1874 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
299 
bad. It has caved in, and become choked with 
surface rubbish, until it is nearly useless, and 
the swamp is returning to its condition of a 
stagnant pond. 
The area to be drained is only about ten 
acres, but it lies directly in front of a fine res¬ 
idence, and must be made dry without regard 
to the agricultural value of the improvement. 
I find that by following a devious line, and in¬ 
creasing the length to about 1,100 feet, the 
drain can be made with very much less cutting, 
and through less difficult ground. The average 
cut will be about 8 feet, a small tunnel being 
made under a road where before it was neces¬ 
sary to cut 21 feet deep and 5 feet wide on the 
average. 
The drain will be laid with 6-inch drain tiles, 
and the whole cost will not exceed $450. This 
will secure an absolutely permanent drain, 
costing, with interest at present rates, say $35 
per annum. The $1,500 stone-drain has be¬ 
come worthless in about twenty years. It has 
cost—interest and depreciation—about $150 per 
annum. 
The outlet of this drain will be protected by 
cheap masonry, and a grate to exclude vermin. 
The great point of danger is the inlet. Mud 
and floating rubbish must be kept out, or the 
whole drain may become worthless. This will 
be prevented by the arrangement shown in the 
illustration. At the side of the swamp toward 
the outlet, there ■will be a stout retaining 
■wall of rough stone-work, to support the earth 
needed to protect the tile. Adjoining this will 
be a round well of brick or stone, 4 feet in 
diameter and 3 feet deep. The top of the wall 
of this well wfill be level with the bottom of 
the tile where it passes over it, so that it will 
be the thickness of the tile, say i inch, below' 
the surface of the water. The upper end of 
the'drain will be furnished with a curved joint 
of pipe, turning down about one foot into the 
■water. Thus the inlet will be below the reach 
of floating rubbish, and well above the sedi¬ 
ment which accumulates in the well, and which 
can be removed from time to time. 
To secure the free admission of as much 
water as the tile is capable of carrying, the in¬ 
let will be 10 inches in diameter, narrowing to 
6 inches within a few feet. 
Arrangement for Hurdles. 
As the season is at hand for hurdling sheep, 
we give the accompanying illustration and de¬ 
scription of a method of placing the hurdles or 
nets, by which the least labor or length of 
hurdles or nets 
need to be used. 
We suppose a 
^ square field of 10 
acres is to be fed 
e off. The distance 
across the field is 
220 yards. This is 
the least length 
of hurdles that 
ABBAKGEHEXT OF HURDLES. , , T . , 
can be used. But 
if the field is divided off into strips across, 
the whole of the hurdles must be moved each 
time, and if the field is divided into eight strips, 
there will be seven removals of every hurdle, 
or the whole length of netting. In the plan 
here shown, only half this work is necessary, 
and a field may be divided into eight sections 
by moving half the hurdles seven times. For 
instance, plot 1 is fed by placing the hurdles 
from a to b, and from c to d. Plot number 2 is 
fed by moving the hurdles from b to e. The 
next setting of the hurdles is from c to/, the 
next from b to g, the next from h to i, the next 
from b to k, the next, and last, from l to m. 
There will be eight settings of 110 yards each, 
instead of seven of 220 yards each, which would 
be necessary, should the field be fed off in the 
usual manner of strips across it. 
California Tobacco. 
It would seem as though tobacco planting in 
California is destined to have a great influence 
upon the profit of the crop in the East. The 
planting is rapidly increasing in California, 
year by year, and the product is enormous. 
There are two or three cuttings in a season, 
and some planters speak of 4,000 pounds per 
acre, or more, as the yield of their plantings. 
One planter in Lake County, has nearly 300,000 
plants set out this season, an incorporated com¬ 
pany have a million plants set out in Los 
Angeles County, and nearly as many in Santa 
Cruz County. Besides these there are many 
other large planters, and more smaller ones. 
In addition to the large plantings and prolific 
yield, a process of curing is there practiced, by 
which the tobacco is quickly prepared for 
market, and its value increased. This is 
known as the Culp process, and is patented. 
The tobacco yet green is piled up and allowed 
to ferment and heat. The moisture is thus 
rapidly expelled, and the character and texture 
of the leaf is improved. If the anticipations 
in which the California tobacco growers freely 
indulge, are only partly verified, it will give 
rise to a serious competition, which Eastern 
growers may find too formidable to resist. If 
this should be the result, however, we do not 
think there is any reason for regret, as we 
believe Eastern farmers will find, in the long 
run, wheat, corn, and grass, to be more profit¬ 
able to themselves and their land thaD tobacco. 
Cramming Poultry. 
It is altogether a vitiated taste that creates a 
demand for over-fattened meat. There is no 
nutriment in fat, and w T ith the large consump¬ 
tion of sugar, syrup, and starchy food, that is 
common among us, the necessities of the system 
for carbonaceous food are fully, if not over 
supplied. The use of excessively fat food then 
is a waste of material, and it probably induces 
some of the bilious disorders w'hich are so 
common. With regard to poultry these re¬ 
marks are especially applicable. The markets 
of the cities are filled with fowls that are lined 
with fat, a useless addition that is a loss to the 
consumer, and its production has been at the 
expense of a waste of food to the feeder. Be¬ 
sides, housekeepers complain of these over fat 
fowls, that they are deficient in delicacy of 
flavor, and are coarse and greasy, thus losing 
in quality as well as in weight. This matter is 
in the hands of farmers themselves to remedy. 
They alone decide as to what degree of fatness 
their fowls shall be brought, or rather, not 
knowing exactly how' fat they are, they con¬ 
tinue to feed them much too long for their own 
profit. A very thin fowl can be brought into 
good condition for the table by three weeks’ 
feeding. Generally a fowl from a grain-stubble 
or a barn-yard at a time when waste grain is 
scattered about liberally, as well as at other 
times, when the housewife undertakes the feed¬ 
ing of the poultry, is sufficiently fat for the 
a 
<U>; 
o 
i 
l 
2 
b 
tr 
6 
6 2 
i 
* s 
market, without extra feed. If poultry is 
marketed at the age of two years, and none 
older than that kept, the quality of the flesh 
will be all that can be desired, without any 
cramming or extra feed, and the extra fat that 
is laid upon an old fowl, is no addition to its 
goodness, but rather adds to its bad qualities. 
A good judge of poultry looks to the age of a 
fowl, and passes by the old birds that have 
been crammed to fit them for market. 
The Transportation Problem—Steam on 
Canals. 
Transportation by water has ever been, and 
probably ever will be, the cheapest method of 
moving heavy freight. Natural water-ways, 
such as oceans, lakes, and rivers, are obviously 
the cheapest of all, as they cost nothing to con¬ 
struct, and next to these come canals, which 
are simply artificial rivers. It remains then 
only to provide the most economical mode of 
carrying freight upon these natural or artificial 
water-ways, to secure the cheapest system of 
transportation. But while this general propo¬ 
sition is simple enough, there are other con¬ 
siderations which affect the question and give 
rise to difficulties, which give to this seeming¬ 
ly simple business the character of a problem. 
For instance, there is the storage and transfer 
of grain and other produce in the west, the 
transfer of freight from lake vessels to railroad 
cars, and canal boats, the intermediate and 
temporary storage when that is necessary, the 
conveyance, heretofore necessarily slow, upon 
the canals, and the final disposition of the 
freight when it has reached tide water, and is 
awaiting shipment. All these matters involve 
delay and cost, and it is upon the perfect man¬ 
agement of each, and the economical working 
of the whole together, that the final successful 
solution of the transportation problem depends. 
That system which will use the means we have 
in such a manner as shall cost the least money 
to the shipper of the freight, will be the best 
possible one. The time occupied in the transit 
of produce is a large element of cost, because 
time is money, and every hour’s unnecessary 
delay adds to the expense. In the water-route 
from the lake-ports to those of the Atlantic, 
there has been hitherto a link, or rather a 
break, consisting of the Erie and other canals, 
which has added greatly to the cost of trans¬ 
porting grain, as compared with what that cost 
would have been could this break have been 
avoided. This weak link, or break, in the con¬ 
tinuity of the routes, of comparatively insigni¬ 
ficant length, caused the greater part of the ex¬ 
pense of shipping a cargo of grain from the 
west to the east, by reason of the slow transit 
of freight upon it. It has, therefore, been a 
matter of great interest to have the canal 
system so improved, that it should be made 
equally economical with the lakes and the 
Hudson river. The use of steam in place 
of horse-power has long been viewed as the 
chief improvement to be made, and the State 
of New York, the owner of the canals, offer¬ 
ed a premium of $100,000 to the inventor of 
the steam canal-boat, which should succeed in 
transporting freight at the minimum of cost. 
In the competition for this prize last season, 
several boats of different construction were 
presented. The most successful of these, and 
that which made the most rapid trips at the 
least cost, was a boat designed and built by Mr. 
William Baxter, of Newark, N. J., the inventor 
also of one of the most compact, safe, elegant. 
