1869 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
453 
the use of foreign matter. Nothing can exceed 
the color of the June make, and by the careful 
use of turmeric as an addition to the annatto, 
this color may be kept up the year round. 
■ <i « ■ i Ta -Q- tr - ' — » C» 
Syphons for Farm Use. 
Mr. George H. Wilson, the superphosphate 
manufacturer, has hit upon a device at his farm 
on Seekonk River, R. I., which solves a very 
difficult problem in drainage and water supply, 
and enables us to answer a number of inquiries 
from subscribers more satisfactorily than has 
heretofore been possible. Mr. Wilson wished 
to drain a large and valuable peat swamp. The 
outlet was through a culvert under a railroad 
embankment, which was four feet too high. Im¬ 
mediately on the other side of the railroad there 
was fall enough. To avoid the expense and 
danger of tunneling under a railroad in con¬ 
stant use, it was desirable to lift the water over 
the four-foot obstruction. The serious objection 
to a syphon, under such circumstances, is that 
as soon as the water ceases to flow a full stream, 
air enters the pipe, and the working is stopped. 
Mr. Wilson obviated the difficulty by adding a 
reverse curve to each end of the syphon, which 
was laid through the culvert. The mouths of 
the two curves (the inlet and outlet of the syphon) 
are on the same level. This very simple ar¬ 
rangement prevents the air from ever gaining 
the least entrance, and the syphon is always 
ready to work. The stream above may become 
entirely dry, and remain so for weeks, yet the 
moment the water rises a single inch above the 
inlet, it will commence to flow again. The ar¬ 
rangement of this syphon is shown in the ac¬ 
companying engraving. It consists, in this 
instance, of ten-inch iron pipe. 
Of course the same arrangement is practicable 
for use under all circumstances where water is 
carried over hills or other obstructions, whether 
for drainage-outlets or for water supply. 
Each end of the pipe should be turned up to 
the same level, or, which would be quite as well 
with small pipes, each end may be sunk to the 
bottom of a barrel, the barrels standing on the 
same level. For pipes of small calibre, where 
the air contained in the water might do harm 
by collecting at the top, it would be well to 
have a small suction pump at that point, by 
which it may be from time to time withdrawn. 
Don’t Sell Your Farm by the Bushel. 
Many a farmer who works steadily and zeal¬ 
ously to keep every acre of his farm as an in¬ 
heritance for his children, is unwittingly selling 
it away by driblets, when, by a more judicious 
course of management, he might make as much 
money and keep adding to the value of the 
place. Having a barrel of good wine, he draws 
off the contents, little by little, and keeps the 
barrel without the wine. The value of the 
farm lies in its fertility, and, except in rare 
cases, only in its fertility. It depends on his 
management whether he leaves it like an emp¬ 
tied barrel to his children, or full of the good 
wine, that constitutes its great value. Indeed, 
the example is not strong enough, for the fer¬ 
tility of the land is not an idle wealth, like the 
wine iii the barrel. It may be drawn out and 
lived upon, and yet be kept constantly increas¬ 
ing. It all depends on management whether 
the father shall thrive, and, at the same time, 
increase his sons’ inheritance, or the reverse. 
It is not the crop which grows that exhausts 
the land; it is the disposition we make of it 
after it is grown. Every bushel of grain con¬ 
tains matters supplied by the soil. If it is sold, 
there is an end of it, so far as the farm is con¬ 
cerned. If it is fed out on the place, nearly the 
whole of the part taken from the soil goes into 
the dung heap, and there goes with it matter 
which the growing plant took directly or indi¬ 
rectly, from the atmosphere, and which helps 
to develop more of the mineral 
plant-food of the soil, and to make 
more than a bushel the next year. 
Therefore, look well to the crops. 
Sell of course, all that cannot 
profitably be fed out on the place, 
and, with a part of the price,buy 
manure to bring home. But, in 
counting the profit and loss of 
feeding at home, consider always, 
the value of the manure. It is safe 
to say that, one year with another, 
com thoroughly soaked and cook¬ 
ed, (never mind the grinding 
if you cook thoroughly) and fed to well-housed 
swine of a“growthy” breed, will bring more 
money than if sold in the market, to say noth¬ 
ing of the manure; indeed, it will more often 
than not, pay to buy corn to make into pork— 
cooking it first. Grow clover to be fed to your 
own stock, the sod to be plowed in in the spring 
of the second year; plant corn on the land; 
feed the corn to your own pigs, and use the 
manure of the sty, to top-dress in March the 
clover j t ou intend to plow for corn in Mar r . If 
this plan be followed, a crop of wheat or of bar¬ 
ley, every third year, will not prevent the land 
from growing richer and richer; but if the 
farmer sells his corn and wheat, and buys no 
manure, the impoverishment of the farm, and 
to the emigration of his sons is sure. 
Locating Trout Ponds. 
A great interest has been awakened in the 
breeding of fish within a few years, and many 
are looking up trout brooks and preparing to 
put up buildings for hatching and rearing this 
beautiful fish. But it is not every brook in 
which trout breed naturally, that is adapted to 
their artificial propagation. Some are too much 
affected by drought. In the wild state the trout 
seek deep ponds and the springs along their 
native brooks, and are safe in time of drought. 
If they were confined by the ten thousand in 
an acre pond of stagnant water, the most of 
them would perish. A stream, then, must be 
permanent, and be fed by living springs, and it 
should not be subject to violent overflow in 
freshets. If the stream i3 very much affected 
by heavy rains, there is constant danger that 
the screens in the flumes will become clogged 
with leaves, and be swept away and the fish be 
lost, even if the dams should withstand the 
flood. Floods are one of the greatest perils of 
the fish breeder. It is very easy to lose twenty 
thousand dollars and the labor of years in a 
single night, if suitable precautions have not 
been taken. A stream whose medium flow is 
a thousand gallons a minute, and never above 
two thousand, is of the most desirable capacity. 
If the flow should fall to three hundred gallons 
a minute in extreme drought it would not prob¬ 
ably endanger the lives of the fish. Then it ia 
a matter of importance that the brook should 
run clear even when it is raised by rains. Clear 
water is not only desirable in the hatching-box¬ 
es, but in the feeding-ponds, especially in the 
pond where the young fish are confined. A 
trout will live for some time in a muddy brook if 
the water is cold enough, but it is not a congenial 
home. For this reason a stream selected for 
breeding should not run near cultivated fields 
or cross-roads where large quantities of muddy 
water are discharged. The clearer the stream, 
the better. Then the temperature of the water 
is to be considered. The nearer it can be kept 
to fifty degrees, which is about the temperature 
of our living springs, the better. But there are 
many brooks that in summer rise as high as 
70°, and in winter sink as low as 38°, that are 
famous trout streams, and furnish good facili¬ 
ties for breeding-ponds. If living springs can 
be brought into the liatching-liouse, and into 
the ponds, it is exceedingly desirable, but by 
no means essential. The eggs hatch in forty 
days in water at fifty degrees, and six days are 
added for every degree of increased cold. In 
water at 40° it would take a hundred days to 
hatch the eggs. But where a man has two or 
three hundred thousand eggs in the boxes, and 
gives all his time to the business, it makes but 
little difference whether the hatching takes 
forty or a hundred days. The health of the 
young fish is not affected by the length of the 
incubation. It will generally be found that 
the location must be made at the fountain 
head of the stream, or within two or three 
miles of it. If the stream runs through a 
swamp that absorbs a good deal of the rain¬ 
fall, and parts with it slowly, it is till the better. 
It is also desirable that the region from which 
the springs flow should be covered with trees 
and brush. This keeps the rvater cooler, and 
makes the flow more uniform. There will in¬ 
deed be more trouble from the leaves, but a well- 
appointed fish-hatching establishment supposes 
a man always in his place to attend to the 
screens. The starting of a trout-hatching enter¬ 
prise will involve the outlay of from one to 
three thousand dollars. Before making the 
investment it will pay to secure the services of 
some one skilled in the business to examine 
your waters, and determine the best location 
for the ponds and the buildings. 
Saving Manure. 
The quantity of manure that may be saved 
and manufactured from twenty head of cattle 
in a year is astonishing to an old-style farmer, 
who believes in the good old stuff, but is too 
close-fisted to hire labor. The writer came into 
possession of a run-down farm last spring, with 
about forty loads of manure in the two barn¬ 
yards, as the result of last year’s operations. 
The practice in the neighborhood is to clean the 
yards in the spring, and let them lie bare until 
after haying, when a few loads of dirt and sea¬ 
weed are carted in, which suffices for the year. 
As soon as the yards were cleared, we began to 
cart in old buls, stack bottoms, swamp mud, 
decayed leaves, head lands, and sea-weed, add¬ 
ing every week a few loads, and plowing occa- 
