Jar m topics. 
SANITARY ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE 
HOMESTEAD. 
BY A JERSEY FARMER. 
NO. 2. THE KITCHEN. 
The kitchen is the workshop of the house. 
The female portion of the family spend therein 
the greater portion of their lives. That it should 
be conveniently arranged is necessary for ease 
and economy of working, and, in fact, for the 
saving of time and labor ; that it should bo kept 
clean and free from any infection from decay¬ 
ing wastes of the house, which are there dis¬ 
posed of, is imperative for the health of the in¬ 
mates. It may be an easy matter to throw slopB 
ont of a handy window upon a pile of rubbish 
gathered there ; or into a convenient pool at the 
door-btep, but many & fatal case of fever or diph¬ 
theria has occurred from such a state of things— 
unfortunately too frequent—and the pet of the 
household has many a time fallen a victim to the 
ignorance or carelessness through which that 
sort of thing has been permitted. It is a ques¬ 
tion, which of the two, a well-constructed sink 
or a set of stationary wash-tubs, with proper 
drains connected with them, is the more import¬ 
ant. The sink perhaps is the more needful, but 
the wash-tubs are indispensable, once their use¬ 
fulness is known. 
THE KITCHEN SINK 
is generally a nest of foulness, even in some so- 
supposed well-ordered houses. It is usually 
closed np below, and a hiding place is there found 
for pots, pot rags and any rubbish that must be 
put out of sight. Here is the first thing that 
requires to be remedied. No sink should be 
closed in. From the nature of the thing, there 
cannot help but gather about it something disa¬ 
greeable and unclean, and this becomes a pest 
in hot weather; for it is a breeding-place for 
flies and other vermin, if for nothing else. 
Wherever there is such a sink, the first work of 
the careful housekeeper should be to open it to 
day-light to the floor; where there is no sink 
one should be made without delay. There are 
cast-iron sinks which can bo procured for a few 
dollars, furnished with legs so that they cau be 
set in a corner or against a wall; but where 
there is a man handy with tools about the house, 
a very good sink can be made of wood, and 
pointed, which will answer every purpose. A 
good-sized sink should be 36 inches long by 18 
wide, and four inches deep. A plain cast-iron 
one of this size costs $3 50. A small table, at 
the right, should have a pump connecting with a 
well or cistern, and another, at the left, should be 
large enough to hold a tray of dishes. The ar¬ 
rangement complete of a home-made sink is 
shown at Fig. 1. The whole should be made of 
good flue timber, the joints put together with 
white-lead, and three coats of paint should be 
given to it. The pipe from the sink «.hould bo 
covered with perforated zinc, to prevent it from 
becoming choked, and there should be an air- 
trap in it; or the air-trap may be made in the 
drain-pipe, described further on. 
STATIONARY WASH-TUBS 
are such a convenience and so helpful to the 
housewife that a set may very well bo considered 
as worth several years of life saved by thus 
avoiding the injurious results of heavy lifting of 
tubs aud of water in and ont of the house on the 
weekly washing day. In this sense, as well as 
in others, stationary tubs are a sanitary provi¬ 
sion. These tubs are considered indispensable 
in a city bouse, and are equally so in a country 
house. The cost is trifling It is not necessary 
that they Bhould be oonneoted with a supply of 
water, although that would be convenient; it is 
their connection with the drain for the escape of 
i.... fouled water that is the most important 
point. At the same time a water supply may be 
had without much difficulty, as will be Bhown 
hereafter. 
HOW THE TUBS ARE MADE. 
The tubs should be made of clear pine, an 
inch-and-a-nalf thick. A section of the tub, 
showing the shape and the slope of the 
front is given at Fig. 2. It is 21 inohes wide 
at the bottom; 25 inohes wide at the top; 
THE RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
15 inches deep, and 30 inches long. This makes 
a tub of the largest size used in any private 
house. A set may consist of two or three. It is 
very little more trouble to make three than to 
make two, and the third is a great convenience. 
At Fig. 3 is shown a set of two tubs complete. 
A wringer can be fastened on to the partition be¬ 
tween the two. The tubs are fastened to the 
wall of the kitchen at such a hight that the top 
is 30 inches above the floor ; and they are also 
supported at each end on legs, as shown. The 
planks of which they are made aro accurately 
jointed, and the joints are put together with 
white-lead and Becurely nailed with large nailB. 
The outside is to be painted, but not the inside. 
Lead pipes are fitted to the bottoms, which 
should be strapped with S-Btraps and connected 
with the drains. Plugs secured by small chains 
are generally used, but woodeu plugs will an¬ 
swer the purpose when the tuba are home-made. 
The lead pipe may be spread and flattened down, 
and fastened with nails around the bole in the 
bottom and the joint is made tight with white- 
lead. 
THE WATER SUPPLY 
of a house may be very conveniently made and 
at a small expense by arranging a suitable 
pump aud a few pipes. For instance, the pump 
shown on the sink at Fig. 1, represents one 
made expressly for domestic convenience, and is 
well entitled The Universal Pump. It is a lift 
and force pump, and may be used in deep or 
shallow wells. It is "made so that the handle 
may be behind the spout or work at right angles 
with it on either side. It has two openings 
from the spout so that by turning a “ two-way” 
cock the water may be made to flow into the sink 
or through a pipe leadiog to an upper story into 
a tank, or across the kitchen into the wash-tubs. 
Then, again, if pipoB from the pump are con¬ 
nected with a cistern and a well, by turning 
taps properly placed, water may be drawn from 
either at will. Further, by screwing a hose to 
the spout, the water may 
be forced to the stables or 
the barn, or by using a 
nozzle on the hose, win¬ 
dows nmy be washed or the 
garden and lawn sprinkled. All these conven¬ 
iences make a pump of this kind very desirable 
and convenient and indispensable for a sink and 
wash-tubs. 
THE DRAINS 
from a house are of the most serious impor¬ 
tance ; in fact, these are really a matter of life 
and death in many instances, if not always, and 
everywhoro. Where waste auimai aud vegetable 
matters decay upon the ground, poisonous germs 
are given off, which are capable of generating 
the rnoBt deadly diseases. When, by ill-arranged 
circumstances, these germs are washed by per¬ 
colating or surface water into wells, and are in¬ 
troduced from tlieuoe into the stomach of any 
person, typhoid fevers or dysentery of the worst 
types are occasioned, so that where fevers of 
any kind, diphtheria, summer complaints or dys¬ 
entery occur, want of proper drainage, or the 
absence of any at all, may almost certainly be 
inferred. A drain should be perfectly well 
made and should have an outlet into a well- 
built and tightly-covered cess-pool, or what is 
preferable, should discharge into a liquid-ma¬ 
nure tank, where the contents are disinfected 
with plaster or copperas, and are regularly re¬ 
moved for fertilizing purposes. The best drain 
is made of glazed stone-ware ; tho next best is 
made of round drain-tile ; and next is a wooden 
pipe. If glazed stone-ware iB employed, a trap 
(Fig. 4) should be used near the house. This 
prevents the back flow of foul-smelling gas 
through the pipes into the house. This sewer- 
gas is a deadly poison. If common drain tile or 
a wooden pipe is used, a trap made of a wooden 
box (Fig. 5) will be effective. It is readily seen 
that at every flushing of the drain some water is 
left in the trap, which prevents any return of 
air from the outlet to the house. An occasional 
use of a pailful of water in which a pound of 
copperas has been dissolved, will keep a drain 
sweet. 
A USE FOR SEWAGE. 
House sewage is a valuable fertilizer. It con¬ 
tains much decomposed animal matter derived 
from the soiled clothes which are saturated with 
the constant insensible, as well as sensible, 
perspiration from the skin, which contains 
much nitrogen or ammonia; also potash from 
the soap and ether matter from dish-washings. 
In a state of decomposition this waste has a 
more powerful odor than barnyard manure. No 
other fertilizer is more valuable for flowers, a 
grass-plot, shrubbery, vegetables, or as a mix¬ 
ture for the fields. The smallest house will sup¬ 
ply a garden with manure in this way. To col¬ 
lect it, a barrel, large cask or box may be sank 
in the ground in a secluded place and the drains 
may discharge into it; or a pit may be made in 
tbe form shown in Fig. 6, booked np with a few 
stones to keep the earth from falling down. All 
the solid waste of the house; garbage of all 
kinds; ashes ; waste of the garden and all BOrts 
of absorbents may be thrown into this pit and 
soak up the liquids from the drains. Iu this 
way a wagon load of rich manure may soon be 
procured. Otherwise the liquids will flow into 
the barrel or cask. It may be dipped out from 
this weekly, diluted with water and used to 
moisten the beds in which flowers or vegetables 
are planted. Wonderful growth will thus be 
produced and a large sum may be realized in a 
year from this use of the house waste, besides 
the comfortable knowledge that by tbe sauitary 
precautions used, one’s own health is not reck¬ 
lessly endangered, nor are the lives of tho chil¬ 
dren—more precious than one’s own—risked by 
avoidable dangers. 
(gbujitojjm. 
NOTES FROM CENTRAL ILLINOIS. 
BY AN OLD SUBSCRIBER. 
WHEAT SOWING. 
The largest breadth of wheat ever put out 
here, is now very nearly all sown. Continued 
dry weather has held many back, waiting for 
rain, aud some will not sow till it does rain, if it 
fails to do so until the 10th of October. The 
excitement in favor of Fultz wheat has just 
reached this locality, several farmers having se¬ 
cured Beed of that variety at considerable trouble 
rather than sow any other sort. I probably have 
the only Clawson in the county, having sown 
three and a half bushel of seed from an Ohio 
crop yielding forty-two aud a half bushels per 
acre. The grain has the finest appearance of any 
I have ever seen. I have sown Fultz, Gold Medal, 
Sanford, Amber, Clawson, Silver Chaff, and a 
“common " red wheat, and expect to sow several 
sorts of spring wheat. Going to extremes ? 
Yes, I like to do so occasionally. When I began 
with Strawberries I bought 25 varieties, and I got 
the right sorts for my soil by trying bo many. 
FRUIT NOTES. 
I had a number of seedling-peach trees, which 
I cut or headed back regularly; I supplied them 
with abundance of potash, and gave them good 
treatment in every way. They were selected 
promiscuously from the lot, without referonoe 
to quality, really being no better tba.n tbe rest. 
This season all bore, and tb6 trees properly 
treated bore peaches eight and nine inches in 
circumference; and a common remark of ob¬ 
servers was that I “had some flue budded 
Peaches amoDg my seedlings." I thinned my 
Peaches aud got better fruit aud more of it. 
I know of Ben. Davis apple trees that last year 
bore a large crop of fruit—too large a crop, in¬ 
deed. This year they struggled and bore half a 
bushel of apples each -, but they were the largest 
I ever saw of that sort. Now, if those trees were 
mine, by judicious pruning, and by thinning out 
the fruit severely in the year when they bear the 
heavy crop, I could make them hear a good crop 
the next year, when apples are usually soarce 
and command a high price. 
A HANDY SUPPLY OF SUPPORTING POLES. 
Broom corn has become a staple farm product 
in this part of the State. One of the difficulties 
encountered in raising it is to get the poles 
necessary to save the crop. I know of farmers 
who have been growing this crop for six or eight 
years, at a distance of five, eight and ten miles 
from timber, and who have no timber of their 
own when they get to the woods. In August 
ecorea of teams are perambulating all through the 
timbered districts, limiting for poleB. Sometimes 
the hunt lastB a whole day before any one who 
wiU sell poleB is hit upon, and not infrequently 
the hunters go home without any, and next day 
start off ten miles in another directiou to repeat 
their eearch. Now, suppose ten or even only 
five years ago, they had set apart one or two 
acres of low, wet land on their farms, for a 
maple or willow grove. This grove would not 
only make the farm look better, but it would 
soon furnish abundanoo of poles, while the 
“ laps" would make tho summer's co; king wood. 
Moreover, it would furnish shelter for stock both 
in summer and winter, and all the labor of 
hauling poles long distances would be saved. 
But it was not done. It can yet be done how¬ 
ever. For fifty cents a “ timber boy” in June 
would gather a pick of maple Beed ou the banks 
of any of our water-courses, and if planted imme¬ 
diately, they wiil eome up as readily as heaps, 
'10V. 2 
grow two to three feet tbe first year, and reach 
a hight of from 25 to 40 feet in five years. 
INTERCHANGING IDEAS. 
Hog cholera has ruined many of onr Western 
farmers, and will continue to do so till we profit 
by the example of our Eastern friends, and feed 
our hogs more roots, tbeir natural food. They 
must have leBS corn, and what they get should 
be Mammoth, or Slowell’s sugar corn. Of these 
varieties as much can be grown per acre, as of 
many sorts we now plant. The great need is to 
put tbe agricultural class into weekly communi¬ 
cation with each other’s successes, reverses, 
plans, theories and practices, and the only as 
well as the cheapest plan I know for doing this, 
is for the farmer to take agricultural papers, 
and through them give his own ideas to his 
brother farmers, at least occasionally. In this 
way we can all reap the benefit of each other’s ac¬ 
quired knowledge, and sometimes learn in half 
a column’s reading, how to accomplish success¬ 
fully what we might have spent hard-earned 
dollars in trying to do, and then fail. 
-♦+♦- 
NOTES FROM ARKANSAS. 
The Rural New-Yorker gives to tbe tillers of 
tbe soil valuable instructions in all the various 
branches of agriculture and horticulture, so that 
the farmer that reads the Rural need hardly 
make a mistake in planting or cultivating the 
earth, but in the Rural’s columns I see no in¬ 
formation to the thousands that are seeking new 
locations for their fnturo homos. [Surely, our 
friend has not locked.—Eds.1 The emigration 
this year from the East and North to the Far 
West is immense and nine tenths of it is going 
to localities where nature has bestowed a fertile 
soil, it is true, but only at a distance of from 
1,0G0 to 1,500 miles from a market, even when 
the country is all settled. There the hard- 
fisted sons of toil may raise wheat for 40 to 
60 cents per bushel; beef and pork correspond¬ 
ingly low, whilo other cereals as well as vege¬ 
tables, fruits, and maikot truck are not worth 
transportation. Budding aud fencing lumber 
there costs from $30 to $35 per M., while fuel is 
som«e and high. 
I have spent many years in exploring for our 
most valuable minerals, coal, iron, manganese, 
ziuo, etc., in the States of Pennsylvania, Ohio, 
Indiana, Illinois, Missouri. Arkansas and Texas, 
and I have been a close observer of the diff rent 
sections as to their advantages for the produc¬ 
tion of grains, fruits, vegetables and stock, and 
the wealth that nature, in some of the localities, 
has stored away for those that may be so lucky 
as to inherit a portion of tho soil that is under¬ 
laid with them. During my explorations in Ar¬ 
kansas and Texas, in the years 1876, '77 and '78, 
I found Arkansas to be a nearly unknown State 
as to her vast deposits of valuable minerals. The 
day, however, is in the near future, when she 
will produco iron, spelter, zinc, lead, crockery, 
queensware, cotton and woolen goods more 
oheaply than any State in the Union-much 
more cheaply than the old Eastern and Northern 
States. 
My reasons for so predicting are: First, the coal 
territory of the Arkausas Valley embraces about 
12,000 square miles of a pure, valuable coal, semi- 
anthracite, containing SO per cent.of fixed carbon 
and less than three-fourths of one pci 1 cent, of 
sulphur. Tho iron ores aro of the purest qual¬ 
ity, aud in abundant supply. They assay 50 to 
65 per cent, of metallic iron, with no trace of 
phosphorus or sulphur. 
Zinc ores are in abundant supply, and of as 
high quality as those found anywhere else in the 
Utilted States. 
Marl or phosphates for fertilizing purposes 
equal to those of South.Oarolina, aro found heie 
in a deposit 31 feet thick, that will yield per acre 
41,000 tons, aud at a royalty of but 10 cents per 
ton, will give $4,000 per acre. 
The State of Arkansas is principally timber, 
onc-tenth or oua-twelfth only being prairie. The 
timber is of great variety and exceedingly well 
adapted to all farm uses. Good yellow pine 
boards can be had for $6 to $10 per M. 
Peaches, Apples, Pears, Plums, Strawberries, 
Blackberries, and nearly all the fruits that grow 
iu the Eastern States aro produced to perfection 
in the fruit belt in Arkansas, and scarcely miss 
a crop any year; only two failures of tho peach 
crop have oocurred in 88 years. 
James Watson. 
.. — » » - 
RURAL SPECIAL REPORTS. 
Warren Co., N, c., Oct. is, lsts. 
No frost yet. Cotton-picking is the principal 
farm operation about these days—yield an av¬ 
erage one, and acreage somewhat greater than 
usual; present price, three cents per pound in 
the seed. Cow peas aro below tbe average, on a 
less acreage than usual. Seed was soarce and 
high this year, which deterred many from plant¬ 
ing. Oats and rye sown in August cover tho 
ground aud will furnish fine pasturage during 
the winter. But little wheat has been sown yet. 
Onr farmers think cotton-Beed the best fertil¬ 
izer for wheat, 40 bushels per acre making a 
vaBt improvement in the crop, and costing from 
eight to ten cents per 1 ushel at the gin. There 
are no rml lH hereabouts for extracting the oil; 
