338 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[September, 
! 
bands against the fast end and the knot is tied. 
To untie, the bight or loop “ b,” fig. 5, is slipped 
up over the standing part and everything 
loosens easily. This is the sailor’s way and is 
done very quickly. For a slip-noose this knot 
is tied around the standing part instead of the 
post as at fig. 6. 
- . ■— o«---•- 
Want of Care. —Want of care is the pro¬ 
lific cause of accident and disease amongst 
stock. The master’s eye or the owner’s solici¬ 
tude are proverbially preventives against 
trouble or waste; but if the master or the 
owner will not trouble themselves to exercise 
the watchful care needed, we may be sure no 
one else will. A careful shepherd will never 
bring his flock home at night without counting 
them and,passing amongst them, observing care¬ 
fully any suspicious change or defect. In the 
dairy, the least falling off in the yield of a cow 
should be the cause of inquiry or observation 
until the reason is found; for that there is a 
reason we may be assured. A limp or a suspi¬ 
cious failure in the team should also be a 
source of uneasiness until it is accounted for; 
and if this habit of close scrutiny and observa¬ 
tion becomes the rule instead of the exception 
there will be much less trouble ar.d loss for 
farmers to complain of. 
■* -—-»-♦. .... . 
Value of Extra Food. —The expenditure 
of money for what is called artificial food—that 
is, food which is not produced directly upon 
the farm—is generally very profitable. We 
have found that a few dollars thus spent in lin¬ 
seed or cotton-cake meal, or wheat bran or 
shorts for our young animals or milking stock 
is repaid many times. Very often a gallon of 
molasses occasionally purchased and sprinkled 
over the feed will add very much to the appe¬ 
tite of cows and calves; and the more we can 
induce them to eat, always taking care that they 
digest it perfectly, the more they yield in milk 
or butter or flesh. Nothing will sooner bring a 
pot-bellied, hide-bound, and scraggy calf into 
condition than a pint of linseed cake meal a 
day, and nothing adds more to the amount of 
cream than a quart of cotton-seed meal daily. 
In addition, the manure from the animals is 
much richer, and in that alone the money 
comes back again. The same with the land. 
200 pounds of a good fertilizer per acre, at a 
cost of six or seven dollars, will often add $20 
per acre to the value of the crop. 
-— >---- •.-- 
Distributing Manure by Irrigation. 
BY COL. GEORQE E. WARING, JR., OF OQDBN 7 ARM. 
A very important lesson for many American 
farmers may be gleaned from the English ex¬ 
periments in the use of sewage as manure. 
Mr, Meohi still adheres to his old system of 
Fig. 1.— CORNER OF MANURE CELLAR. 
converting his manure (or much of it) into a 
liquid form, storing it in a large tank where it 
ferments, and forcing it (by steam-power) 
through underground iron pipes for distribution 
over the land through a hose. This system is 
not generally considered either economical or 
advantageous. The plan adopted with sewage, 
in all cases which came to my notice, is that 
described as in use at Lord Warwick’s farm 
near Leamington. 
While our climate precludes the possibility 
of our using winter sewage in this way, wo 
might, in some cases, make profitable use of 
summer sewage if we could get it without too 
much cost. What most interests us in the mat¬ 
ter, however, is the suggestion that we may 
adopt a similar means for simple water irriga¬ 
tion, or for the use of water as a distributing 
medium for manure. 
I will take as an example my own case at Og¬ 
den Farm, and will assume that I had (which is 
not true) a stream of water at a sufficiently high 
level to be led into the barn cellar (40x100), 
which has a capacity of about 200,000 gallons. 
This should ordinarily be kept nearly full of 
water, and into it all manure should daily be 
thrown. Care must be taken to ventilate the 
cellar thoroughly with side windows, and to 
have the stable floor above it quite tight. Ar¬ 
rangements should be made to turn the stream 
into the cellar, or back again into its own chan¬ 
nel at will. Whenever manure was required for 
that part of the farm lying low enough to be 
flooded from the cellar (about one half of the 
whole) the gate should be 
opened and the liquid con¬ 
ducted to the field by the sys¬ 
tem explained below. At the 
same time, enough water 
should be admitted from the 
brook to keep up the head 
in the cellar. This, by its 
flow, would make a movement 
in the mass sufficient to stir 
up the sediment and foul the 
outgoing water. The irriga¬ 
tion should be as frequent 
and as copious as the supply 
of water would allow and 
as the best growth of the crops 
required. The water alono 
would be very beneficial, and 
it would only be stronger or 
weaker according to the ex¬ 
tent to which it was em¬ 
ployed. Of one thing wo 
might be quite sure; all the 
manure it contained would 
be distributed in the most per¬ 
fect way possible, and there 
could be no waste. Tho 
water would be an addition to its value— 
there would bn no deduction in any way. A 
vast amount oi labor would be saved, and the 
manure would be applied at the right tune , in 
the right way , and on the right spot. 
The winter manure should be hauled, as it 
now is. on to the higher parts of the farm—no 
water being admitted to the cellar at this season. 
When the growing season came on, then the 
crops of the lower parts would get the benefit 
of the irrigation. How great a benefit this 
would be to grass laud in time of drouth need 
only be suggested. 
The accompanying sketches will show thear. 
rangements to be made at Ogden Farm, and 
will indicate a plan which, with such modifica¬ 
tions as circumstances require, may be adopted 
for the irrigation of any laud with sufficient slope. 
Fig. 1 shows a corner of tho manure-cellar 
with an escape pipe (valved) leading from the 
very bottom—allowing the cellar to be drained 
dry at pleasure. In front of the entrance to 
this pipe a screen of iron rods or wooden slats, 
reaching vertically from floor to ceiling, prevents 
solid matters and litter from choking the pipe. 
If this becomes clogged, it can be cleared with a 
rake through a trap-door in the floor above. 
This pipe should be used only when the water 
will not flow at the outlets above. 
Fig. 2 shows the arrangement at the west end 
of the cellar, with an overflow pipe to the north 
and one to the south. The drive-way should 
be dammed up to raise the water to the level of 
these pipes. 
Fig. 3 shows the arrangement for the distri¬ 
bution of the flow. A main furrow runs from 
a and x to d. This is the general direction of 
the slope of the laud. The laterals from 1 to 18 
are furrows laid on a fall of 1 inch in 100 feet. 
They will not be straight, but must follow the 
conformation of the ground, so as to preserve a 
uniform full. The main furrow at x may be 
supplied either from a or from c. 
The flow being let on, and kept up by a corre¬ 
sponding flow into the cellar from the brook, it 
should pass on to the end of 18. (The main 
furrow is a little deeper than the entrance to the 
laterals.) Here it will overflow the land lying 
below so much of the lateral as is beyond y. 
Then a gate should be set at y, and kept there 
until the laud below the lateral between that 
Fig. 3.- 
DISTRIBUTION OF THE LIQUID MANURE. 
point and z has been sufficiently flooded. Then 
remove the gate to z. When all the land below 
lateral 18 has had its supply, set a gate in the 
main just below 17, and repeat the process with 
that. When the south side of the farm has been 
completed, the gate is taken from the main and 
the water allowed to flow to the end of No. 9. 
