AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
Q66 
more square feet, and finally a pile of muck or 
earth under the roosting ladders about 8x8 feet. 
Thus fully 2-5ths of the floor would be occupied, 
leaving none too much space to get about con¬ 
veniently and take care of forty hens. 
The roosting ladders should be horizontal and 
fixtures—at least one should be. The plan is 
very good to have one ladder 8 feet wide, 
and for such a house as we describe, about 8 feet 
long, supported level about 6 feet high (or not 
nearer than 2 feet to the ceiling) in one of the 
rear corners of the room and along one end. 
The rounds should be an inch and a half in di¬ 
ameter, and about 14 inches apart. A post will 
be required, or a wire from the ceiling, to sup¬ 
port one end. Against this ladder another may 
be fastened, extending from the floor up to the 
fixed ladder and hinged upon it, so that it may 
be lifted up and fastened in a horizontal po¬ 
sition. The ladder should be a little over eight 
feet long and the rounds two feet apart, the up¬ 
per one being two feet from the end. 
The water fountain, (fig. 3,) is a veiy conve¬ 
nient way of supplying poultry with water. It 
is a simple contrivance, consisting of only a 
tight keg-barrel, with a hole in the bung, and a 
tube of elder with the pith punched out, insert¬ 
ed. The barrel is filled with water, the bung 
and tube put in tight, placed so that when it is 
rolled over to its place in the frame, the bung will 
be undermost, and the tube will reach nearly to 
the bottom of the earthern pan or trough set 
below. The water will flow out, as the air bub¬ 
bles ascend within, as shown in the upper sec¬ 
tion. As soon as the water closes the mouth of 
the tube, no more ah- can get in, and no more 
water will flow out—so the supply will be con¬ 
stant until it is all gone. A large bottle invert¬ 
ed, the neck being passed through a hole in a 
board nailed across the top of a trough, will 
answer for a small flock, or a coop—very well. 
Reclamation of Swamp Land. 
Some time since we received from the South- 
boro’ (Mass.) Farmers’ Club, a statement made 
by Peter Walker of that place, with reference to 
some successfully-reclaimed swamp land. He 
had purchased the farm about two years before, 
the greater part of it being covered with small 
wood brush and brakes; at the time of making 
tin* statement it was nearly all reclaimed, and 
producing annually at the rate of two tuns of 
excellent hay to the acre. After having thor¬ 
oughly drained it, so that the water was lowered 
at least two feet from the surface of the muck 
swamp, he proceeded as described by himself, 
in the following extract: 
“ My method is to dig it up with the breaking- 
up hoe, for it is impossible to plow it until the 
sod is rotted. I have dug more or less for 7 or 
8 years, usually soon after haying is over, 
planting with potatoes two years, when the sods 
are sufficiently rotted to seed down to grass. I 
put a small, quantity of raw manure in the hill 
for potatoes, and before seeding down, in the 
winter, I carry on gravel to give the surface a 
covering of about three inches, and when the 
frost is out of the surface sufficient to get in the 
seed, I sow and harrow in Herdsgrass seed and 
nothing else, and without manure. In the Fall 
following I spread on compost manure. 
“In August 1859 I dug up half an acre, more 
than half of which was covered with a hard 
brake sod. In September following I turned the 
sods over to prevent the grass and brakes from 
starting up. The first week in May following I 
planted the piece with potatoes, carried out raw 
manure with the wheelbarrow, put a small quan¬ 
tity in the hill, and covered the potatoes with 
the sods, some of which were sufficiently rotted 
for that purpose. Hoed them twice, making 
the hills entirely of the sods. Dug the potatoes 
in September last, and the average yield -v 
bushel to nine hills—about 380 bushels per acre, 
the hills being about 3£ feet apart each way. 
From my experience, I am firm in the belief 
that the true way to succeed in reclaiming swamp 
muck land, is, to drain so as to drop the water 
at least two feet, (or better, three feet,) then 
plow, or dig up with a breaking-up hoe, and let 
the sods rot, instead of burning, or covering at 
first with gravel or sand as many do.” 
Bag Holders Again. 
We have given several descriptions of contriv¬ 
ances for holding bags, (Vol. XX, p. 1 
this volume, p. 44,) having vivid memories of ach¬ 
ing arms in our boyhood, and of blame often wor¬ 
thily bestowed for having failed in our own per¬ 
formance. So it is in no 
small degree from our 
sympathy for the boy 
bag-holders that we give 
our readers descriptions 
of two inventions which 
we have no doubt are 
excellent. The first is 
Ilostetter’s patent, made 
by J. R. Hoffer, Mount 
Joy, Pa., andis very easy 
to understand. On the 
front of a light truck, 
about 31 feet long by 11 
- inches wide, a frame is 
>s ' ‘ attached, having at the 
upper end two stout divergent wires project¬ 
ing as shown in the cut. The top edge of the 
bag is turned over these wires, and held firm by 
the two fiat, wedge-shaped buttons which turn 
down and wedge in between the frame and the 
wires. The frame may then be raised to accom¬ 
modate the length of any bag not more than 
four feet long. When so raised, it is held in its 
place by the cord 
and ratchet-wheel 
seen on the right 
hand side of the 
truck. When filled, 
the bag may be 
wheeled off wher¬ 
ever desired. Such 
a truck bag-holder 
must be very desi¬ 
rable wherever ma¬ 
ny bags are filled 
and moved, par¬ 
ticularly in mills 
and country stores. 
The second is a 
home-made bag- g 
holder, a descrip- 1 ~ 
tion of which is received from a subscriber 
to the Agriculturist , Mr. J. Moore, of LaSalle Co., 
Ill. We give a description of it nearly in his 
own language, premising, however, that we have 
made a slight addition to the sketch sent, in at¬ 
taching the foot-piece or base to the upright. 
“I herewith send you for the benefit of your 
readers a description of a bag-holder of my own 
invention, which I have used for some time, and 
like it much. It holds a bag better than any 
boy can hold it, and is so simple that a farmer 
can make one m half an hour, of material cost¬ 
ing less than a dime. As grain bags are gener¬ 
ally of uniform length, it is not necessary that 
the hooks should be movable up and down, and 
the spring of the long wires will adapt the hold¬ 
er to bags of any width. Description —It is sim¬ 
ply an upright board, 4 feet long, and 14 inches 
wide, which must be fastened in a perpendicular 
position, either by nailing it to the side of a box 
or bin, or by securing it to a base of some kind. 
There are seen four hooks on which the bag 
hangs while being filled, two short ones upon 
the board, just high enough to let the bag touch 
the bottom. The other long hooks are of wire, 
one sixth of an inch in diameter, and 18 inches 
long, with a short crook and sharp point at the 
top, (shown enlarged at one side); the lower ends 
are driven into the edge of the board, and the 
upper ends standing out 5 or 6 inches in front, 
2 inches lower than the small hooks.” 
Drilling Wheat—Drills. 
There is scarcely any operation of farming 
concerning which practice, in different parts of 
the country, varies more than in this. Th e grain 
drill is a rare sight in Xew-England, and rare 
also in many parts of the Middle and Western 
States and Canada. Still, wherever its use is 
common, it is held in very high estimation. In 
saving seed alone, a drill more than pays the in¬ 
terest on its cost. The risk of winter-killing is 
greatly diminished, and an even seeding is readi¬ 
ly secured. In the following communication 
from Mr. A. Linton, of Chester Co., Pa., written 
in response to a request from ourselves, the ad¬ 
vantages are very simply and strongly set forth, 
and deserve the attention of every wheat grow¬ 
er who does not use the drill: 
THE USE OF THE DRILL. 
To say any thing advocating the use of the drill 
in sowing wheat in this section of country, would 
he as superfluous as to discuss the excellence of an¬ 
thracite for fuel, or the utility of steam as a motive 
power. The use of the wheat drill is so nearly uni¬ 
versal here on all land where it can he used, that 
the sight of a field sown in the old fashioned broad 
cast way is a rare occurrence. 
The advantages of drilling wheat may be very 
briefly stated as follows: it distributes the seed 
more evenly over the ground than is generally done 
in broadcast sowing; the wheat is not so liable to 
be thrown out by the freezing and thawing that 
occurs here during the winter; the depth at which 
he seed is placed in the ground can be regulated to 
a certain extent, as the moisture or dryness of the 
soil may require, to insure its speedy germination. 
It takes less seed; the crops look better, and ripen 
more evenly thsuTif sown in the old-fashioned way; 
and lastly, the use of the drill insures a more 
thorough preparation of the ground previous to 
seeding, being a good cultivator itself. 
As to the points to be possessed by a good drill: 
It should supply the seed regularly and equally to 
the separate drill tubes. The grain, as it drops in¬ 
to them, should be plainly in view, that the opera¬ 
tor may see at a glance that they are all working 
properly. It should not be liable to clog so as to 
prevent the regular flow of the seed. It should 
have an index to mark the quantity of ground sown, 
and a fixture enabling the user to regulate the 
amount of seed per acre. There should he a con¬ 
trivance to raise all the drill tubes off the ground 
when turning; each should work independently of 
the others, and he so attached that its angle of 
inclination with the ground may be altered to regu¬ 
late depth. The drills should be eight inches apart, 
(some prefer nine,) and eight in number. A good 
seed-sower should he attached, so that grass seed 
may he sown at the same time the wheat is. These 
points are possessed by all drills of recent manu¬ 
facture used here, though there are many differ¬ 
ent mechanical contrivances to secure these ends. 
Drilling oats succeeds admirably sometimes but 
