880 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
CISTERN'S AND CISTERN BUILDING, 
In a previous number we have spoken of 
pure Avater as essential to health. We re¬ 
gard rain water as pure, fit for use. How to 
get it and keep it is the question now before 
us. To do this, cisterns must be made in 
the ground. The size of cisterns may de¬ 
pend upon the amount of water wanted. 
They may vary from five to tAventy feet in 
diameter, and from ten to twenty-five in 
depth. A deep cistern will keep the water 
cooler, and probably better. From sixteen 
to twenty feet is a good depth. We are of 
the opinion that excellent Avater can always 
be kept in cisterns of that depth. From six 
to nine feet is a good Avidth for ordinary 
family purposes. They should be dug round, 
and Avith the utmost regularity, be perpen¬ 
dicular, the bottom smooth, and a little hol¬ 
lowed in the middle, to facilitate the process 
of cleansing, and give greater permanency to 
the coat of cement. A permanent clay soil 
is generally solid enough AvhenAA'elldug, and 
the sides Avell smoothed and cemented, to 
make a lasting cistern; but it is always best 
to brick over the bottom and sides. This 
gi\ r es the most reliable permanency if the 
bricks are properly laid. It prevents any 
Avater pressure from bursting in, and makes 
a solid basis for the cement. The top 
should be arched over Avith brick, leaving a 
hole in the middle about two and a half feet 
in width, and arched sufficiently to sustain 
any pressure that may ever be expected to 
be put upon it. When it is thus dug and 
arched, or bricked, it is ready for the cement, 
which should be carefully put on at three 
coatings. Good hydraulic cement, well put 
on, will make a permanent Avater-tight lining 
for the cistern, Avhich is cheap, and not easi¬ 
ly displaced. 
The next important matter is the filter. 
Pure water cannot Avell be obtained in all 
seasons of the year without a filter. There 
are many modes of filtering cistern water. 
One is to dig a small cistern six or eight feet 
deep, near the main one, and fit a filter in the 
bottom of this, ha\ r ing first connected it with 
the main cistern by a lead pipe. The orifice 
of the passage to the main cistern is first 
protected by bricks or stones. These are 
covered Avith a strong coarse woolen cloth. 
Upon this is placed a layer of povA'dered 
charcoal; on this a layer of gravel; another 
cloth similar to the first: then charcoal and 
gravel again. The more of these layers the 
more perfect the filter. They must be so 
placed that all the Avater shall pass through 
them. The filler in all cisterns is made in 
the same way. 
Another arrangement is to make tAvo cis¬ 
terns of equal depth, one much larger than 
the other, and connect them at the bottom 
Avith a lead pipe. Lay up a brick arch 
around the orifice of the passage in the large 
cistern, about two feet high, and make the 
filter in this. Let the water from the roof 
into this cistern. The main body of the 
water being in the large cistern, it will filter 
slowly, and the water Avill have time to set¬ 
tle all it will, before going through the filter. 
There is probably no better plan for good 
Avater than this. The only objection to this 
plan, is that if the filter needs repairing or re¬ 
plenishing, the Avater must all be taken out 
to do it. 
Still another plan, is to make a large and 
small cistern, the large one half the depth of 
the small one. Make the filter in the large 
one as in the last named plan. In this the 
water filters quicker, Avithout time to settle ; 
but the filter can be repaired without the loss 
of the Avater in the small one; 
Some divide the filtering cistern Avith a 
brick Avail, and place a filter in this and an¬ 
other at the aperture as above, making two 
filters. This doubtless Avill give excellent 
water. Whatever plan is adopted, care 
should be taken to do it well. Let all the 
work be done Avell, and of good material, and 
there can be no doubt of securing good 
Avater.—[Valley Farmer. 
OUR WATERLOO CORRESPONDENCE, 
Fish Manures — Turnips — Beets—Jethro Tull 
— Wheat growing better in the *' Genesee 
Country”—Condition of the Crops-"City 
Manures. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist : 
Your last Agriculturist w*as the best of 
the series. Farming near the sea coast Avith 
menhaden fish, SAvamp muck, and sometimes 
sea and rock Aveed for the compost heap, 
brings to mind the scenes of my boyhood. 
But I Avould ask, do not these oily fish give 
that carbon, to say nothing of phosphate of 
lime to the soil, that is contained in carbo¬ 
naceous vegetable matter ; or rather, is it 
not potash, instead of carbon, that a soil 
needs Avhen long treated Avith fish alone as a 
manureal amendment 1 A Long Island 
farmer Avho once came to Montezuma for a 
boat load of Avood ashes, told me that such 
ashes “ Avere almost indispensable to a fish- 
treated soil.” 
The agricultural press is constantly advo¬ 
cating turnip culture to our farmers, just as 
though Ave had the “ boiled turnip sun*” and 
moist climate of England ; hence I have felt 
it for some time on my mind, as the Quakers 
say, to give my experience in the premises. 
On the island of Rhode Island, Avhere the 
moisture is aided, and the sun’s rays are ob¬ 
structed by sea fogs, spring turnips do well; 
but on the calcareous soil of Western New 
York, it is a bootless task to attempt to 
grow turnips, at least in the late summer 
and fall months, except ahvays on new 
mucky soils. I have tried, year after year, 
to groAv a feAv English turnips, without suc¬ 
ceeding, until the last very A\ r et season; 
their groAvth Avas then so rapid, that the be¬ 
setting AA'orms could not preA r ent‘a normal 
groAvth. I have tried as an antidote for the 
insects, ashes, sulphur, salt, &c., but they 
grow so sIoav in our AA r arm, dry August and 
September, that the root becomes a prey to 
Avorms. On the same rich soil, beets, car¬ 
rots and parsnips, grow in great luxuriance. 
I have Wurtzel beets, transplanted first of 
July, noAv nearly two inches in diameter; 
by November, they Avill attain a stove-pipe 
size. Many of the early planted noAv stand 
eight inches out of the ground, Tavo or 
* It was Horace Greeley who said, “the English sun 
looked like a hoiled turnip.” 
three of those beets, cut up in still slop, or 
with half a pint of Indian meal, is a good 
mess for a village coav in the Avinter. Ruta¬ 
bagas Avill groAv on a lighter soil than beets, 
but I have had even these lose their leaves 
and die on a sand loam in a July drought, 
Avhich AA T as the very life of beets, corn and 
Lima beans. The Treasurer of our Agri¬ 
cultural Society, a large farmer, says he 
should hardly knotv hoAV to Avinter his milch 
coavs without Wurtzel beets. They never 
fail to leave a heavy soil loose. While the 
same soil planted to onions is hard and dry 
Avith repeated hoeings, it is loose and friable 
with beets after the first thinning and hoeing, 
and they require less after culture than corn, 
and no more than potatoes ; but while they 
perfect large roots in the same soil, potatoes 
make only large stalks and small tubers. 
Jethro Tull, despite his bald premature 
chemistry, did the State some service. 
What a pity he could not have seen our best 
AA r estern prairie soils, where Nature has 
made those fine and perfectly comminuted 
mineral deposits for Avhich he Avas so great 
a stickler. Methinks he Avould have been 
cheated of all his physical pains, Avhen he 
beheld the consummation of his theory full 
before him in a prairie soil. 
Having lately returned from a trip West, 
I have tried to form with soil ingredients 
here, the mechanical counterpart of a speci¬ 
men from a very productive prairie near 
Fond-du-Lae, Wisconsin. WTfile our fine 
clay, if mixed with sand to counteract its 
adhesiveness, forms, after being AA r et and 
dried, only a less adhesive and more porous 
conglomerate, the prairie specimen is ahvays 
fine and pulverulent, Avet or dry, even Avith 
less mold or vegetable remains in its com¬ 
position, than my mixture contains. Hence 
I have so far gone back to Tull’s theory as 
to believe that our heavy soils are as much 
benefitted by the mechanical office of ma¬ 
nures in making the soil melloAv and absorp¬ 
tive, as for the chemical ingredients they 
contribute to it. The “ scarification” of the 
soil by hoeing, &e., is only a continuation 
and perfection of the mechanical amend¬ 
ment, so necessary to both capillary attrac¬ 
tion and atmospheric absorption. 
I am glad to say that the wheat midge, C. 
Tritici, like the destructor, is on the decline 
in our region. One great cause is the starv¬ 
ing out our farmers have given this insect 
by planting an earlier variety of wheat, and 
by ploAving deeply the wheat stubble, so as 
to bury the larvae deep in the soil. One of 
our best farmers, John Johnson, thinks he 
Avould have entirely distanced the fly this 
season, had it not been for the very late and 
AA'et fall Avhich retarded his soAving more 
than two weeks. As it is, his great under¬ 
drained fields of Soule’s Avheat suffered from 
the midge, but the inferior Mediterranean 
Avheat generally escaped. The crop is fair, 
and it has been well secured ; all our sum¬ 
mer crops will be above the medium ; corn 
never greAv faster than during the late extra 
hot weather. 
When I learn from your paper the great 
chemical wants of your sea-coast soils, and 
the magic effect of guano, tafeu, &c., I can 
