1SG3.J 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
73 
Rough Roads. 
That these are unpleasant to ride upon, no one 
■will deny. They torture a rheumatic or ner¬ 
vous man beyond peaceful endurance. They 
obstruct business, they interfere with sociability 
between neighbors, and with that well-known en¬ 
joyment which comes 
from riding, whether 
in carriage or saddle. 
They make horse-life 
painful; and, more than 
this, they are expensive. 
Ask any observing man 
who has lived indiffer¬ 
ent parts of the coun¬ 
try, and he will testify 
that wagons last much 
longer in light, sandy 
soils, than in clayey or 
stony lands. When a 
fast-moving vehicle 
strikes a stone, it re¬ 
ceives a serious blow. 
The tire is battered 
joints are started, the harness strained, and the 
horse strained too, if not the rider. Now suppose 
such shocks repeated several times a day, and 
throughout the year, the result must be some¬ 
thing important. At least, so the bills at the 
blacksmith’s and the harness-maker’s will testify. 
One who is tolerably quick at figures, might 
reckon the cost of a single fixed stone in the 
highway for a year. And if of one stone, what 
of many thousands ? An estimate of the cost of 
stony roads to this State was once made by a 
writer in the Albany Cultivator, substantially as 
follows : There are 60,000 miles of public high¬ 
way in the State, 50,000 of which are more or 
less stony. It would cost about $25,000 a year 
to clear out the stones. The aggregate value of 
buggies and farm wagons is about $60,000,000. 
If the roads were kept smooth and clear of 
stones, it would be a saving of about eight per 
cent, of wear and tear, or nearly $5,000,000. 
Now, taking out the cost of cleaning the roads, 
it would leave us a gain of $4,975,000, annually, 
a sum not to be despised in these dark days! 
[This estimate is an exaggerated one ; less than 
half a dollar a mile is allowed for clearing up 
the roads; but make the cost average $10 a 
mile, and the profit would still be very large. 
The moral of this is, that it would pay well 
for the inhabitants of every neighborhood to 
spend a few days annually, with crowbar and 
pickaxe, in removing imbedded stones, and in 
taking all loose stones from the roadway.—E d.] 
---—«»——• -- 
“Fining” Manure. 
paration of his manure. Farmers and others 
may learn a hint from his example. It is plain 
that coarse, lumpy manure cannot benefit land 
as much as that which is broken up and finely 
diffused through it. One reason why liquid 
manure and guano act so efficaciously, is because 
they are so minutely divided among the soil. 
An English gardener of the writer’s acquaint¬ 
ance makes a great deal of what he calls “ Fin¬ 
ing Manure.” He means breaking up the 
lumps, tearing in pieces the long, strawy 
parts, and bringing it all into such a fine state 
that it can be thoroughly mixed with the par¬ 
ticles of the soil. Having broken it up, he 
mixes it with ashes, leaves, sawdust, tanbark, 
and all the refuse of his garden, laying it up in 
thin layers. When it has become partly de¬ 
composed, he overhauls it, turning it over with 
the shovel, and making it one homogeneous 
mass. After the heap has lain a few months, 
it gets another working, when it is thor¬ 
oughly “ fined ” and ready for use anywhere. 
He is a very successful gardener, and ascribes 
no small part of his success to this careful pre¬ 
Aydelott’s Automatic Flood Fence. 
A correspondent in New Albany, Ind., who 
signs himself “ Q in a corner,” sends an account 
of a fence that he saw on the farm of Geo. K. 
Aydelott Esq. in Mead Co., Ivy. Every one who 
has had experience with fences upon lands lia¬ 
ble to overflow in time of a freshet, will be glad 
to know of this simple and, according to our 
correspondent, very effective plan for fencing 
such places. The fence he saw was upon a 
steep bank of the Ohio River, where it was used 
for a lane by which the cattle went to the river 
to drink. It was of some 50 sections, had been 
in use for three years, and though it had been 
frequently inundated, it had not cost fifty cents 
for repairs. The structure will be readily un¬ 
derstood from the engraving: the posts a, are 
of locust or cedar, 4 feet long, and about 6x3 
inches; these are sunk three feet in the ground. 
Near the bottom of the posts, pins 6, 2 inches 
in diameter and 2 feet long, are driven, and upon 
the projecting ends of these, stones are placed. 
These, with the earth well rammed in, serve to 
anchor the fence; the oak studs c, are 4 feet 
long, of 4x4 stuff, to which the slats of the fence 
are nailed, forming a section of the fence. The 
pins, d, are of inch iron, and are put loosely 
through the lower ends of the studs and the 
upper ends of the posts, so as to form a hinge. 
The sections are kept upright either by braces, 
or by stakes with a rider as seen in the left hand 
figure. When the water rises, the supports break 
away or float off and the panel falls down, as 
shown in the right hand figure. (The joints are 
not engraved quite right.) It presents little re¬ 
sistance to the current, and remains safe until the 
Water subsides, when it is readily set up again. 
Benefits of Irrigation. 
The benefits of irrigation, or conducting a 
stream of water over meadow or other land, 
are not, as some have supposed, confined to lo¬ 
cations subject to drouth. It is not so much 
the water that the land needs, as what the wa¬ 
ter contains. Streams are not only fed by 
springs, but they receive much surface water, 
especially during violent showers, and long 
continued rains. In its passage over the soil, 
the water takes up, both mechanically and 
chemically, a large portion of valuable fertiliz¬ 
ing matter. This can readily be seen when the 
stream is turbid from recent storms. The best 
proof, however, of the presence of large amounts 
of such matter in running streams is found in the 
rich deposits of muck where the current of the 
stream is very sluggish, which allows much of 
the suspended matter to fall to the bottom. The 
accumulations in such places frequently become 
so great, as to change the channel of the stream, 
as is seen where deltas are formed at the mouths 
of rivers. Now if the water of a stream is made 
to rest a while upon a meadow, a large part of 
its impurities will be left just where they are 
wanted to fertilize the growing grass. This is 
the theory of irrigation as needed in most parts 
of this country. The manner of efl'ecting it will 
depend upon the positions of the stream and 
fields. Hundreds of brooks that are now idling 
through the field, yielding nothing but an oc¬ 
casional drink to the cattle, might be made to 
contribute largely toward enriching the farm. 
An Improved Filtering' Cistern. 
Several plans for filtering cisterns have here¬ 
tofore been published in the Agriculturist , all pos¬ 
sessing some good features, but not readily 
applicable to cisterns already constructed. The 
one shown below 7 , w 7 as designed to meet this 
want, and it may be of service to others desirous 
of obtaining the best kind of water for all pur¬ 
poses, but for whom it may not be convenient to 
build the separate cisterns usually recommended. 
The engraving represents a vertical section of 
the cistern and filtering arrangement. C , shows 
the main reservoir, which receives the water. 
A semicircular well of brick, W, two feet in di¬ 
ameter, is built against the Trail of the main cis¬ 
tern. The bricks are laid in hydraulic cement, 
and the w r all is cemented on both sides. The 
w T ater flows into this well through a pipe, P, 
from the bottom of the filter, F, and is drawn 
out through the tube, T, by a pump at the 
top of the cistern. The filter, F, consists of a 
brick compartment or box, 18 inches in length, 
width, and hight. It is built along the side of 
the main cistern, the wall of the well forming 
one end of the box. The tube connecting the 
filter with the well, is of galvanized Ron, having 
a cap punched with holes, on the end entering 
the filter. The filtering materials are, com¬ 
mencing at the well, first a layer of gravel 3 
inches thick; then a thickness of cotton flannel; 
next 7 inches of pounded charcoal, made about 
half the size of peas; 5 inches of sand, and 3 
inches of gravel for the last layer. These lay¬ 
ers are placed before the box is covered, and are 
made vertical, as shown in the engraving, instead 
of horizontal in the usual manner. Before filling 
the filter, fit a plate of galvanized iron punc¬ 
tured with fine holes, to form the outer end of 
