1907. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
667 
KEEPING WATER OUT OF CELLAR. 
Would you give me some advice on how to keep water out 
of a cellar? It has a brick wall and concrete floor with 
cement finish. I also cemented up on the side of the wall 
about a foot, but the water comes over the top. I have 
been told that if I cemented the rest of the wall the water 
would come through. Would it be of any use to tar the wall 
and then face it up with good cement? j. c. 
There is only one way of treating the cellar to insure 
to a certainity its being continually dry. This is 
properly to drain the ground outside the cellar wall. 
To do this a drain must he laid about a foot below 
the level of the cellar bottom, and lead away to an 
outlet at some lower level. If the house stands on 
sloping ground the probabilities are that the water 
comes from the uphill side and, in this case, a drain 
laid along the uphill side of the house 
20 feet beyond the house, or else turned 
extending away from the outlet 15 or 
a corresponding distance along the adja¬ 
cent side of the house, would be likely 
to care for the water. On the other 
hand, if the house stands in a nearly 
level plain, it would probably be neces¬ 
sary nearly to surround the cellar with 
a line of tile, lying a little below the 
surface of the cellar bottom, and pretty 
close to the wall, a single line of tile 
leading off to the outlet. If there is 
no nearby outlet it may be possible to 
provide one by digging a well or pit 
on the side of the house at which the 
ground water stands lowest. 
In case there is no nearby evident 
outlet for the drain the first thing for 
your correspondent to do is to provide 
an inch-and-a-half auger with an ex¬ 
tension handle so that he can bore holes 
in the ground around the house to be¬ 
low the level of the ground-water sur¬ 
face to ascertain the level at which it naturally stands. 
If the ground-water level on all sides of the house 
is above the level of the cellar bottom during the dry 
season of the year it will be impossible to make the 
cellar dry by drainage, but if on one side of the house 
the water is below the level of the cellar bottom two 
or more feet a sink well can probably be provided there 
into which the drain could be led. 
It is practically impossible to make a cellar bottom 
and cellar wall impervious to ground water when that 
stands above the level of the cellar bottom. Nearly 
all concretes and cements are porous enough to allow 
water to pass through them by capillarity, so that even 
where there are no cracks it only requires a small 
pressure of water standing above the level of the cellar 
bottom to cause a general seepage into 
it. In providing drainage, especially if 
the natural water level on the downhill 
side of the house is near the level of 
the cellar bottom it is very important 
to have the drain not less than a foot 
below the level of the cellar bottom, 
because the ground water is forced up¬ 
ward by hydrostatic pressure, and it 
cannot flow laterally into the drains 
without some fall, and the resistance 
is so great usually in such cases that a 
full foot of fall is required in a dis¬ 
tance of 80 feet. f. H. KING. 
Draining a Gravel Pit. 
I Have a gravel pit that has water in it 
after you go about six feet below the sur¬ 
face of the ground, and the travel goes from 
12 to 15 feet below the surface of the 
drain. I would like to know whether the 
water can be sunk by putting a six-inch 
iron pipe down to the second vein of gravel, 
which in this case is in the neighborhood of 
100 feet. We can pump the water out, and 
do for large contracts. The water now is 
from eight to 12 feet deep and covers about 
one-lialf acre. Underneath is a bed of blue 
clay, then yellow clay to the gravel below, 
which has a strong vein of water that rises 
within 30 feet of the top of the ground 
and we are only about 10 miles from an 
artesian region where the water flows freely 
to the top of the ground. If the pit can 
be drained it would be a profitable source 
of income. p. d. w. 
It appears from the statements made that the top of 
the underlying blue clay beneath the gravel pit is 21 
feet below the surface. P. D. W. says that the water 
from the second bed of gravel rises to within 30 feet 
of the surface. This would leave but nine feet fall 
between the pressure level of the water in the second 
gravel bed and the bottom of the gravel bed he wishes 
to drain. If he is correct in his statement that there 
is that difference of level it is quite possible that the 
gravel pit might be drained downward by the method 
he suggests. Everything would depend, however, upon 
the coarseness of the lower gravel bed and the rate 
at which he has been obliged to pump water in order 
to drain the pit in that manner. A six-inch pipe, 
eptirely open, under a pressure of nine feet of water, 
would, as a maximum, discharge about 88 cubic feet 
per minute, and if the lower gravel bed is an exten¬ 
sive one and really coarse enough to be called coarse 
gravel it ought to dispose of the water about as 
rapidly as the six-inch pipe could deliver it to it under 
a pressure of nine feet. If, however, the pressure of 
the water from the lower gravel bed forced sand and 
gravel up into the lower end of the pipe the drainage 
capacity of the pipe might be cut down to one-half, 
and possibly as low as one-third the amount stated 
above. Before P. D. W. goes to the trouble of putting 
down a six-inch iron well tube 100 feet long it would 
be well for him to consider the possibility of draining 
the pit by means of a pumping plant. A 12-foot wind¬ 
mill, with a short lift of 20 feet, would take care of 
AN EXHIBIT OF OREGON BOXED APPLES. Fig 328 
quite a large volume of water, if properly installed, 
and if he were to submit his proposition to windmill 
manufacturers, they could tell him what he might 
expect in this direction. They would need to know 
how rapidly he was obliged to pump in order to keep 
the water out of the pit. The chief danger from the 
drainage method lies in the possibility that the lower 
vein of water might flood his pit. f. h. king. 
FILLING THE SILO . 
To fill a silo we must first have something to fill it 
with as a good many will learn to their cost this year. 
I think it is settled that the cheapest and best thing to 
fill a silo with is corn, and the best kind of corn is 
the biggest kind that will come to maturity in your 
reason for drilling the corn is that I can get more 
fodder and more ears that way. It is evident that 
four stalks of corn will grow bigger and ear better 
if distributed over three feet of row than if planted 
in a bunch. In sowing fertilizer with the corn, I use 
three drill tubes to each corn row, the one that sows 
the corn and one each side of it. This way we can 
use more fertilizer without danger of “burning” the 
corn. 
As soon as my corn is in the ground, T again roll 
the field. This covers any grains that might happen 
to lie on top, and firms the soil around the seed. In 
four or five days, I go over the field with the weedcr 
and again after the corn is well up. I start the culti¬ 
vator, the peg-tooth, as soon as I can follow the rows, 
and alternate between that and the weeder till I began 
haying, using the larger toothed culti¬ 
vator as the corn gets bigger, when I 
bid the corn good-bye until silo-filling 
time. I need no tar because Friend 
Crow does not “get on to” the fact that 
I have corn on the rolled and “weeded” 
field until it is too late for him to do 
any damage. 
My silo is 18 feet in diameter and 24 
feet high, made of 2 x 6 hemlock staves 
24 feet long, and tongued and grooved. 
It has a conical shaped top of pine. Of 
course, it has a good concrete founda¬ 
tion. Such a silo costs about $200, all 
complete. My barn is so constructed 
that the two rows of cattle face each 
other, and the silo stands at the end 
of the barn, directly in front of the 
alley between the mangers, making the 
feeding very handy. I hire the cutter 
and engine to fill the silo, paying $1.25 
per hour for the rig with two men to 
operate it. We usually change with the 
neighbors or hire teams to help get the 
corn to the machine, taking from three to five teams 
according to the proximity of the field to the silo. I 
have the corn cut in one-half inch lengths because 
that breaks or crushes the big stalks, while inch lengths 
would leave them in round chunks. Cows will eat 
corn silage if put in whole, or in coarse chunks, but 
they will eat it more readily if cut up very fine, and 
we aim to get just as much corn into our cows as we 
reasonably can, because it is the cheapest feed 
obtainable. 
I let my corn stand in the Fall just as long as I 
dare to. I like to have it denting before it is cut. If 
the corn is immature it should be cut and wilted for 
a day or two before being put in the silo. Never put 
immature corn in the silo wet with rain if you can 
help it. That is what makes sour silage. 
We use a corn harvester when we can, 
but sometimes the corn is on a hillside 
too steep for the machine, and some¬ 
times it is too big for it. Last year we 
harvested 80 loads from three acres, and 
an ax was a better implement to harvest 
it with. We begin feeding just as soon 
as the silo is filled, so have no waste 
on the top. We feed until the grass 
gets a good start in the Spring, when 
we depend on the pasture. Up here 
among the green hills of cheap land, 
that is the cheapest Summer feed. 
New York. j. grant morse. 
ROAD MAKING IN A ROUGH COUNTRY. Fig. 329. 
locality. Located among the hills in Central New 
York, I usually plant the Learning corn, but this year 
being so backward, I used Pride of the North as being 
a little earlier. I plow in Spring as soon as the ground 
is in working condition, and roll down the sod as 
soon as plowed to conserve the moisture and to keep 
the sod from being torn up by the harrow. I try to 
get my corn into the ground as soon as reasonable 
danger of frost is past, and I sow it with my grain 
drill using two tubes 42 inches apart. I sow 12 quarts 
to the acre. Eight would be enough if it all grew, 
but I would rather have too much than too little. I 
use no tar on the corn as I have no need of it, and I 
doubt if tarred corn could be sown in the drill. My 
SAWDUST AS TREE MULCH 
On page 575 you asked experiences 
and opinions on the advisability of us¬ 
ing sawdust as mulching for trees. If 
somewhat rotted and applied early in the 
season I incline to the opinion that it 
would answer fairly well for orchard 
trees, but would hesitate to use it as 
mulch for plants. Seven or eight years 
ago my brother set out an orchard of 
nearly 2,000 apple trees in sod land with¬ 
out breaking up (nor has it been plowed 
since) and largely these were mulched 
with hay or grass, but perhaps 400 of 
them were mulched fairly well with new saw¬ 
dust, and applied a little late in the Spring. 
We had a very dry Summer and the sawdust 
mulching proved exceedingly unsatisfactory, as com¬ 
pared with the rest of the orchard mulched- with other 
materials; a very considerable number having to be 
replaced the next Spring, and but little growth upon 
the survivors in that part of the orchard. Under the 
hay mulch the soil was reasonably moist and cool; 
under the sawdust it was very dry and hard, the saw¬ 
dust seeming not to retain under it the moisture which 
might be brought up by capillary attraction, and if a 
.little rainfall the sawdust absorbed ail of it, and then 
immediately radiated it into the atmosphere, the trees 
not a whit benefited by the rainfall. 
Iowa. F. O. HARRINGTON. 
