1875 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
91 
eraging four inches wide, and six inches deep, 
Would furnish an ample conduit for a drain 1000 ft. 
long, or for the draining of an acre of land. For 
the outlet of larger areas, or for laterals aggregat¬ 
ing more than 1000 feet, main drains of somewhat 
larger 6ize, and furnished with broken stones, small 
cobbles, or better still, with the coarser screenings 
of the gravel, will ordinarily be found sufficient. 
It is only when a very large amount of water is to 
be removed, that any further provision will be nec¬ 
essary. In such a case, cither an open ditch, or a 
drain made of thoroughly well-laid stonework, 
would be the best where tiles are not available. 
One of my questioners says that he can get two- 
inch tiles at $12 per 1000 ft., and asks whether he 
should use these, or some cheaper material. The 
tiles would be the best, and cheaper than anything 
else but gravel—cheaper even than that unless it is 
very accessible. He has a fall of two inches to the 
rod ; this is more than ample. 
He also wants to carry the slops and waste water 
from his kitchen to a barnyard seven rods distant; 
this should be done by the use of pipes not less 
than four inches in diameter, and well cemented at 
the joints. There should on the score of health 
be no opportunity for such leakage as would 
cause the soil to be saturated with foul water. 
He further says : “ The farm has two ridges and 
two hollows, through which, in tiroes of freshet, 
the water runs quite strong. They seldom carry 
water at other times. Can I get this water under¬ 
ground, so that it will not flood the lower land ? It 
soon settles, but it makes the land work heavy.”— 
In such a case the use of underground drains is not 
to be recommended. Any occasional rush of sur¬ 
face water had better be carried off through light- 
sodded water-furrows at the surface ; these furrows 
may be quite shallow and wide, so that a mowing 
machine will pass through them without difficulty. 
An unused underdrain, that is, a drain which car¬ 
ries water only a few days in the year, is apt to be a 
nuisance, and is quite sure to be the resort of mice 
and other vermin. 
I am also asked how steep the sides of a ditch 
may be made to prevent filling up. This depends 
very much on the character of the soil, the amount 
of water running, and the liability to injury by 
frost. In even a tolerably heavy soil it is not safe 
to make the slope less than 11 horizontal to 1 per¬ 
pendicular ; that is, a ditch 3 feet deep, and 1 foot 
wide at the bottom, should be 10 feet wide at the 
top; if less than this, it will be quite likely to be 
frequently obstructed by the caving in of the sides, 
and will require frequent cleaning out. If the water 
in the ditch has a rapid flow, it is pretty sure to cut 
away the banks unless these are protected with 
stones or planks. 
The good opinion hitherto expressed in these pa¬ 
pers of the dairy of the Messrs. Boies, at Marengo, 
Ill., is confirmed by our best butter merchant here. 
They recently sent me a small package of their but¬ 
ter, which we pronounced to be the best salted but¬ 
ter we had ever seen in winter. At our suggestion 
the merchant sent for a large package for his own 
trade, and he considers it unquestionably the best 
tub butter he has ever had. It finds a ready sale at 
one-third more than the regular market price. 
Now if this sort of thing can be done at Marengo, it 
may be done at a thousand other places in the West. 
We receive constant complaints that butter has to 
be sold at from 15 to 25 cents per pound, because 
markets where good butter is sought are so distant, 
but here are men whose markets are a third the 
continent’s width away, and who receive from 40 
to 45 cents net at their dairy. The moral of all 
this is, that people who pay good prices want good 
articles, and that those who wish to benefit by the 
high prices they pay, have got to supply the de¬ 
mand in the matter of quality. Nobody at the 
East, nor at the West either, for that matter, pays 
high prices from motives of generosity, nor out of 
sympathy for unfortunate or unsuccessful people ; 
they want good supplies, and for these they are 
willing to pay a price that will leave a round profit 
after all the cost of transportation has been paid ; 
arid the only way to overcome the difficulty of 
costly transportation, is to produce things which 
can be marketed at a relatively low cost for freight. 
One bushel of corn is as good as another, and 
there is no great difference in price between beef 
carcasses of good quality, but good butter and 
cheese, and well-washed wool, and whatever bears 
a high price—relatively higher the better the qual¬ 
ity—will practically annihilate the distance be¬ 
tween the West and the East. 
As good a formula as could be given for practical 
farming at the West, would be to convert the cheap 
soil productions of that favored region, into commodities 
of little hulk and high value, which are in great demand 
at the East. Old-fashioned farming can not be 
carried on at great profit with a thousand miles 
between the field and the market. 
The degree to which Jerseys are working their 
way among butter-dairymen, is very well indicated 
by the constantly increasing demand for bull calves. 
Seven or eight years ago it was considered by a 
Jersey breeder almost a calamity to have a bull 
calf bora, and it was usually either knocked on 
the head, or sold at a tender age to the butcher. 
Now, so active is the demand in every direction, 
that bulls will probably soon be considered more 
valuable than heifers. I asked Mr. Crozier, last 
autumn, a rather high price for a very fine heifer 
calf, from one of my best cows. He declined to 
take her, but said that if it had been a bull, he 
would not have hesitated. Instead of killing or 
castrating my bull calves, as I did when I began 
breeding, I now buy all the really good animals I 
can find within my reach, from good milking 
strains, and have no difficulty in selling them at 
fair prices. In one week in January, Mr. Charles 
Sharpless, of Philadelphia, -who owns some remark¬ 
able butter-makers, (Jerseys), sold two bull calves 
only a few weeks old ; one to Atherton T. Brown, 
of Boston, for $300, and one to D. F. Appleton, of 
Ipswich, Mass., for $500. 
The increasing popularity of Jerseys, is due very 
largely, no doubt, to the influence of the American 
Jersey Cattle Club, which has established a perfect¬ 
ly reliable standard of pedigrees, and which has 
been at some pains to extend a knowledge of the 
characteristics of the breed, but which has avoided 
an evil complained of with reference to some other 
organizations, by devoting itself strictly to the 
general interests of the breed, without in any way 
working for the particular advantage of its own 
members, either individually or as a class. Their 
work has been accompanied with very little flourish 
of trumpets, but tbe history of Jersey cattle in 
America will show, at the end of twenty years, the 
great value of quiet and well organized effort. 
Their example might be followed with advantage, 
not only by breeders of other races of cattle, but 
by all associations who have for their purpose the 
furtherance of any agricultural interest, by the 
avoidance of cheats, and by the spread of infor¬ 
mation. 
-- *-— — I m - 
Science Applied to Farming.—III. 
Bt Prof. W. O. Atwater, Wesleyan University, 
Middleloivn, Conn. 
How Science is Snvingr Money and Increasing: 
tbe Profits of Farming—Practical Directions 
for Feeding Stock Economically. 
In this and succeeding articles we propose to 
translate for the use of American farmers, some of 
the results of European experience and experi¬ 
ments upon Manuring and Feeding. We begin 
with those upon feeding. We have stated that 
many thousands of German farmers carry a Pocket 
Calendar, containing, besides other valuable infor¬ 
mation, a large number of fodder tables. These 
show in what proportions various food materials 
should be mixed and fed out to different animals, 
in order to avoid waste and obtain the greatest 
amount of flesh, fat, milk, or work, from a given 
quantity of food. As already remarked, these are 
no hap-hazard statements, but are the condensed 
results of the best experience, not merely of or¬ 
dinary practice, but especially from a great num¬ 
ber of feeding trials performed at the Experiment 
Stations by the ablest scientific men, who have all 
needful appliances for obtaining definitely the 
knowledge they seek. 
First, however, let us explain a few scientific 
terms.* Some ingredients of food, and some foods 
rich in these ingredients, are especially good for 
fattening animals ; others are better adapted to 
give strength for work, or to supply heat to the 
body in cold weather. Some promote a large flow of 
milk ; others produce a milk richer in cream or curd. 
If a piece of wood, a wisp of hay, or a turnip, is 
kept some time in a hot oven, a part of it, the 
water, will pass off. If the dried part be burned, 
still another portion, called organic substance, will 
be carried away as invisible gas or smoko, and there 
will be left only the ashes or mineral matter. Now 
this organic substance contains the ingredients, 
which, with water, make the flesh and fat, and 
milk, and which produce heat and strength. What 
are these ingrediente ? 
Albumen, found pure in the white of an egg, is a 
representative of several kinds of substances, 
which are to be noted as containing nitrogen*, 
and we apply the general name, A 11>u mi- 
m<> 5 d s, to these nitrogenous, or nitrogen-containing 
substances. The “ wheat gum,” which boys chew, 
is mainly an albuminoid. In chewing the wheat, 
the starch, sugar, etc., are removed in the saliva, 
and the tougher, nitrogenous gluten remains. The 
Albumiuoids are found in the bodies of all ani¬ 
mals and plants. Muscle or lean meat, caseino (curd) 
of milk, fibrine of blood, albumen and fibrine of 
plants, are nitrogenous substances, or albuminoids. 
Clover, beans, bran, oil-cake, contain much, wliile 
potatoes, straw, cornstalks, contain little of al¬ 
buminoids. 
Again, there are other animal and vegetable 
materials that contain little or no nitrogen, but 
only carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen.* These are 
therefore called by the general name of Carbo> 
flayd suites, or non-nitrogenous substances. 
Starch, sugar, woody fiber, oil, tallow, fat meat, and 
butter, are non-nitrogenous. Potatoes, sugar-beets, 
straw and chaff, contain much of carbo-hydrates, 
and little of albuminoids. 
Does it not occur to the most unscientific reader, 
that to produce the most albuminoids, as musele, 
caseine in cheese, etc., we should select food 
rich in albuminoids, and that to produce the most 
fat or butter, or warmth, we should choose the 
food that contains the most material to yield these 
products ? And further, is it not obvious that the 
skillful chemist can, by examining the composition 
of different foods, tell us something as to what 
these foddering materials are ? But we shall learn 
as the result of the most careful and practical tests, 
that there are certain combinations of these differ¬ 
ent materials, the Albuminoids and the Carbo¬ 
hydrates, that secure the most profitable results of 
feeding. 
German, English, French, and some American 
Chemists have examined almost all known food 
materials, to ascertain just what they are com¬ 
posed of. Here is, for example, what they find 
Table 1. In 100 lbs. of Wheat Grain: 
Water which can he dried out at 212°.13 1 /., lbs. 
Albuminoids, containing nitrogen.1.3 V 6 lbs. 
Carbo-hydrates, (a) containing no nitrogen — 71 ‘/ 6 lhs. 
Mineral matter (ashes). . 2 I / 1 0 lbs. 
100 ' lbs. 
a This is made up of fat (classed for convenience 
with the carbo-hydrates) l 3 / s lbs. ; starch 59* A, lbs.; sngar 
2 2 / 5 lbs.; gum, etc., 4 7 / 10 lbs. ; fiber, (cellulose,) 3 lbs. 
In the Table below, we show the composition of 
several fodder materials. They are taken in their na¬ 
tural conditions, and thejirsf column of figures tell* 
how many pounds of water are contained in 100 lbs. 
The third column tells how much organic matter 
there is, viz.: that which would bum away. The 
second column tells how many pounds of ashes 
would be left. Thus we have in 100 lbs. of medium 
hay 14 3 / 10 lbs. of water, 79 5 /, 0 lbs. of organic sub¬ 
stances, and 6 2 /io lbs. of ashes. There is in this or¬ 
ganic part of 79‘/ 2 lbs., about 30 lbs. of woody fi¬ 
ber. The other 49*/2 lbs. are composed of 8 3 / 10 lbs. 
of Albuminoids or nitrogenous substances given in 
the fourth column, and 41 5 / 10 lbs. of Carbo-Hydrates 
* See also “ Seience Made Easy,” in another column. Ed. 
