210 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[June, 
8,497 feet Timber, @ 2c. per ft.— 69.91 
viz. 1 Sill, 4x8 in. x 116 ft. long. 1 Perline, 3x7 in. x 96ft. long. 
I Girt, 4x8 in. x 80 ft. long. 48 Beams, 2x8 in. x 14 ft. l’g. 
II Posts 4x7 in. x 19 ft. long. 24 Beams, 2x8 in. x 18 ft. l’g. 
1 Tie, 4x6 in. x 146 ft. l’g. 27 Beams, 2 x 8 in. x 15. ft. l’g. 
1 Plate, 4x6 in. x 133 ft. long. 1 Stoop, 3xT in.x '.0 ft. long. 
30 Batters, 3 x 1 x 13 ft., @ 16c. each. 4.80 
380 Wall Strips, (& 13c. each. . 49.40 
200 Siding, 10 inch, @ 26c. each. 52.00 
Materials in Cornices and Corner Boards. 50.00 
261 Hemlock Roof Boards, (% 16c. each. 41.76 
19 squares of Slating, @ $9 $ square. . 171.00 
3 squares of Tinning, (1. C. Charcoal), @ $8 $ square.. 61.00 
250 feet Gutters and"Leaders, 8 c. $ ft. 20.00 
300 Flooring, 9 inch x (& 26c. each. 78.00 
200 pounds Felting, (&3c. per lb. 6.00 
3 Stairs, complete . 90.00 
Porch, Balconies, and Stoops, complete. 200.00 
6 Cellar Windows, $36; 1 Bay Window, complete, $60 96.00 
12 plain Windows, $144; 9 hooded do., complete, $135. 279.00 
8 Dormer Windows, complete, @ $8 eacli. 64.00 
32 Doors, @ $9.30 each, $301; 7 Closets, complete, $14.. 318.00 
3 Marble Mantels, $60; 3 Marble Shelves, comp’e, $18.. 78.00 
Range and Plumbing, complete. 200.00 
Well from bath-room to roof, complete. 15.00 
Gas Pipes for 18 lights, complete . 40. n 0 
Bells and Speaking Tubes, complete. . 20.00 
Finish of part of Attic, complete. 60.00 
Nails, $24: Cartage, average 1 mile, $25. 49.00 
Carpenter s labor not included above. 150.00 
Painting, 2 coats, complete .... .. 150.00 
Total Cost, complete.$2,900.00 
Ogden Farm Papers— No. 76. 
BY GEORGE E. WARING, JR. 
I have a letter from a Massachusetts hydraulic 
engineer, describing an improvement of a sort for 
which there is a large field along the Atlantic coast 
—namely, the dyking of 1,400 acres of salt-marsh, 
in Marshfield, on Cape Cod. The land can be drain¬ 
ed six or seven feet deep ; or at pleasure it can be 
completely flooded with fresh water, at least dur¬ 
ing the spring of the year. Whenever any of this 
land has been plowed and seeded with grass or 
grain, or cultivated with garden vegetables, the re¬ 
sult has uniformly been strikingly good. In fact, 
the land seems to he everything that could be de¬ 
sired ; but my correspondent goes on to say, “ Not 
so, however, with the nature of mankind. Some 
half dozen represent about all who have hitherto 
undertaken to do any work upon this land ; the 
rest stand by, and either doggedly persist that ‘ you 
can’t grow anything on a salt-marsh,’ or else they 
seem to think that grass, etc., ought to grow of it¬ 
self, without any cultivation. 
“Now, it evidently is no use to argue for the re¬ 
clamation of our old salt and other marshes in gen¬ 
eral, so long as a tract of land already dyked out, 
perfectly drained as to the main, or general drain¬ 
age, and composed of the best of soil, may be seen 
lying in this disreputable condition. I am not 
satisfied that some of the owners have cultivated 
their marsh land, and are doing so this year; nor 
should I be until the whole of this marsh is under 
some form of cultivation, and is put to some use. 
We want, and I am almost ashamed to say it—but 
have come to the conclusion slowly and against my 
will—we want twenty or thirty foreigners to settle 
on that land and to cultivate it; our native farmer, 
on the average, requires too long time to be edu¬ 
cated into anything sonew to him, although so old, 
as marsh drainage.” 
From my own knowledge of the character of this 
marsh, and from my observation of the cultivation 
of precisely similar land in Holland, I do not hesi¬ 
tate to say that any enterprising and skillful farm¬ 
er (dairyman especially), who would take up a part 
of the Marshfield meadow, would have a surer 
prospect of ultimate success than in any other field 
that is known to me. For a year or two there 
might, very well be some draw-back, but from the 
first the return should be at least tolerably good, 
and when this land is once brought into cultivation, 
it is quite sure to be as fertile as the best of the 
western prairies, and it has the great advantage of 
being close to the Boston market, where at least 
double the prairie price can readily be obtained for 
all dairy products. 3uch land as this, lying in the 
Beemster in North Holland, or along the dyked es¬ 
tuaries of Zealand, is producing year after year 
a return of $100 per acre—very largely in cheese 
that is sold in the Boston market. 
Some months ago I published a description of 
Field’s flush-tank, which I have recently adopted 
in connection with the outlet of my kitchen sink. 
It has now been six months in use. Being enclosed 
in a house, and packed around with leaves, it was 
never disturbed by frost. On one occasion, by 
carelessness, enough of the. leaves were allowed to 
collect over the grate to prevent the water from 
entering the tank, and we were troubled with an 
overflow that leaked into the cellar. Very recently 
it ceased to act, and we found that the grease, 
which had congealed to a thickness of quite an 
mch, all around the interior of the tank had begun 
to flake off, and some bits of this got in the top of 
the siphon and choked it. This was easily re¬ 
medied, and after the extended experience we have 
had with it, I am prepared to endorse, fully, all of 
my theoretical recommendation of it with the 
simple addition of the advice, that as often as once 
in two or three months the inside, be scrubbed out 
with an old broom, and the grease lumps be skim¬ 
med oft and removed. VVe find, on examination, 
that the outlet drain beyond the tank is kept per¬ 
fectly clean, and the water is distributed through 
the irrigating channels much more evenly and 
regularly than ever before, with the very great ad¬ 
vantage that the whole flow occupies less than half 
an hour at intervals of a day or more, during which 
time the soil can become perfectly aerated. The 
growth of the grass near the irrigating drains shows 
that the influence of the liquid is more widely felt, 
and there is less indication of too great rankness. 
I have to report an item of experience of a de¬ 
cidedly unfavorable character. Two of my very 
best cows—animals that 1 value at $1,000 each— 
are, one of them a full sister and the other a half 
sister to my leading bull, whose qualities are not 
inferior to their own. Guided by the successful 
experience of in-breeding, that has been so often 
reported, I bred both of these cows to their 
brother, and as they seemed iu perfectly good con¬ 
dition up to the time of calving I promised myself 
a satisfactory and profitable result, but the event 
proved that “ The best laid plans o’ mice an’ men, 
etc.” So far as we could judge, there seemed noth¬ 
ing in the character of either of the calves that indi¬ 
cated a malformation or unnatural development, 
but both were so displaced that natural parturition 
was impossible, and both the calves were lost. 
One swallow does not make a summer, nor do 
two failures disprove a theory, but it will take 
more courage than mine to try again the experi¬ 
ment of breeding brothers and sisters among my 
cattle. The breeding of father and daughter, and 
even of grandfather and grand-daughter, is often 
successful, but I shall act, in my own practice, up¬ 
on the theory that it is safer to avoid any risk that 
may come of in-breeding. In establishing a new 
family for the perpetuation of unusually good 
qualities, the closest in-breeding is often necessary, 
and is sometimes successful, but in a race like the 
Jerseys, where there is no difficulty in finding 
thoroughly good hulls not related to our cows, I 
should need some unusual inducement to lead me 
to violate what is considered a “natural” law. 
I wrote, last fall, of a plan that had been adopted 
for pumping the liquid from the manure cellar into 
a tank, (by windmill power), and using it to irrigate 
grass land. 1 suggested then the use of a self-act¬ 
ing siphon, on the principle of Field’s flush tank. 
On consideration I gave up this feature, for the 
tank being very large, 20x10x6, it is very easy to 
keep a sufficient watch over it, and stop the pump 
before there is danger of overflowing, and to let out 
the flood through a drain at the bottom of the tank. 
We find, after due experience, that with an average 
wind an 8-foot mill, working a 2-inch pump, fills 
the tank (10 ft. lift) in about 24 hours, and that, 
with land sloping 2 ft. in 100, we can, with very 
little attention to the direction of the flow after it 
leaves the drain, thrown this liquid over a broad 
area of ground, and thus diffuse in the most advan¬ 
tageous way a flow, which, if it dribbled away in a 
small stream,would only serve to create a rank and 
worthless growth of grass on a few rods of land. 
Mr. Franklin Sherman, of Fairfax Co., Va., ques¬ 
tions the wisdom of my recommendation to use 
western com for fodder, and sends me seed, (which 
I shall try), of a tall growing southern sweet com, 
which suckers vigorously, makes a large amount of 
fodder, and contains much more saccharine matter 
than any of the ordinary field corns. The same re¬ 
port of this corn is made by Dr. Quimby, of Loudon 
Co., who also says that the seed of this variety is 
to be obtained at very moderate rates, from various 
parts of the Piedmont regions'of Virginia, and of 
the Shenandoah Valley. I have no question from 
the accounts these gentlemen give, that this corn 
is a decided improvement over the western variety, 
provided it will grow in more northern climates 
with sufficient luxuriance. It would certainly be 
worth while for the very large number of farmers 
who now practice soiling, in whole or in part, to 
plant a portion of their fodder-corn fields with this 
variety, and so give it a sufficient practical test. 
The Jersey Cattle Cluf^held its Annual Meeting 
in April, and appropriated $1,000 as prizes for the 
best Jersey cattle, to be shown at the Centenuial 
Exhibition next September. The animals must he 
recorded in the Club’s Register, or in the Herd 
Book of the Island of Jersey ; the judges are to be 
members of the Club, or of the Jersey Society; and 
the cattle arc to be judged by the Club’s “ Scale of 
Points.” 
Our Society has been very severely criticised and 
censured by those who have not succeeded in pro¬ 
curing the admission to the Register of cattle whose 
pedigrees cannot be made to conform to our rales, 
and some of the mosi influential papers published 
in the stock breeders’ interest do not tire of accus¬ 
ing us of selfish motives, calling us a “Ring,” etc. 
As it would be impossible for me to reply to all 
these accusations in the papers in which they ap¬ 
pear, and as I have no other medium than the Ameri¬ 
can Agriculturist —as also my position of Secretary 
of the Jersey Cattle Club, necessarily connects my 
name somewhat with all charges brought against 
it, I desire to say, once for all:—that with a thor¬ 
ough knowledge of all the Club’s affairs, and with 
a very clear understanding of the spirit in which all 
of its regulations have been established, I am con¬ 
fident that the individual interests of its members, 
as opposed to those of other breeders, has never in 
a single instance had influence in deciding our reg¬ 
ulations for recording pedigrees. The Club makes 
no money except by its initiation fees, the sale of 
its publications, and the charge for entering cattle. 
All of the money that it does make is scrupulously 
devoted to the cost of bringing out its publications 
and to the general promotion of the interests of all 
breeders,—as instanced in the above appropriation 
for Centennial prizes. There is no question that 
some of our regulations work a hardship to breed¬ 
ers who have not known sufficiently early what the 
requirements would be, and to certain importers 
who steadily disregard our regulations concerning 
the entry of the pedigrees of imported animals. 
These latter suffer from their own conscious fault, 
and so far as others are concerned, the hardship has 
fallen, at least as hardly, on members of the Club 
as on those who are not members. We arc con¬ 
stantly receiving new members, who believe that it 
will be for their ultimate interest to sell off all of 
their animals which cannot he recorded, and start 
afresh with animals that are in the literal line of 
registration. Those who insist that we shall still 
further postpone the operation of our rules in or¬ 
der to enable them to record animals now exclud¬ 
ed, should bear in mind that such action would be 
especially hard on those who have accepted the sug¬ 
gestion and sold for a low price precisely similar 
animals, for no other reason than that they cannot 
be registered. 
Mr. John Soden, of Otsego Co., N. V., bought 
two Jersey cows, which cost in his stable a little 
over $500, (they had been sold at this price by a 
member of the Club because they could not be reg¬ 
istered.) They WGre bought in March, 1875, one of 
them calving at that time, and the other not until 
the 19th of May. One was due to calve, this year, 
the 21st of April, and the other the 5th of May. 
One was eight years old, and one five years old. 
Their product during the year was 330 lbs. for the 
five-year-old, and 432 lbs. for the eight-year-old. I 
give these facts as they are published over Mr. So- 
(len’s name. The cattle must certainly have had 
