1875.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
215 
can not be matured from it in less than ten days. When 
the first one matures and comes out of the cell, she makes 
it her business to look up other queen cells the first thing, 
and destroy every competitor. If the beekeeper wishes 
more than one queen, the extra cells may be cut out before 
any hatch—leaving one. Put those taken out in their natur¬ 
al position in a box, prepared as for brood, using cell in¬ 
stead of brood. Manage as before, and a gain of several 
days is obtained. As many as there are cells can be pre¬ 
pared. Care is needed not to bruise the cells, or turn 
them over roughly. The queens inside may be very 
tender, and rough handling may kill them. When 
combs of full size of hive are used, instead of small 
ones, a little more care is needed to keep warm, 
etc. There will be this advantage in large combs. The 
queen can be established in a full colony, and there is no 
trouble in transferring her. When she is once estab¬ 
lished, and begins to lay, go to a hive that is well filled 
with bees, and has several combs well filled with sealed 
brood that needs no further nursing, take one or two, 
shake off the bees, and put them in with the young 
queen. No fighting will occur with the young bees as 
they hatch. More combs may be added until it is 
thought to be strong enough, with what they will rear of 
their own. When an increase of colonies is desired, 
instead of surplus honey, they can be increased faster in 
in this way, than in any other. New colonies can be 
made to assist others long before the summer is through, 
when managed properly. Remember it is best to have 
all colonies strong, by having others to assist when 
necessary. Do not allow bees to sit outside and do 
nothing for want of room in the hive to store their 
gatherings. If no room can be given for boxes for sur¬ 
plus, or combs to hold honey for extracting, it is best to 
add to the number of colonies. Continue to examine 
into the exact state of every hive. 
-— -- —»**.— - »-». - - 
Ogdon Farm Papers.—Ho. 64. 
BY GEORGE E. WARING, JR., 
Referring to the ventilation of a liquid manure 
vat described in Ogden Farm Paper, No. 62, Mr. J. 
Wilkinson, of Baltimore, makes the very good sug¬ 
gestion that the vat be ventilated, (where the lay of 
the land will allow), through an underground tile 
drain-pipe of large size. In this case a small open¬ 
ing in the covering of the vat will be sufficient, and 
the pipe should lead from the upper part of the vat 
well above the water level, to some point sufficiently 
distant to discharge the emanations where they will 
do no harm, and enough lower than its starting- 
point in the vat to secure the down-hill flow' of the 
heavier and cooler air ; if the drain is placed three 
feet underground, Mr. Wilkinson says that it will 
be sufficiently cool for the air in warm weather to 
maintain a constant flow towards its lower end. 
By this arrangement fresh air will constantly be 
drawn in at the surface of the vat, and the foul air 
from the manure will flow out through the pipe. 
To prevent Opposing winds from interfering witli 
this flow, the mouth of the pipe should be thor¬ 
oughly shielded against any direct blast. I have 
never tried this plan, but I see no reason why it 
should not work satisfactorily. Mr. W. accompa¬ 
nies his letter with a diagram showing his method 
for collecting surface water for storage during 
drouth, so that the rainfall on a large area can be 
conducted to the central pond or reservoir without 
danger of washing away the earth by accumulating 
in too strong a flow' at any point. The principle is 
simple, and will be applicable in a great many cases 
where the question of water-storage in dry weather 
is the most important one connected with the rais¬ 
ing of stock. It is simply to arrange shallow sur¬ 
face-gutters, (which may be sodded, and which will 
form no obstruction to the mowing-machine), in 
such a manner that each one shall accumulate the 
water of only a limited area, each running inde¬ 
pendently of the others to the central reservoir. 
The areas drained by all of these being equal, all 
will carry an equal amount of water, and with a 
little care in adjusting their fall, none will at any 
point have a sufficiently rapid flow to wash away 
the surface. The area drained may be steep or of 
gentle slope, according to circumstances, but when 
the water has accumulated in the gutter, it should 
be carried at such an angle to the slope of the 
ground as will prevent its getting up too much 
II the incliiiatjog Of the gutters is slight 
enough, the system may be used for collecting wa¬ 
ter even from plowed ground. 
G. B. S., Amelia Court House, Va., describes a 
large tract of flat ground of excellent quality which 
is frequently flooded by the rise of a creek running 
through it, and of branches which come in from 
the surrounding hills. Much of the land is soft, 
some of it is underlaid by quicksand, and the out¬ 
let is not low enough for satisfactory drainage by 
open ditches. lie asks how he shall arrange for its 
drainage with tiles. I have not generally found 
that large areas of this sort, having an insufficient 
outlet, are made satisfactory by tile drainage, espe¬ 
cially if the tile-drains are long. Soil of this char¬ 
acter is often very silty, and it is difficult to give 
enough fall to keep up a regular flow that will car¬ 
ry the silt to the outlet. If tiles are to be used at 
all, it is better that they should be only for short 
branches, each with its independent outlet into an 
open ditch, the mouth of each being protected 
against vermin and against the action of the cur¬ 
rent in the ditch—all of which requires watching, 
and is somewhat troublesome. As a general rule, 
the money that such drainage costs would be spent 
to better advantage in the improvement of higher- 
lying land, but there is a method by which these 
large low meadows may be drained, and the cost of 
which, if the land is of good quality, will not be 
very great, and will be well repaid; that is, the 
system that is in universal use in Hollaud. The 
land to be cultivated should be separated by dykes 
or embankments from the sources of external 
water, and should then be artificially pumped out 
to a sufficient depth to secure the easy drainage of 
the soil by tiles or by open ditches. In alluvial 
ground, such as my correspondent describes, depth 
of outlet is the chief tiling needed; this being se¬ 
cured, drains at quite distant intervals will keep the 
land dry enough, perhaps even fifty or one hundred 
feet apart. The water is to be removed in such 
cases by a pumping-wheel or by the Archimedian 
screw, either of which can be easily and cheaply 
constructed, and can be worked by a small wind¬ 
mill, or, in such a case as that described to me, by 
the water-power of the creek running through the 
land. The details for the work cannot be fully ex¬ 
plained without the aid of diagrams, and they 
would vary for each case to be considered, but there 
are thousands of acres of good land in every 6tate 
that may be easily reclaimed by this system, and 
which cannot be satisfactorily treated by any other 
that I know. 
Tlie same writer has found difficulty in keeping 
his deep-cans of milk at a low enough temperature, 
and has thought of surrounding them with dry 
earth as a cooling medium. This would hardly be 
satisfactory. Earth, as he proposes to use it, would 
not be rapid enough in its action, nor would it 
probably reduce the temperature sufficiently. But 
there need be no difficulty in cooling with water. 
If there is no spring or well available, a small, deep 
cistern will answer a perfectly good purpose. The 
water may be pumped with a very small windmill, 
one costing less than 8100, and kept flowing in a 
small stream into the vat, the contents of which 
should be not much greater than is necessary to 
accommodate the cans to be used. The overflow 
from this vat should run directly back into the cis¬ 
tern, so that there shall be, when the wind blows, a 
constant circulation of water coming from deep in 
the ground, where it will be as cool as ordinary 
well water. The same water being used over and 
over, no considerable amount will be needed, but 
the deeper the cistern is made and the narrower, so 
as to have a good proportion of its water in contact 
with its walls, the cooler will it be. The suction- 
pipe should come from the lower part of the cistern. 
Mr. S. asks advice about a Jersey cow, whose 
milk has such a strong flavor as to be disagreeable, 
and to spoil the flavor of the butter of his whole 
dairy. My advice in such a case would be brief: 
get her into the beef barrel as early as convenient. 
Much has been said about an experiment made 
by Mr. Linus W. Miller, of Chautauqua County, 
New fork, in keeping his dry cows two winters in 
succession on a diet of three quarts of corn-meal 
per day, without bry, straw, roots, or any other 
food. I have watched this experiment with some 
care since it firs'; came into notice, but without 
much confidence that it would be continued so 
long as it has been, or that it would result so well 
as in Mr. Miller’s case it seems to have done. His 
statements seem to be well endorsed, and he claims 
that his cattle hp.ye been kept in perfectly good 
condition, and have come out in the spring rather 
better than usual, as shown by their general condi¬ 
tion, and by the fact that the returns from his 
cheese factory show an increase of milk over pre¬ 
vious years. I supposed that the. result of this ex¬ 
periment would be a diseased condition of those 
parts of the digestive organs of the cows which are 
intended to deal with coarse and rough forage, and 
which, in a state of nature—and thus far under 
conditions of domestication—are kept constantly 
at work ; but the cows in this experiment seem to 
have come through two seasons without having 
their cud-forming and cud-chewing capacity at all 
diminished. It is to be hoped that others will ex¬ 
periment in the same direction, for certainly if we 
can keep ordinary-sized cows in good condition, 
through the winter season at the cost of only three 
quarts of corn-meal per day, we shall have gained 
a very great point. I cannot try 6uch experiments, 
as my cow's are all thoroughbred breeding animals, 
and too valuable to tamper with ; the experiment 
would involve not only the question of the cow’s 
health, but the character of the progeny, which is 
very important. Those whose cows bear calves 
only that they may give milk, might try it with very 
little risk, and with a very good prospect of econo¬ 
my in their winter feeding operations. If I were 
going to advise in this matter, I should say that, 
Mr. Miller’s experiment having succeeded, it would 
be wise for all situated as he was, to feed three 
quarts of corn-meal per day, and, in addition to 
this, five pounds of cut hay, making a compromise 
between the two systems without entirely losing 
the benefits of either. In this case, supposing a 
cow to consume twenty pounds of hay a day as or¬ 
dinarily kept, the saving would be the difference of 
value between fifteen pounds of hay and a little 
more than five pounds of corn-meal. 
Mr. Miller’s theory is, that the action of the first 
three stomachs of the cow is not essential to her 
health, but is only nature’s way of enabling her to 
macerate and grind the coarse and bulky food that 
she finds in a wild state; and that it is as legitimate 
for man to substitute for this expensive style of 
preparation, (expensive because it requires an im¬ 
mense amount of labor on the part of the cow’s 
system), the preparation of the more concentrated 
kinds of vegetable food by the cheaper means of 
artificial grinding. 
A correspondent in Du Quoin, Ill., asks : “ What 
is my Jersey cow worth ? ” He says an ordinary 
cow, giving three-quarters of a pound per day of 
butter worth thirty cents per pound, barely pays 
for her keeping. His cow, (seven-eighths Jersey), 
gives II lbs. per day worth 45 cents per lb. He says. 
that in his experience this proportion of product . 
would hold good throughout the year. He finds- 
by his record that his native, cow in winter with 4 
quarts of meal and 4 quarts of bran per day con- 
sumes 20 lbs. 12 oz. of coarse feed daily, while 
the Jersey with the same grain, requires but 9 lbs. 
12 oz. of coarse feed per day, or a daily saving of 
11 lbs. of hay, worth last winter one cent per lb. 
He thinks that the answer depends on an “if,” if 
the common cow pays for her keeping , then his Jersey 
is worth a great price. That she does pay for her 
keeping may well be doubted, but that the Jersey 
cow, as he describes her, is very profitable, there 
can be no doubt. To answer his question directly, 
and say ho;v much the animal is worth, would be 
impossible, but there certainly can be no compari¬ 
son between her value and that of the inferior ani¬ 
mal described. He gives the following on feeding, 
which agrees with my own opinion based on expe¬ 
rience and observation : “ For milk, wo would feed 
hay and bran ; for butter, we would feed corn-fod¬ 
der or meal. Corn-meal has always reduced the 
flow of milk; but jpcreagefl the awouat of butter; 
