursed of various departments of husbandry. 
Nor was he a mere theoretical farmer, for he had 
flocks and a farm at the foot of Mt. Helicon ; and 
his soil was not of the best, since he describes it 
as “bad in Winter, hard in Summer, and never 
good.” The ancients had some knowledge of 
the science as well as the practice of agriculture. 
They could distinguish the qualities and capabili¬ 
ties of soils ; they understood why different soils 
were improved by mixture, and by the applica¬ 
tion of manures ; they had systems for the rota¬ 
tion and management of crops, for the breeding 
and training of animals, etc. The Greeks im¬ 
proved upon the Egyptian plow by fitting it with 
a mold-board, share and coulter. The Romans 
derived this plow from the Greeks. 
But it is not strange that after this period, ag¬ 
riculture made no essential progress for fourteen 
or fifteen centuries ! What knowledge the Ro¬ 
mans possessed was spread abroad over Europe, 
but little or no addition was made to it. About 
the middle of the seventeenth century, the minds 
of men seemed to be aroused. Several treatises 
were written upon agriculture, in France and 
England, new grains and grasses and fruits were 
introduced, and experiments were made in every 
department of husbandry. Among other new 
things, red clover was now first brought into 
England from Belgium. And yet, even there, in 
many parts of England, a first class farmer had 
never eaten wheat bread. Here and there, a 
highly favored one owned a single bushel of 
wheat which was made into Christmas cakes and 
pies ; and this was all that his family tasted for 
a year. Tea and coffee and sugar were luxuries 
indulged in only upon extraordinary occasions. 
The farmer’s wardrobe was meager and poor. It 
consisted chiefly of tanned or untanned skins, 
and his leathern doublet and hose being soon 
greased, and smoked, and tattered, were such as 
few farmers in our day would wear. In most 
cases, the floor of his house was either earth or 
stone, and his furniture of the clumsiest sort. A 
writer has well remarked that “if these^were 
the days of‘good, old merrie England,’ her mer¬ 
ry men needed a good deal of mirth to compen¬ 
sate for the physical discomforts to which they 
were heirs.” Indian corn, squashes, potatoes 
and pumpkins had not then been introduced into 
cultivation. At the beginning of the 17th century, 
potatoes were sold in England for two shillings a 
pound, for the Queen’s table, and were used as 
fruit, baked into pies, seasoned with spices and 
wine, and sometimes sweetened with sugar. 
In those days, too, botany and geology and 
chemistry afforded agriculture little or no aid. 
Mechanical inventions were in their infancy. 
Where, then, were steam-engines, iron plows, 
improved horse-powers, mowing, reaping and 
threshing machines, horse-rakes, straw-cutters, 
butter-workers, portable curd boilers and the 
like ? Where, then, were canals, and railroads, 
and plankroads, and steamboats, for carrying pro¬ 
duce quickly and safely to distant markets ? 
Both in England and in this country, great pro¬ 
gress has been made in the common processes Of 
agriculture. Draining, for example, has produced 
a great revolution in farming. Plowing, subsoil¬ 
ing, irrigation, the making, preservation, and 
use of manures—these and the like things are 
now much better understood than formerly. The 
economical use of labor and of machinery in 
farming has now been much systematized. The 
farmer’s implements are more numerous and bet¬ 
ter. “ The farmer in the north o’f England who, 
one hundred years ago, should have thought of 
sending his fresh butter and fatted calves and 
green vegetables by land to London market, would 
have been deemed a fit tenant for a mad-houSe. 
They are now carried there with less labor, ex¬ 
pense, and time than it would then have required 
to carry them twenty miles to his market town.” 
Corresponding improvements have been made 
in our own country, and they would have been 
greater still if our country were older and of less 
extent. We have had to hew down wide-spread 
forests, to break up and subdue millions of acres 
of wild land, and to do a vast deal of other rude 
preparatory work. The majority of our agricul¬ 
turists have been comparatively poor men. Then, 
too, our soil being new and fertile, we have been 
tempted to skin our farms, and then move further 
West and skin others. But lately we have been 
doing better. Adopting many of the improve¬ 
ments of the mother country, we have added to 
them some of our own. So that now our condi¬ 
tion is a great advance on former times. Our 
implements are nearly perfect. We live in bet¬ 
ter houses, wear better clothes, and eat better 
food than our forefathers did. Our agricultural 
societies and journals are doing a great and good 
work. Sixty years ago, a negro slave in the val¬ 
ley of the Mohawk, exclaimed in despair :—“ We 
are all ruined now, and master will have to go 
to jail, for he has come home from Albany with 
a new farming book !” But of late years, it has 
been discovered that it is no more dangerous to 
learn about farming from a fellow-man’s book, 
than from a fellow-man’s lips. 
Plainly, there is great progress in the science 
and practice of agriculture. To no man is the 
future more full of promise than to the farmer. 
But let us see to it that with every step of our 
improvement in the processes of husbandry, we 
make progress also in the great business and aim 
of life. That i-s not merely to add field to field, 
to pull down barns and build greater; but it is to 
improve our minds, our hearts, and our lives, and 
to benefit the world in which we live 
