1875.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
^95 
sory is the pipe, <7, which is a ventilator, carrying 
the foul gases to the top of the house, by con¬ 
necting with the main water conductors. In use, 
all of the water reaching this apparatus, after being 
screened of its coarser materials, by the grating, B, 
flows through the trap into the reservoir A, where 
it rises until this is entirely full, and where its 
heavier parts settle to the bottom, and its grease 
becomes cold and floats at the surface. When the 
Fig. 1.— field’s self-acting flush tank. 
reservoir is quite full, the pouring in of a single 
pitcher of water, sets the siphon in operation, and 
it continues to flow, full bore, until the contents of 
the reservoir are lowered to the level below which 
heavy matters are allowed to accumulate—the cover 
B, being occasionally removed to scoop them out. 
The drain leading from the outlet, F, may be con¬ 
nected with an under-ground drain, sufficiently deep 
to allow the whole apparatus to be buried out of 
the reach of frost, the grating, B, being a foot or 
Fig. 2.— TILTING BOX. 
so under ground, in a recess having a movable 
cover. The outlet may be brought to the surface, 
or into connection with irrigating pipes near the 
surface, at such distance from the house as the 
inclination of the land will allow. 
The great annoyance in connection with the 
drainage from small establishments, and notably 
from a kitchen sink, arises from the fact that the 
stream is usually only a small trickling one, which 
has no power to carry away impurities, and wash 
out the drain, and which sinks into the soil at the 
first open joint, slowly fouling a considerable area, 
and constituting a source of real danger in hot 
weather. This effect is also much aggravated by the 
congealing of hot grease, which will sooner or later 
accumulate sufficiently to choke a pipe of any size. 
With the use of the flush-tank, as there is ordinarily 
no flow of water at all through the pipe, any fouling 
of the ground from the liquid has time to become 
perfectly dry and aerated, and during the periodic 
flow the whole mass is carried forward in a cleans¬ 
ing stream, to any point of discharge that may be 
selected. This apparatus is not now to be obtained 
in this country, but a supply would soon be pro¬ 
duced did a sufficient demand exist for it. The 
cost of importation of single specimens between 
$25 and $30 is altogether too high for ordinary use. 
The importance of any complete device that will 
lead to the reform so much needed in the ar¬ 
rangement of house-drains throughout the country, 
especially in the case of farm-houses and country 
residences, is so great that this of itself makes it 
eminently necessary to describe this method in 
these papers; but the principle upon which this 
apparatus is based, has another and more purely 
agricultural application, which I especially desire to 
bring into notice ; and I can, perhaps, best accom¬ 
plish my purpose by describing the conditions 
existing at Ogden Farm, and the manner by which 
it is proposed to overcome them with the help of a 
similar device. 
Our barn cellar, which is the manure cellar, 40 
feet by 100 feet, is dug into a heavy clay soil, hav¬ 
ing some porous strata, which bring water to it in 
every heavy rain. The consequence is, that, in 
order to keep it even tolerably dry, we have had to lay 
a deep underdrain delivering on to the land some dis¬ 
tance away; and here, for a short distance, the 
small outflow over-saturates the ground, producing 
an enormous growth of rank grass, of little value, 
and constituting, practically, a waste of some of 
the very best of our manure. Could this intermit¬ 
tent flow be stopped, and the whole volume dis¬ 
charged rapidly, with force enough to carry it over 
several acres of land, by means of surface irriga¬ 
ting gutters, we should get a great advantage in 
place of what in now a real disadvantage. The 
plan that I propose is this : To wall up a cistern in 
a corner of the cellar, about 10 feet square, and 7 
feet deep, carrying a 4-inch siphon pipe from a point 
within a foot of the bottom of this, over the parti¬ 
tion wall, delivering by a cemented connection, 
into the present underdrain, which is large and 
good. I shall place a small windmill on the barn, 
to work a pump in a depression in the cellar, to 
which all liquid will flow, pumping all of this liquid 
manure into the new cistern. Then, whenever this 
is full, the siphon will be set in operation, and it 
will flow steadily and copiously until emptied. As 
the amount of water delivered by the pump, would 
be at no time great enough to fill the 6iphon and 
start its working, I shall adopt the plan shown in 
the accompanying illustration (figure 2) for deliver¬ 
ing the liquid to the tank in large quantities, and 
at intervals. Whenever the tilting box is filled, it 
will discharge its contents at once. I am confident 
that this plan for getting rid of the cellar water, 
will relieve us perfectly of a difficulty that has 
seemed insurmountable until the account of the 
flush-tank suggested a means for overcoming it. 
This arrangement will not only enable us to keep 
the cellar dry, and to make profitable use of the 
cellar water that is now troubling us, but we shall 
be able to extend this manner of using our manure 
up to the full requirments of the land we are thus 
enabled to irrigate; for we have already a copious 
supply of water from another windmill, which we 
can at any time turn into the cellar, and so increase 
the amount of the liquid available for irrigating 
use. Of course this particular arrangement will be 
unsuited to many other cases where a correspond¬ 
ing difficulty is felt, but I am confident that the 
siphon tank offers a suggestion which may be very 
wide and general in its application. 
I described, last year, the drainage of a swamp 
in Massachusetts, by a long and deeply laid 6-inch 
drain, having a bell or funnel-shaped mouth, for 
the admission of the water at the upper end. The 
work was completed late in the summer, and the 
whole apparatus worked perfectly. I had been 
assured by an engineer in the neighborhood, that 
nothing less than an eighteen-inch pipe could carry 
the water of so large a district subject to frequent 
heavy rains ; but with the heaviest rain fall that has 
been known for years, the capacity of the pipe has 
been quite ample for its work ; in fact, the water 
flowing from the mouth of this six-inch pipe, after 
the storm, made an angry looking brook three feet 
wide, and more than a foot deep. It seemed im¬ 
possible to believe that such a volume of water 
could have proceeded from so small a channel ; 
but the velocity in the pipe was exceedingly great, 
and the flow became retarded by the rough sides 
and bottom of the channel into which it was dis¬ 
charged, the decreased velocity of course enlarging 
the size of the stream. Another difficulty, how¬ 
ever, which was anticipated at the outset, has 
shown itself to be formidable. The swamp is a 
circular one, surrounded by high land, and has 
evidently been at some time a deep lake. We were 
able to procure no pole of practicable size, with 
which we could reach the bottom, and an area of 
several acres trembled at a heavy tread, so as to 
ripple the water in the ditches throughout the 
whole extent. In fact, the soil of the swamp con¬ 
sisted of only partly decomposed roots and flags, 
in the condition of a sponge, distended by satura¬ 
tion with the water, and as fast as the water was 
withdrawn, the sponge dried and contracted, and 
although we lowered the water in the ditches four 
feet, the surface of the ground has settled to very 
nearly its present level, so that a large part of the 
swamp is just as badly off as ever The drain was 
made as low as practicable without inordinate ex¬ 
pense, and while it suffices perfectly for the removal 
of all the hill water flowing into t dl.eh, (which 
entirely surrounds the swamp), we have to adopt 
some further means for draining the swamp itself. 
Remembering my observations of drainage works 
in Holland, (similar, though on an enormously larger 
scale), I have concluded to make what the Dutch 
call a “polder,” of this swamp; throwing up a 
low dyke at the inner bank of the encircling ditch, 
so that under no circumstances can spring floods 
break in upon it, and to provide a sufficiently deep 
outlet for the enclosed area, by artificial pumping. 
The area of the swamp, inside of the ditch, is about 
six acres, and I shall provide forgiving this an out¬ 
let, if necessary, at a depth of fifteen feet below 
its present level, digging a well near its present 
outlet, with a pump having the capacity of a two- 
inch pipe, and arranging to admit the main ditch of 
the swamp at lower and lower levels, as it becomes 
necessary to deepen it. With the arrangements 
already made, the cost of providing this outlet, 
pump, windmill and well, will not exceed $250, and 
the land, when once laid dry, ought to make meadow 
land of the first quality, worth, in that neighbor¬ 
hood, $250 per acre. I state the case and describe 
the process at this early day, because the season is 
close upon us, when others, having similar work to 
perform, should set about it, and I have seen 
enough of such operations abroad, to make me 
confident in recommending this method. It will 
probably take a year or two for the land to settle 
and become firm, but I shall report progress. 
A correspondent in Pennsylvania writes : “ I wish 
to know how many acres of rye it will take to keep 
twelve cows, with the help of twelve acres of good 
pasture, until sowed corn is fit to cut, putting in 
the corn as early as possible ; and how much corn 
will it take to keep them until cold weather comes 
on ? What time this fall should I sow the rye ? ” 
Rye will not go very far toward carrying cattle 
through from the first green of the spring, until 
corn-fodder is ready to cut, for the reasov that it 
grows so rapidly, and becomes so soon hard and 
unpalatable. However, as in this case there is a 
fair amount of good pasture, the rye .'.'Ll only be 
needed as an accessory. Two or three acres will be 
enough, if the land is even tolerably good. The 
seed should be sown about the 10th of September. 
Then, with a fair growing season, the rye will afford 
a good nibble in November, and if it is well set, it 
will bear pretty thorough feeding off, (in dry 
weather), even after heavy frosts have checked it. 
It should not be pastured in the spring, unless it is 
to be kept for pasture altogether, but it should be 
used for soiling, the mowing being begun when the 
blades have reached the length of 8 or 10 inches. 
Its growth at this time is very rapid, and all that is 
cut off before the flowering shoots appear, will 
make nearly as full a crop as that which has been 
left undisturbed. If a larger area is sown—say 
five or six acres—it may be pastured pretty steadily 
up to the 1st of July, but this is a wasteful system 
as compared with the use by soiling. In either 
case a small field of rye would be a great help to 
the pasture, and there should be no difficulty, by 
the system proposed, in carrying the stock through 
in good condition to corn-fodder tune. Three 
acres of corn-fodder will be ample for 12 cows. 
