6QO 
when it rains in the Delta it rains for some time, 
usually. The level character of the land and the 
rich, waxy soil held the water while the weeds grew. 
The cotton and corn grew a little. Some died. It 
cleared and the crops were cleaned out. It rained 
again and again and the cotton bolls that had man¬ 
aged to form mostly dropped off. Then it cleared 
and a lovely season followed. But alas! the boll 
weevil came. It had been marching on eastward and 
we had been looking for it, but thought we could 
make one more crop—and then—do what? The next 
best thing, whatever that might be. This scourge 
took almost every boll that set after the rains 
stopped. We had cotton stalks in the Fall in some 
fields so high that I could not touch their tops with 
a riding switch while sitting on my horse. But there 
was no cotton on them, only branches and leaves. 
The lack of bolls had induced extra growth of stalk. 
Instead of from $25,000 to $30,000, as we had confi¬ 
dently expected in June, we had a little over $11,000 
from the cotton and seed. And we were not alone 
in this calamity. Some plantations had been over¬ 
flowed and made nothing but a few late cow peas 
and a magnificent crop of pecans on the wild trees 
that grew where they had not been cut down. These 
nuts saved many a poor darkey (and his hogs too) 
from starvation. But the planters—they were in 
trouble enough—and trouble that will stay with them. 
The boll-weevil is a stayer. He is not a mere 
passing evil that will come and go. And we believe 
that he is not an unmixed evil, but rather will be a 
blessing in the end. He will force the planters of 
the Great Delta into diversification. Instead of re¬ 
maining cotton crazy and being lied down in slavery 
to the merchant and the negro he will become a true, 
independent farmer. He will grow what he needs 
and live on it. He will get good stock and keep it and 
increase it. He will grow grass and grain. His 
lands will get richer instead of poorer, for they al¬ 
ways have been getting poorer under the cotton 
regime, rich as they are naturally. The darkey and 
mule have been simply scratching the first few inches 
on the surface and wearing out its available fertility, 
while below are sleeping 100 good farms. 
The result of the past year’s crop failure would be 
temporary, but with the boll-weevil as a permanent 
hindrance, especially in that moist climate and where 
there are ample places for hibernating in the forests, 
other crops than cotton must be grown. And 
they are being grown, too. There is no region 
in all the world that will produce better rice, and 
those plantations that lie next to the river and other 
sources of water supply can, and many are, growing 
it. The next farm to ours on the south has in 
700 acres, and it looked well when I left there the 
last week of April. This crop requires large outlay 
for pumping water to flood the fields. 1 am having 
grown a small acreage in “upland” rice, which is 
not so large in grain, nor so good to yield as the 
kinds that require flooding But neither boll-weevil 
nor rains will hurt it. 
Among the money crops that I am now testing is 
hemp. This is a staple crop and has long been 
known as such, but only a few are growing it. We 
have in 60 acres for fibre and 20 for seed. The 
former is sown broadcast and thick, but for seed it 
is planted and cultivated like corn. 
And we are planting broom corn. When I left we 
had in 50 acres, and the later plantings will make 
over 100 acres. We have hundreds of acres of corn 
and will have the same of cow peas. Man and beast 
can both live on these crops. And we expect to have 
hay galore from the peas and crab grass, which we 
usually harvest together; from Lespedeza (Japan 
clover), Alfalfa, Alsike clover, Soy beans and oats, 
all of which we have growing. And we have several 
carloads of early potatoes growing, to bring in early 
cash. As minor crops I am trying Russian sun¬ 
flowers, melons, cabbage, peppers and onions. We 
have about 30 acres in cotton, only. 
But the pecan orchard is our mainstay. The only 
trouble is its tardiness in coming to profitable age. 
But it is sure —sure as the flow of the great river that 
furnished the rich alluvium, into which the trees send 
their roots. I planted about 300 acres more the past 
Winter and Spring to pecan orchard and have over 
25 acres of nursery to furnish trees for future plant¬ 
ings and to sell when grafted. I have trained some 
of the negroes to graft and bud the pecan, and am 
really surprised by their aptness at the work. One 
pecan tree in our house yard about 35 years old, 
yielded 2^4 barrels of nuts that were worth in 
market $140, and it is full of young nuts now. It 
never has failed to bear since it began over 20 years 
ago; not always a big crop, but each alternate year 
it nearly doubles its best former record. And it will 
do so for many years to come and then go on for a 
century or two, if the lightning doesn’t kill it. This re¬ 
minds me that there is a pecan tree not far from our 
place, which I often see, that I have been reliably 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
informed has borne 14 barrels of pecans in one year. 
The nuts are large, thin-shelled and very rich and 
full of meat. What is that tree worth now? It is 
over 100 years old and was once struck by lightning. 
It is over 100 feet broad and nearly as high. 
And we have not neglected the fruits. There are 
thousands of young fig trees coming on and some 
beginning to bear. The fruit will sell; will feed us 
on the plantation and our hogs as well, when we have 
thousands of bushels, as we soon will have. There 
is an orchard of the very finest peaches and some 
plum and pear trees. We have to be content with 
the Kieffer and others of the Oriental class in that 
humid climate and rich soil, because of blight, to 
which we are very subject. And I set a small vine¬ 
yard of the best of the Munson varieties of the 
grape and this is already in bearing. We have straw¬ 
berries, dewberries and blackberries in abundance, in 
our garden and of such kinds as flourish in the 
South and continue from the earliest to the latest in 
ripening. 
Then we have a great and beautiful bayou on our 
front, called Lake Concordia, once a branch of the 
Mississippi, miles long and one and one-fourth miles 
wide, over which we sail and row in a good cy¬ 
press boat of our own planning and building; and 
in the lake are fishes galore. We have a “trotline” 
with 100 hooks to it and one end tied to a bush on the 
shore. To this shore end we have a bell fastened, 
just above the water, and when a fish bites in earnest 
it rings the bell and we go out and take it off. Many 
a good meal we have had from this source, and we 
expect many more. In season we have “quail on 
toast” or without toast, just as we like it. Some¬ 
times a fat deer is brought from the woods. Wild 
ducks will come too near the shore for their safety, 
sometimes. Of honey we have plenty, and from wild 
bees that I caught from the woods, but now keep in 
the neatest and best of all hives—the Danzeihaher. 
Why so many will neglect this easy way of provid¬ 
ing for the table and as much to spare as they are 
willing to earn by a little trouble and expense, I can¬ 
not sec. Our bees began to swarm in March and 
had some of the supers full of honey before the end 
of April, White clover honey, too, made from flowers 
on the levee. 
We don’t forget the poultry, but have over 200 
R. I. Reds, young and old, and eggs and broilers in 
abundance, with dear old Aunt Polly to look after 
them like a mother. She has a few turkeys coming 
on, and I have threatened to get geese and guineas, 
but she said “G'way man, we’s got ’nough now to 
bodder wif.” And maybe we have, for with the 
things I have mentioned, a good big vegetable gar¬ 
den with something in it every day in the year and 
milk and butter of our own, it is not bad nor ex¬ 
pensive living. But the shame and wonder is, that 
the country people, the rich Delta planters, if you 
please, live mostly on hog and hominy, and that from 
Illinois or somewhere north, while there is opportunity 
for producing plenty of better thing at home. Maybe 
the boll-weevil will starve them into better living, by 
setting them to thinking Some are beginning to do 
it. The whole system must change. The cotton bale 
must takes its place among the other farm crops, and 
not be like a lone monument to farm folly with the 
darkey on top and the planter under it. 
H. E. VAN DEMAN. 
BUILDING A CONCRETE DAM. 
T would like to build a concrete dam about 100 feet 
long. There is a good bank on each side, stream of water 
through the center about four feet wide, six to eight inches 
deep, running water. I would like about 4% feet of water. 
The bottom of this pond will be muck perhaps 2% or 
three feet deep. IIow wide should the dam be, and what 
would be the cost? I can get the gravel, sand and stone 
for the drawing. Is it necessary to put stone in? IIow 
much cement, gravel, etc., would it take? There is no 
force to the water except in Spring. J. k. l. 
Elnora, N. Y. 
In building a dam of concrete there are two main 
dangers to be guarded against: First, that the water 
does not burrow under the dam or around its ends; 
and, second, that the whole structure is not tipped 
over down-stream by the pressure of the water 
above. The writer was personally interested in an 
undertaking where a well-known engineer undertook 
to build a concrete dam to raise the water about 
eight feet on a strong and rapid stream. The 
contract price was to complete the job for a con¬ 
sideration of $1,760. At the first attempt the pond 
barely filled before it went out, and the second 
stood only a few weeks before it suddenly emptied 
itself. Another contractor put in a dam which has 
now stood for two years without trouble. In this 
case the underlying stratum was a soft, slippery 
blue clay, through which the water burrowed, leaving 
the concrete intact but undermined. Trouble was 
also experienced in holding the ends. 
Two years ago, with farm help, the writer put in 
June 12, 
a short piece of concrete dam to hold water to a 
depth considerably greater than that contemplated 
by the questioner, and so far it has been absolutely 
tight and solid. In the case of making a pond 
where there is two or three feet of muck, it will 
be very necessary to excavate a trench deep enough 
to get down to thoroughly hard ground, otherwise no 
amount of expense in the concrete wall will atone 
for the soft and slushy foundation. If this trench 
must be deep and carried down into a soil saturated 
with water, it may be a difficult thing to dig it with¬ 
out the aid of some sort of a coffer dam and pump— 
a procedure that will rapidly run the undertaking 
into the domains of technical engineering. It will 
be a very simple matter to secure a monolithic wall 
that will not give way under the pressure of the 
water, but it will not be so easy to insure it against 
the constant tendency of water to burrow beneath 
its foundation. In starting the wall, soft concrete 
should be thrown into the bottom of the trench so as 
to make a close contact with soil. Into this stone 
can be bedded, and if they are only clean and sur¬ 
rounded by the cement mortar on every side, there 
will be no objection if they are of large size. Our 
own farm system has been not so much the use of 
simple concrete as the use of stone bedded in and 
covered by concrete. Neighboring stone walls or 
stones from the creek bed may be well utilized in 
this way. I have not at hand the usual engineering 
estimates for the thickness of walls for dams of 
this character, but from experience I believe that 
a thickness of 2 1 / feet at the bottom and one foot 
at the top will be stable against the pressure if 
bedded into firm earth. A depth of water of 4J^ 
feet will give an approximate pressure of 280 pounds 
per square foot at the bottom of the dam. Esti¬ 
mates of cost are not easy even when conditions are 
known. The amount of cement in concrete mixtures 
will vary with the hardness deemed necessary, and 
with the character of the materials used. The writer 
has used both fine crushed stone and a natural creek 
gravel made up of clean washed sand, mixed with 
gravel up to the size of eggs. For farm practice 
we prefer the natural gravel mixture, and it has 
the advantage of cheapness. One part of a good 
Portland cement to seven parts of this gravel gives 
a concrete that is frost-proof and satisfactory for 
all ordinary purposes. Even with short hauls and 
unskilled labor, this concrete can hardly be put in 
place for less than $3 per yard. Indeed, engineers 
usually put the figure as a good deal higher than 
this. To this must be added the labor of erecting 
the timber forms. If suitable stone is at hand these 
figures may be reduced. Still, to put in a dam of 
concrete 100 feet in length means a considerable 
expenditure for labor and material. 
I believe it quite probable that the old type of 
earth dam may be best. There are thousands of 
these scattered over the country which have been 
standing for long years, almost without attention. A 
broad trench across the stream is made by the 
use of teams and scrapers, then a heavy retaining 
wall is laid of rough, heavy stone along the lower 
side and the firm earth from the neighboring banks 
is dragged in with teams and kept wet and tramped 
as the filling goes on. For a dam of five feet in 
height, this earthen embankment may be 16 feet 
thick at the bottom and one-half this at the top. 
Then a part of the top must be protected with 
timber to form a “spill-way” and an apron con¬ 
structed to carry the water off without giving it 
opportunity to injure the bank. After such a dam 
has had willow trees growing on it for a few years, 
it will be almost as impervious to washing by water 
as a strip of felt. In either form of dam it must 
not be forgotten that a most important part of 
the problem is the question of protecting the “toe” 
of the dam from undermining by the action of the 
water which runs over it. In earthen dams this is 
commonly accomplished by a wooden apron designed 
to carry it off to some distance before allowing 
it to drop into the bed of the stream. In concrete 
dams, the bed of the stream for some distance 
below the dam is well paved with heavy stone or 
even with concrete work. Dams still continue to 
be one of the most perplexing problems of the en¬ 
gineer, and the farmer who attempts to dam even 
a small stream will find that at times he faces a 
force difficult to control, jared van wagenen, jr. 
The Atchison Globe puts the same old thought 
in a new way: 
When a farmer becomes old, after a life of toil, lie Is 
not only not pensioned, but be is taxed to pay old age 
pensions for men who have not worked as hard as he has 
worked. Old age pensions for supreme court judges, for 
one example; for army officers, for onother. They say the 
constitution guarantees us all equal rights. Why not make 
a constitution question out of pensioning one class, and 
not another? 
Why not? It is a good time to have it settled. 
