570 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[December 
good fanners: In the fall, plow and harrow llie 
laud thoroughly, and in the spring, as soon as the 
ground is dry enough to work, harrow again, and 
immediately sow the seed. If the soil is so dry as 
to blow much in the spring, the seeding must be 
delayed until rains come—enough at least to pre¬ 
vent blowing. It is bad policy to sow before the 
ground is in the best possible condition, and if 
weeds have started, the surface of the soil 
should be well stirred with a two-horse culti¬ 
vator, and harrowed over before sowing the seed. 
. It will be observed that in this plan no other crop 
is sown with the grass. The method so common 
in the East of seeding to grass laud bearing at the 
same time a crop of some small grain, is rarely 
successful west of the Missouri, and is not espe¬ 
cially to be commended anywhere. The objection 
to it is that very frequently, when the sheltering 
grain is cut away and the tender grass is exposed 
to the sud, and when we have a hot dry time, the 
young grass is literally burned up. When it does 
manage to live through the summer, it amounts to 
but little until it has made another season’s growth. 
This is the mistake often made by Eastern farmers 
when they first begin farming in the West. 
Another plan, a modification of this, does very 
well in most cases. This consists of sowing the 
grass seed on winter rye, or with oats, and keeping 
the grain well eaten down by stock. The best re¬ 
sults are reached when the grain is kept from three 
to five inches high, neither pastured too close, nor 
allowed to grow up so rank as to choke the young 
grass. The grain should be thinly sown, and 
tramping of stock will be found an advantage to 
the grass. Another successful plan of seeding to 
Timothy, is to sow on millet stubble, immediately 
after the crop has been removed. It is advantage¬ 
ous to harrow the stubble before sowing the grass 
seed. Timothy sown in this way, in the early 
part of the fall, will soon become well estab¬ 
lished, and stand the winter without danger. 
With Timothy, clover, and orchard grass, treated 
in one or other of the ways above indicated, there 
is no more difficulty to be apprehended in getting 
a stand than in getting a crop of oats or rye. Un¬ 
doubtedly much loss has resulted from sowing 
poor seed. Farmers who are about to sow any 
considerable quantity of tame grass seed, and are 
not able to procure what they want from their own 
neighbors, would find it to their advantage to club 
together and send an early order to some large, 
reputable dealer. In this way they will be very 
much less likely to purchase old or poor seed. 
To get a stand of blue grass is somewhat more 
difficult than with the other grasses mentioned. 
Blue grass seed will not bear being covered to any 
depth, and dries out quite easily. Where there is 
sufficient moisture, it does best simply pressed in¬ 
to the ground. This condition has been measura¬ 
bly secured by sowing rye first, and afterwards 
Timothy and blue grass in the early fall. As soon 
as the rye is large enough for feed, turn on the 
stock and keep it eaten down. Blue grass makes 
but little show during the first year, but when 
it has once got well started, it will hold its own. 
KINDS OF TAME GRASSES RECOMMENDED. 
The only kinds of tame grasses that have been 
extensively tested west of the Missouri, are : Tim¬ 
othy (Phleum pratense), Kentucky blue grass (Poa 
pratensis ), and orchard grass (Dactylis glomerata). 
Only red clover (Trifolium pratense) and white clo¬ 
ver (Trifolium repens) have been grown on a scale 
sufficiently extensive to justify absolute confidence. 
Red top (Agroslis vulgaris) has been tried in a few 
instances with success, but only, so far as the wri¬ 
ter is informed, on low and moist land. Of the 
five first-named grasses, by far the best to stand 
dry weather is orchard grass. Of twenty kinds of 
tame grasses sown on the Nebraska Agricultural 
College Farm one very dry spring, orchard grass 
was the ODly one that grew. This grass starts 
early, keeps green through the hottest weather, and 
is good until hard freezing comes. It is not spe¬ 
cially valuable for hay, as it is rather coarse, yet 
stock seem to like it. In the West it inclines to 
take on the habit of the native grasses, and grow 
in bunches, even more than in the East. For this 
reason it is thought best to sow it in connection 
with red clover. The two will cover the ground, 
and, as they bloom about the same time, do very 
well together. Timothy and blue grass, while not 
yielding as much forage during the dry season as 
the orchard grass, are better for spring and fall 
use. Blue grass has the further recommendation 
that if allowed to grow up during the rainy season, 
and the weather is very dry in August or Septem¬ 
ber, the grass will mature into a good hay while 
standing. This is not true to the same extent of 
any other tame grass. Blue grass is not much 
sown for hay, and is not valuable for that purpose. 
Timothy and red clover at the present time are 
the principal crops grown hereabouts for hay. 
Along the Missouri River, and in some of the 
older counties of the State, large pastures of white 
clover may be seen. In some of these fields the 
clover comes and goes curiously. One year it will 
be abundant, and the next nearly disappear, and 
after a few years it will come in again. Seven years 
ago the writer saw a patch of white clover in a 
lawn thickly swarded with blue grass; for four 
years after no sign of the clover was seen, when 
suddenly it reappeared the. fifth year, occupying 
the ground to the complete exclusion of the blue 
grass from a considerable space. Experience has 
shown that the red clover in this soil and climate 
is almost, if not quite, perennial. There are well- 
known cases where it has grown on the same soil 
six to eight years in succession. No serious trou¬ 
ble from freezing out has been experienced, as 
the soil does not heave with the frost. 
Wickets and Stiles for Iron Fences. 
Wickets and stiles are convenient passage-ways 
through or over fences crossing foot-paths. The 
bow wicket has the advantage of providing a gate 
“always open and always shut,” and not apt to get 
out of repair. A wrought iron bow wicket, with 
short vertical bars, is shown in figure 1. Figure 2 
has the bars horizontal, and folds in the middle 
for a wheelbarrow or small animals to pass. To 
go through it, a person simply steps into the bow, 
swings the gate away from him, and swings it back 
in passing out. There is no latch to fasten, and 
no fear of the entry of live stock. Similar wickets 
may be constructed of wood for board fences. 
Stiles of convenient forms for wire fences are shown 
in figures 3 and 4. The one seen in figure 3 takes 
leiss space on each side of the fence, but it 
is not so simple as that shown in figure 4. 
Plan for a Filtering' Cistern. 
The filtering cistern here desciibed is believed to 
possess some new and valuable features.—But first 
we will give some suggestions about the nature 
and limitations of the operation called filtering. 
Straining and filtering are quite different. In 
straining, the liquid is passed through some fabric, 
as cloth, or a box of sand, or some porous solid, 
and all particles too large to pass through the 
pores of the strainer are taken from the liquid. 
But in this process, if 
the meshes of the 
strainer are made 
small enough to stop 
the very finest solid 
particles, they soon 
clog up and become 
useless. Filtering de¬ 
pends upon a differ¬ 
ent principle, though 
many persons have 
no other conception 
of a filter than that it 
is a means of strain¬ 
ing the water. Indeed, most of the so-called filters 
attached to rain water cisterns are nothing but 
strainers. Not long ago the writer saw a “ filter ” 
built to receive the water from a roof thirty by fifty 
feet. This “filter” was built just below the sur¬ 
face, and would hold about fifteen gallons, while 
the roof surface would occasionally furnish six 
hundred gallons per hour, enough to fill this “ fil¬ 
ter” forty times, or once every minute and a half. 
It is obvious that there could be no true filtering 
here, scarcely good straining even. Tct this is not 
an exceptional case. Filtering depends on the well 
known physical principle, that solids held in sus¬ 
pension (not dissolved) in a liquid, tend to adhere 
to the walls of the containing vessel or to any 
larger solids within it. Thus a slimy substance ac¬ 
cumulates on the walls of cisterns, water pails, or 
wells, and on the stones in brooks. To hasten the 
separation of the solid particles from the liquid, it 
is passed through a porous substance, as sand, 
which affords a large amount 9 f solid surface to 
which the small floating particles may attach them¬ 
selves. To best secure this, the liquid must move 
slowly, since any considerable current will wash 
the light particles loose from the solids. If the 
liquid holds gaseous substances dissolved in it, a 
porous substance which will absorb and remove 
such offensive gas is needed for the filter or part of 
it. For this last purpose, wood charcoal is much 
used in combination with the clean sand. 
Instead of one or both of these, common brick 
is sometimes used, the water being passed through 
the pores of the brick in a four-inch wall. But it 
is obvious from the nature of the filtering process 
that after a time the pores of the brick will become 
filled with impurities, and cease to be effective. 
In some experiments made by Prof. Alfred B. 
Prescott, of the University of Michigan, he found 
that, ■while a sand and charcoal filter removed 
from seventy to ninety per cent of putrescible sub¬ 
stances, a brick wall removed only nine to ten per 
cent. It is not stated whether the two-inch brick 
wall had been in use as a filter for some time, but 
this is to he inferred from the account. Brick 
filters have lately been strongly commended by 
good authorities, but they are clearly not to 
be depended on for any length of time. 
Where a sand and charcoal filter becomes filled 
with the substances removed from the water, they 
Fig. 4. —ANOTHER STII.E. 
