236 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
August. 
rished his farm so that he can scarcely make a 
living on it; but how, is a question, which if you 
put to him, he cannot answer. He lives, or half 
lives, and so do his family—but how, he cannot 
tell you. He has no system of accounts, and if he 
had they would be of no use to him, for at the 
end of the year he could not reckon them up. 
My intention is far from ridiculing these farm¬ 
ers; but it is to awaken them to the necessity 
of improvement, and it this be impossible in them¬ 
selves, not to dehy it to their children. 
Last spring, when I first took possession of this 
farm, one of the first practical jobs which I ac¬ 
complished, was (with spade in hand) to examine 
the subsoil, which I found to contain no substance 
poisonous to vegetation, and to my delight, for 
our soil is a sandy loam, it appeared to contain 
more clay than was to be found in the surface soil. 
_ I plowed a lot which I designed for oats, from 
six to eight inches deep. This lot was the poorest 
piece of land on the farm, and had never before 
been plowed more than three inches deep. The 
oats were then sowed, and the only manure ap¬ 
plied was 100 lbs. Peruvian guano per acre, sown 
broadcast. 
My neighbors all said I was ruining my land by 
letting the goodness out, and showered upon me 
many other interesting criticisms of the same kind. 
I tried to reason and explain to them, that I had 
done nothing but what common sense taught • but 
to convince them was of no use, for— 
“ He lliat’s convinced against his will. 
Is of the same opinion still.” 
I therefore let the matter rest, hoping to show 
them the benefit of the course I pursued in harvest 
time. 
I would add that these oats, at present, look 
better than those sowed by my neighbors three 
weeks previous to them, on a much richer soil. 
On the Long Island farms, the top of a side hill 
is usually called a gravelly knoll, as the soil, if 
there ever was any on it, has long since washed 
off, making it not only useless for cultivation, but 
decidedly unpleasant to the eye. The knolls are 
scarcely ever cultivated, and never manured. 
I have been thus particular in this description, as 
I wish to mention the treatment I pursued on one 
of them previous to planting it with Indian corn. 
In a lot of five acres, one-tenth of it was taken up 
by one of these knolls. I first spread it over 
broadcast with 23 loads of pond mud, which was 
last winter exposed to the action of the frost. I 
then spread, in the same way, several loads of pig 
manure; these having been plowed in, and well 
harrowed, I planted my corn with dung in the 
hill, as I did also the remainder of the lot. 
The corn, at this date, on the side hill, looks as 
promising as that in the valley of the lot, which is 
a rich loam. I will not mention the many dis¬ 
couragements I met with while pursuing this 
course, supposing, as they were disagreeable to 
me, they would also be to the reader. 
There is no portion of the state where the land 
is more subject to drouth than on this island, and 
probably no region where deep plowing is so little 
attended to. On sandy and friable soils, deep 
plowing may often be injurious, but this is an ex¬ 
ception to the general rule. When the rain runs 
off* the hills without penetrating the soil, and thus 
causing drouth, the best remedy is to plow deep. 
I have already written more than was at first 
my intention, and will therefore cut short, promis¬ 
ing after harvest to give the results of the crops I 
have spoken of, be they good or bad, and at some 
future time will relate the course I have pursued 
with other crops. Your ob’t serv’t, George T. 
Hammond. Hill-side Farm, Huntington, L. I. 
Smokey Chimneys. 
We would prefer almost any situation to con¬ 
finement in a smokey room. Many a family we 
have known to be reared in kitchens that received 
smoke enough, every month, to cure a heap of 
bacon. These same families would seem to be so 
thoroughly cured by smoke, as to defy the chole¬ 
ra or any contagious disease. 
One imagines that his house is located upon the 
wrong side of the hill or wood lot. Another 
complains that his dwelling stands in a valley 
where the winds move in a fixed current down his 
chimney, and no scientific application can pre¬ 
vent it. 
As you pass through many a village or country 
town, you find the chimney tops adorned with 
every kind of paraphernalia that human wisdom 
may invent. The first impression is, that you are 
passing a sentinel upon the walls. In our cold 
latitude, where chimneys are indispensible, no¬ 
thing, at so little cost, sets off the upper story 
and good appearance of a dwelling like a well- 
proportion chimney top. 
Sometimes, where there are two flues in the 
same chimney, the smoke will ascend the one and 
descend the other into another apartment of the 
house. To remedy this, take out the division wall 
between the flues, from the top downwards about 
four or five feet. This will check the cold draught, 
or descent in the opposite flue. 
Smoke is an elastic fluid, and being rarified by 
heat, becomes lighter than the atmosphere, and 
rises to its proper elasticity, unless some obstruc¬ 
tion or stronger current turns it from its natural 
course. 
All bodies, lighter than the surrounding atmos¬ 
phere, ascend in a perpendicular line. The same 
may be applied to those substances that are more 
weighty than the atmosphere; they tall in a per¬ 
pendicular line, unless forced out of their natural 
course. Smoke, near the fire, is the most elastic, 
and rises faster than when at some distance above 
it. This is one principal pdnt why the draught 
to open chimneys, for burning wood or coals, is so 
slight: the sooner the smoke cools, by coming in 
contact with a larger quantity of the surrounding 
atmosphere, the slower it ascends. 
The flue, at some distance above the fire, may 
be too small, and the throat of the chimney, just 
opposite the mantel, immediately over the fire, 
may be too large, or the throat may not be di¬ 
rectly over the fire to receive the smoke, all of 
which will prevent the free and upward tendency 
through the chimney, to the outside atmosphere. 
The throat of the chimney, in all cases, should 
be at a proper distance from the fire, and perpen¬ 
dicular above it-, where the throat is of immode¬ 
rate size, however perfect in every other respect 
the fire-place maybe constructed, nothing can pre¬ 
vent the warm air in the room rapidly escaping 
through it. The same applies to cast-iron fire¬ 
places, or open stoves, for burning wood or coal. 
The draught can be carried backward, but Jo re¬ 
ceive the smoke, the flue must commence perpen¬ 
dicularly above the fire, and the throat not more 
than one-half, one-third or one-fourth the size of 
the flue above, because, as before stated, the more 
