I 860 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
341 
Grape Growing under Difficulties. 
Fruit-growers at the far North sometimes 
complain that they can not ripen many of the 
better grapes, because of early frosts. The Isa¬ 
bella, Diana and Catawba approach maturity, 
and give promise of large crops, when lo ! se¬ 
vere frosts set in, and the work and hope of the 
whole Summer are destroyed: the grapes are 
frozen when only half ripe. This has happened, 
to our certain knowledge, for two years past, in 
a certain hilly district, not fifty miles north of 
Albany. Such calamities can be avoided, of 
course, by building regular glass houses; but 
graperies are so expensive that only a few per¬ 
sons, here and there, can indulge in the luxury. 
So, again, the attempt to raise choice foreign 
grapes in the open ah of this country, is seldom 
successful, on account of the attacks of mildew. 
Both of these difficulties can be met quite well, 
by the contrivance shown in the sketch below. 
This is nothing more than a vine trained against 
a wall, and enclosed in a rough frame with a 
glass front. Such a frame might be built against 
the south side of a high fence, or a shed, or any 
other out-house. It may be made of undressed 
plank, by any one handy with a few carpenter’s 
tools. The glass frames can be bought without 
much outlay of money. They should be hung 
on hinges, so as to open and shut at pleasure, 
according to the demands of the weather. (In 
some quarters, we regret to say, a lock and key 
would be a useful appendage, when the grapes 
dignified pursuit of cultivating the soil.” May 
we inquire, what is the occupation of the far¬ 
mers who are not ‘ enlisted in cultivating the 
soil ? ’ 
begin to ripen.) Supposing the vine to be seven 
feet high and twelve feet broad, the cost of the 
whole need not exceed $10. The sash should 
be taken off, and put under cover in Winter. 
We will just add that a friend of ours, in a 
Northern county of this State, hastens the ma¬ 
turity of his grapes by simply training them on 
a brick wall built for the purpose, and covered 
with a coping or shelving projection eighteen 
inches wide. The latter is designed to protect 
the vines from untimely frost. 
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The Best Arguments from the Ground. 
—A correspondent in sending a list of subscribers 
for the Agriculturist, alludes to his experience 
with that class of persons who know too much 
(in their own opinion) to take an agricultural 
journal, and says: “ I can hot find time to 
leave my farm to argue the point with such, but 
if I stay at home and raise some arguments on 
my farm, perhaps they will be convinced that 
it is to their interest to take such a paper.” 
Truly said—ten extra bushels of corn per acre, 
are worth more in such a discussion than a 
hundred lectures. Let every farmer practice as 
well as read reliable teachings, and others will 
not be long in finding out and adopting the se¬ 
cret of his success. 
■--» --— -. 
Very Obvious.— The editor of a new agri¬ 
cultural paper we have just received, says in 
his opening address, “there is scarcely a farmer 
amonf m who has pot become enlisted in the 
A Cheap Pump. 
Fig. 1. 
W. R. Bunnell, Fairfield Co., Conn., gives the 
following method of constructing a cheap and 
efficient pump. He takes wooden tubing, such 
as is used for the endless chain pump, of any 
required length, and having nailed it a little 
more firmly upon the sides to make it water 
tight, drives in a plug at the lower 
end and tacks it there. The plug lias 
an inch auger hole bored through it. 
The bottom of an India rubber shoe 
is nailed over the hole on the upper 
side of the plug for a valve, as shown 
at Fig. 1. Next sharpen one end ot 
a stout wooden rod, and nail a piece 
of stiff leather upon this end, so as to 
make a funnel-form bucket to play 
mside the tubing as seen in Fig. 2. 
The leather may be four or five inches wide, 
or sufficiently large to fit snugly against the sides 
of the tube; the edges may be sewed or tacked 
together along its sides. The upper 
end of the rod may have a lever 
handle attached to it if desired, but 
there is so little friction, it will 
hardly be necessary, as the pump 
will work sufficiently easy after the 
manner of the old fashioned dash 
churn. A simple cross-piece at the 
top is, however, convenient. A 
wooden spout can be introduced at 
the upper end, as in any other pump. 
The upper box or bucket will al¬ 
ways sink below the water, and be 
ready for immediate use at all times 
until the cistern is dry. To guard Fls ‘‘ ~ 
against frost, a gimlet hole should be bored in the 
tube, to let off the water below the freezing line. 
Mr. B. constructed one for his own use, the 
whole cost of which, for a -well 19 feet deep, was 
$1,65, and he likes it better than any pump he 
has seen. This is, at least, a convenient and 
cheap method of fixing a temporary pump to 
drain a cellar, clean out a cistern or well, etc.; 
and being portable, can easily be changed from 
one use to another, or laid away until wanted. 
Where the ordinary tubing can not be had, a 
carpenter can easily make two trough gutters 
by planing out two pieces of narrow plank 
with a rounding plane, and then nail them 
together. It is not necessary that the hole should 
be exactly round. 
Cement Water Pipes. 
A correspondent inquires if good, reliable 
pipes can be made of water-lime cement, for 
bringing water from a Spring distant a half mile, 
to his house. 
Undoubtedly so. Fust, excavate your ditch 
full three feet deep, to be secure against frost, 
and wide enough for a man to stand and work 
conveniently in it. If there are moderate in¬ 
equalities in the surface of the land between the 
spring and your dwelling, it will make little 
difference, if there is a general descent. Make 
the bottom of the trench smooth; mix your 
mortar in the usual way, two thirds sand and 
one third lime, the sand being coarse and clean. 
Provide a trough six feet long, four inches 
wide and four deep. Fill this with mortar and 
then turn it suddenly over, depositing the mor¬ 
tar in the bottom of the ditch. Immediately 
imbed the rod which is to make the bore, in the 
mortar, and then invert another box full of mor¬ 
tar upon it. Now, carefully drawfthe rod nearly 
out, invert another box of mortar in the trench, 
and proceed as before. The rod may be of any 
size desired, from half an inch to an inch, or two 
inches. One inch will answer for all ordinary 
purposes. At all times, but especially in laying 
the pipe through hollows, be sure to make the 
joints tight, and let the mortar be a little thicker 
there than elsewhere, or there will be danger of 
bursting from the great pressure. Nor should 
the water be let into the pipe while the cement 
is soft. At the highest point in the line, remote 
from the spring, it is important to insert an air- 
tube to rise to the surface of the ground, so as 
to let off the confined air that may be collected 
at that point; else the water will not pass free¬ 
ly. This tube should be covered and protected 
against injury from man, or beast, or frost. The 
writer has known pipes of this sort when poorly 
made, to be a continual annoyance from burst¬ 
ing and stopping up; others when well made 
and cared for, have lasted fifteen years without 
any repairs. New-Hamtshire. 
Remarks.— The above plan is simple, cheap, 
and expeditious, and will doubtless operate well, 
if care be taken to withdraw the rod carefully, 
so as to keep a good connected passage for the 
water, and to have each successive layer of 
mortar well joined to the preceding. It is, of 
course, needful to secure hydraulic lime (water 
lime) of good quality. In and around this city 
the “ Rosendale ” brand is generally preferred. 
A paper read at the recent Newport meeting of 
the American Scientific Association, hy an officer 
of the U. S. Army—we forget his name—gave 
an account of a large number of experiments to 
test the hydraulic cements from different local¬ 
ities for the use of building forts, navy-yard 
docks, etc. He gave the preference to the Ro¬ 
sendale, in Ulster county deposits, but stated 
that there, a marked difference in value was 
found in the material from beds lying near 
together. We took notes of the paper when it 
was read, but as the Association will publish it 
in full in the course of a few months, we will 
wait until its appearance, and then give some 
interesting facts and figures on this important 
subject. In the meantime we shall be glad to 
receive items of information from our readers 
on the same topic, which is becoming more and 
more one of practical utility to farmers as well 
as others. 
The best plan of making water pipes with hy¬ 
draulic cement is probably that described at 
length in the Agriculturist for May, 1856 —Yol. 
XV., page 175.—Ed. 
-«*—4 ujia -► «*—-. 
Take Care of the Chimneys. 
In many houses which are built by the job, 
or in considerable haste, the chimneys are apt to 
be poorly made. Not only should the bricks 
of which they are built be hard, and laid up in 
the best of mortar, but the inside should be plas¬ 
tered smooth as the work proceeds. This last 
operation tends to promote a good draft, fills up 
the chinks between the courses that might oth¬ 
erwise be overlooked, and prevents, in a great 
measure, the accumulation of soot on the sides 
of the chimney. 
But when, from any cause, a chimney be¬ 
comes foul, the only way is to take care of it, 
otherwise the soot will fire up, some day, when 
one least expects or desires it, Wasking-dnys 
