AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
38 
SAVE THE OYSTER SHELLS. 
Hundreds of bushels of these shells are 
every year thrown out into the streets in al¬ 
most every village. Their only use is to 
make a good road, for which they are a val¬ 
uable article. But they are worth much 
more for agricultural purposes, and every 
farmer living near a village who can procure 
them for their carting, should do so. They 
are much more easily reduced to lime than 
is generally supposed. 
Brush, turf, peat, or old roots dug up from 
clearings will answer a good purpose. Pile 
any combustible material in a row about ten 
feet across, and three feet high, as compact¬ 
ly as possible. Upon this you may put, say 
fifty barrels of oyster shells. Spread them 
evenly, and put on another layer of the com¬ 
bustibles a foot or more in thickness. Bank 
the sides with old turf or sods and put sods 
on top. Fire the heap on the windward side 
and with a little attention the whole mass 
will burn down and make a “ splendid ruin ” 
for the farmer’s purposes. The lime and 
ashes procured by this process will make a 
good dressing for land, but will be used to 
best advantage in decomposing peat and 
muck in the compost heap. 
Many farmers are so situated that they 
can avail themselves of this source of lime, 
and thus furnish themselves with profitable 
employment during the winter months. 
Lime will work a great change in heavy 
soils, rich in vegetable matter, and make 
them far more productive. 
HAVE YOU SAVED ALL THE LEAVES ? 
They fell in beautiful varieagated show¬ 
ers, a few weeks since, through all the for¬ 
ests, and were gathered into the corners and 
little hollows of the wood. Here they now 
lie, heaps upon heaps, and often the accu¬ 
mulated deposits of years have formed a 
rich wood-mould many feet in thickness. 
These deposits are exceedingly valuable to 
the farmer and gardener for many purposes. 
While the snow is off they are easily gath¬ 
ered up and carted home. They make ex¬ 
cellent bedding for stables and pig-stys. The 
mold is admirable for banking around the 
cellar walls. Before they decay, they are 
not good absorbents, but when mixed with 
manife they soon decompose, and then hold 
water like a sponge. They are an ex¬ 
cellent article for hot beds, and are highly 
prized by the gardener for this purpose. 
They are rich in the inorganic ingredients of 
plants, and contain always some, and often 
very considerable quantities, of ammonical 
salts and other nitrogenous bodies. 
This material,decomposed with lime or sta¬ 
ble manure, is just what is wanted to put 
around young apple or pear trees to give them 
a vigorous start. It abounds in carbonaceous 
material, and will help make wood rapidly. 
The first thing wanted in a young fruit tree, 
is the wood. The fruit-bearing may be hur¬ 
ried up when the tree is well provided with 
limbs. Two years’ growth may be made in 
one by suitable feeding, without at all injur¬ 
ing the tree. If you have a young orchard, 
try the experiment in the spring, and wait 
the result. 
To have the material on hand, visit the 
woods when it is practicable, and save 
GROUND PLAN: FRONT. 
A—parlor; B. B—bed-rooms ; K—kitchen; W—wash¬ 
room ; D—wood-shed ; 1*—pantry ; E—passage to wash¬ 
room, wood-shed, <Scc .; !•’—cupboard ; G—sink with chain 
pump. 
PLAN FOR A CHEAP AND CONVENIENT 
DWELLING. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist. 
Annexed, I send you the ground plan for a 
cheap and convenient dwelling. In the latter re¬ 
spect I think it cannot he surpassed. The pump, 
sink, cupboard and pantry all lying along the side 
of the kitchen, with cellar stairs at the opposite 
side of the room, make it especially convenient. 
As to its being pleasant, I leave every person to 
judge for themselves. It brings the kitchen to 
to the front and pleasant part of the house, where 
in my opinion, it should always be, instead of 
placing it in some isolated part of the L. How 
foolish it is for a man to labor and toil for years 
to accumulate means to build a homestead, large 
or small, and then doom himself and family to the 
rear of the block. The parlor is equally pleasant. 
An oblong is more pleasant and convenient than 
a square room, which so much resembles a box. 
There are two bed-rooms ; this is very important, 
as bed-rooms on the ground floor are indispensa¬ 
ble. They join each other, which is very conve¬ 
nient in sickness. 
I have given no plan of the upper floor, as that 
can be arranged to suit the taste of the builder. 
It can be built one-and-a-half or two stories high, 
according to the means of the builder, and cottage 
or plain. Here, where hemlock is worth $9, and 
pine $20 per M., such a house can be built, one- 
and-a-half stories high, for about $600 above the 
under-pinning, with plain substantial finish. 
L. L. Pierce. 
East Jaffrey, N. H. 
THAWING ICE FROM PENSTOCKS, PUMPS, Ac. 
To the Editorof the American Agriculturist. 
Having been troubled with water freezing in 
my penstock, I have hit upon a plan that proves 
to be a good one. Whether new to all others or 
not it may be to some 1 take a tube, say a lead 
pipe, and put the lower end down upon the ice, 
and with a tea-kettle pour hot water in the other 
end. The tube conducts the hot water directly to 
the ice and thaws it rapidly. By simply pouring 
in water in the ordinary way, the hottest or warm¬ 
est portions remain upon the surface, while the 
colder portion remains at the bottom in contact 
with the ice. By using the tube the warm water 
comes in contact with the ice as it issues from 
the lower end of the tube. E. H. Wood 
Charlemont, N. H.„ Jan. 9, 1857. 
[From our Special Reporter.] 
TIM BUNKER AT THE FARMERS’ CLUB. 
HIS VIEWS ON CHINA POTATO AND .MIXED PAPERS. 
Hookertown lias at length a Farmer’s 
Club. It was organized just after Thanks¬ 
giving, and may be regarded as one of the 
permanent institutions of that happy people. 
The farmers in the land of steady habits are 
proverbially cautious, and not carried about 
by every “ wind of doctrine,” whether in 
husbandry or in religion. But when a thing 
is done, it is generally well done, and will 
last until there is good reason for doing it 
away. The thing had been talked of by 
Deacon Smith and the minister, Rev. Jacob 
Spooner, for at least a year beforehand. 
They both agreed it would be a good thing 
in every point of view, if the people could 
only be brought to attend it. But there were 
so few agricultural papers taken in the 
place, that they doubted whether there was 
interest enough felt in the matter to sustain 
weekly meetings. So they let the matter 
rest until a Club should seem to be called 
for by public sentiment. 
Rev. Jacob Spooner, the able and efficient 
pastor of Hookertown, is somewhat past his 
prime, though one might easily take him for 
a man ten years younger than he is. For 
forty years he has held his office, and 
molded public sentiment upon all secular 
topics, as well as upon religion. He is a 
good sample of a Puritan pastor of the pre¬ 
sent generation. He is regarded as timid 
by many of his juniors in the ministry, and 
altogether too cautious in the positions he 
takes in regard to the novelties of the day. 
But this reserve is the result of experience 
and age. He has seen the breakers, and 
knows more of the perils of a minister’s life 
than his younger brethren. He is undoubt¬ 
edly conservative, but not from any lack of 
moral courage. He has sometimes gone 
before public opinion in his parish, and 
knows something of the difficulties of bring¬ 
ing over a community to new opinions and 
customs. He always means to move in 
the right direction himse l f, and in his later 
years has thought it best, on the whole, to 
work in private for any new measure - on. 
which he had set his heart, before he com¬ 
mitted himself to it in public. His shadow 
fills the place pretty well, and he is some¬ 
times a little afraid rf it, but nobody ever 
knew him to hold baMi from a thing that 
was really good and praiseworthy. When 
public sentiment is prepared by his “ in door 
work,” as he calls it, the measure is pushed 
with a good deal of vigor. 
A Farmer’s Club in Hookertown was a 
fixed fact ii? his man’s mind a year ago, and 
