56 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[February, 
mutton, butter and cheese, wool and leather, 
must be provided to meet an urgent necessity— 
for “ man liveth not by bread alone ”—but the 
keeping of a certain amount of stock is, in the 
greater portion of the country, indispensable to 
the raising of any crop whatever from the soil. 
Stock is the main source of our fertilizer, and 
must be for all time, and manure is the actual 
life-blood of the farm. The more stock, the 
more manure; the more manure, the more 
grass, roots, and grain; and then comes the more 
stock again. This is the path in which the 
farmer rotates, and the beginning and the end of 
it is stock. Therefore, whatever tends to restrain 
the increase or the profitable development of 
stock on our farms is injurious and must be 
overcome. One of the greatest restraints to the 
increase of stock is found in the want of water. 
From our observations the want of a plentiful 
supply of water creates more inconvenience to 
a vast number of farmers than all the labor 
needed to supply food. There are hundreds of 
farmers who are obliged every summer to drive 
their cattle daily over roads many inches deep 
with choking dust, a distance of several miles, 
to water. On their return the best part of a 
day has been lost and the cattle have come back 
as thirsty as when they were started on their 
journey. And yet at other seasons the country 
has been a perfect quagmire of mud and every¬ 
thing has been drenched with water. Every 
hollow has been a pond, every gully a torrent, 
Fig. 1.— BOTTOM OF POND. 
and every drain a stream. Had some method 
been adopted to save the superabundance of 
water, there would have been no dearth in the 
summer. But all this plentiful supply runs off, 
the creeks and rivers are swollen, and in a few 
weeks the dry time comes. Then springs are 
dry, w T ells either give out entirely or yield a 
scant supply that is husbanded with care to 
serve domestic purposes, and the stock suffers. 
Then steers and calves go abegging for pur¬ 
spell. A gentle hollow in a field to which the 
surface water flows in the wet season may be 
dug out several feet in depth, the clay bottom 
puddled or cemented, and thousands of barrels 
be saved, with no expense but that of the first 
plies. In such cases it will be found best and 
cheapest to go to work systematically. The 
foundation should be dug out until a sound bot¬ 
tom of clay is reached, or there will be leaks 
that can not be stopped afterwards. On this 
Fig. 3.— PONDS FORMED BY DAMMING. 
cost of preparing the ground. There are hun¬ 
dreds of such hollows that might be puddled 
and made water-proof by merely feeding stock- 
hogs in them during one fall or winter. If 
several feeding troughs were placed in them 
and a score or two of hogs kept trampling the 
clay, it would soon be rendered able to hold 
water. Or the bottom might be paved with 
cobble-stone or brick; this, 
covered with twelve inches 
of tough clay well rammed 
down in two separate layers, 
and an inch in thickness of 
hydraulic cement laid over 
that, would make a perma¬ 
nent pond. If some shade- 
trees were planted around, 
the water would be kept 
cooler and less evaporation would take place. 
We give in fig. 1 a section of the bottom of such a 
pond, and in fig. 2 there is represented a method 
by which a succession of such ponds might be 
arranged where the formation of the ground is 
favorable. The overflow of one pond passes by 
a paved sluice into another situated just below 
it, and that again may be made to connect with 
the dam or wall should be built. If of clay, it 
should be well rammed down, and strengthened 
with stakes or posts driven along the center. 
If of brick or stone, water-lime should be used 
for the mortar in place of ordinary lime. The 
walls should be curved inward, to resist the 
pressure. A succession of these walls might be 
built one below the other at such distances that 
H 
Fig. 1. — SHAPING AN OX-YOKE. 
the water will be backed up by the lower one 
to the foot of the Avail above. Fig. 3 shows 
how these walls should be arranged. Many 
streams might be dammed at joint expense by 
co-operation of several neighbors, and a sufficient 
supply to last a whole summer be thus cheaply 
gained. In other cases it would well pay any 
person owning such a privilege to thus utilize 
it and rent the water to his less fortunate neigh¬ 
bors. But it is certain that the question of an 
unfailing water-supply must be met and solved 
very soon, or the capacity of large tracts of 
country now subject to drouths each summer 
and fall will continue to be curtailed, and the 
profits of the farmers very much decreased. 
Fig. 2.—A SUCCESSION OF PONDS. 
chasers, and a foresiglited man w T ho has cisterns 
or ponds can buy up the stock of his less 
careful neighbors for next to nothing. And 
yet there are few farms that have not facilities 
for storing up plenty of water against a dry 
another still further below. Then again there 
are shallow gullies on many farms across 
which retaining w T alls of brick, stone, or cement 
blocks, or even earthen dams, might be thrown, 
which would serve to store up very large sup¬ 
How to Make an Ox-Yoke. 
Gilbert J. Green, of North Carolina, sends us 
drawings of a pattern for an ox-yoke which he 
says has taken premiums wherever exhibited, 
as the best model. To make this j'oke it is 
necessary to have a stick of light and strong 
timber, such as butternut, walnut, sycamore, 
basswood, soft maple, or wild-clierry, each of 
which is excellent material. The size of the 
stick necessary is 10x16 inches, and five feet long. 
This should be sawed in two, cutting out twm 
inches of the heart, making tw T o pieces 10x7. 
One side and edge of the piece should be dressed 
squarethe center found, the first bow-hole is 
then bored 12 inches from this center, and the 
second bow-hole 12 inches from the first. To 
make the holes accurate they sjiould be marked 
