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THE RURAb NEW-YORKER 
Farm Water Problems 
Old Well as Cesspool. 
The sink drain at our New Hampshire 
farm is on the surface, and we wish to 
put it underground. Thirty feet from the 
house is an old. abandoned well. Would 
it he safe to drain the sewer into this 
well? If not. how far from the house 
should the cesspool be made and how 
deep ought it to be? Should it be lined 
with stones? This old well is down hill 
from the well supplying the family, and 
about 100 feet away. The family well is 
a drilled well. c. E. A. 
Virginia. 
If the proposed drain is to take liquids 
from a sink only, the abandoned well 
would be an ideal outlet for it, and, even 
if a water closet is to be connected with 
it, this deep well will probably be entire¬ 
ly safe. No one can say positively, how¬ 
ever, what the underground water chan¬ 
nels are, and, even though a cesspool is 
below and a hundred feet away from a 
well, there is always a possibility that it 
may pollute the well. On the other hand, 
a cesspool might be situated above and 
close to a well without contaminating it, 
a ledge of impermeable rock might lie be¬ 
tween. Ordinarily, a cesspool 100 feet 
or more from a well and on the downhill 
side may be considered safe, and, from 
your description, I should not hesitate to 
use this old well. The fact that the 
family well is a drilled well is an addi¬ 
tional safeguard. M. B. D. 
Pump Away from Well. 
On page 727 is the inquiry of H. II., 
who wishes to locate a pump several feet 
from the well. I have had some experi¬ 
ence with pumps, and the last pump I 
put in I located 40 feet from the well, and 
was surprised by the ease with which it 
worked, as it drew water through about 
55 feet of pipe. In putting in this pump, 
however, I took the advice of the man of 
whom I bought it, and who is connected 
with one of the oldest pump manufactur¬ 
ing concerns in the United States, and 
put in my pump in accordance with the 
plan shown in the enclosed sketch, with 
two air spaces in the pipe; one at the 
well and one near the pump. By this 
means I avoid pumping a column of water 
50 feet long through a pipe and bringing 
to a dead stop at each stroke of the pump 
as I should have to do if it were not for 
the air spaces. As it takes 10 or 15 
strokes to pump a pail of water, think of 
the energy wasted if this column of water 
is brought to a full stop at every stroke! 
If the pump is to be located where it will 
be exposed to frost I would not think of 
using a pitcher pump, but would locate 
the cylinder four or five feet below the 
surface of the ground. Mine is five feet 
down, and the pipe leading from the well 
the same depth. With a small vent in 
the pipe above the cylinder I have had 
no serious trouble from frost. w. w. G. 
Formerly we pumped water from a 
spring to the house, distance of about 
17 rods,‘ through a lead pipe, %-inch 
bore. The water had to be raised per¬ 
pendicularly (or uphill) six or seven 
feet. No difficulty was found in pumping 
with a good pump. When the woods 
were cleared on the hill above the spring 
it failed. Mr. Warburton, a neighbor, 
pumps from a never-failing spring to his 
house (a distance of 10 rods) through an 
iron pipe, one inch bore,' with a rise of 
five or six feet. He pumps from the 
same spring to his barn to water all his 
cattle, horses, and hogs, a distance of 
about five rods, and a rise of five or six 
feet. I have tried his pumps, which are 
good ones. It takes a little longer to get 
the water started, but when started 
pumps no harder than though the pump 
was beside the spring. 
Potatoes designed for human food 
should be raised only on sod land that 
has not been manured with stable dung 
for three years. The yield will be less, 
but the quality much better. Raised on 
land freshly manured the potatoes will be 
watery and taste rank. The best pota¬ 
toes I ever ate were raised on new land 
lately cleared of the woods. They were 
dry, mealy, sweet and delicious. A per¬ 
son could make out a full meal on such 
potatoes and butter. It may be that the 
secret of the Maine farmer’s success is 
in raising potatoes on a clover sod that 
has not been lately manured. 
J. W. INGHAM. 
R. N.-Y.—A large part of the best 
Maine potatoes are grown on clover sod 
with heavy dressings of chemical fertili¬ 
zers. The “quality” which usually 
means the per cent of starch in the tuber, 
seems to depend largely on the variety. 
Varieties seem to differ in this respect 
almost as much as Jersey or Holstein 
cows differ in the fat content of their 
milk. Chemical fertilizer containing sul¬ 
phate of potash gives a high quality of 
potato. 
Cistern Filter. 
What is the best kind of filter to use in 
a cistern, also how prevent the first water 
flowing into the new cistern from becom¬ 
ing hard? w. c. K. 
Montgomery, Ill. 
The most simple cistern filter is made 
by building a wall of porous brick across 
the cistern to divide it into two compart¬ 
ments, from the smaller of which the 
water is pumped after it has seeped 
through the brick. A second cistern, or 
chamber, may be built outside the first 
and in the bottom of this there may be 
placed gravel, crushed charcoal, and fine 
sand in successive layers, each about a 
foot thick, the gravel at the top. A pipe 
from the bottom of this filter chamber 
connecting with the storage cistern car¬ 
ries the filtered water into the latter. The 
filter chamber must have considerable ca¬ 
pacity above the layer of gravel, of 
course, and must be on a higher level 
than the storage cistern. All construction 
is best made from concrete. M. B. D. 
A Deep Well. —The IT. S. Geological 
Survey tells of a deep well recently 
drilled at Charleston, S. C. This well 
went to a depth of 2,000 feet below sea 
level. There was found a natural flow 
of fine soft water, which yields over one- 
half million gallons a day. It is found 
that the temperature of this water as it 
flows out from the mouth of the well, is 
90% deg. which is 35 to 40 deg. warmer 
than water obtained from wells less than 
100 feet deep. By studying the layers 
of soil through which this well was dug, 
some interesting facts relating to the 
geology of South Carolina have been de¬ 
veloped. The engineers find the shells of 
one species of the oyster family some 80 
feet below the surface. This shell tells 
a story to students of earth history. They 
conclude that when this oyster was alive 
it lay at the bottom of the ocean, the 
present side of Charleston, and probably 
a space 100 miles or more inland was 
then covered by the ocean. The rivers 
flowing from the land carried mud and 
sand until they slowly filled in the de¬ 
pression, and the dry land appeared above 
the water. 
Names Of Streams. —The U. S. Geo¬ 
logical Survey gives the queer names of 
rivers and streams in Iowa. You would 
know from these names that Iowa is a 
farming State: “First there is a Farm 
Creek, so that Farmers Creek is not out 
of place; then there is a Chicken Creek, 
a Duck Creek, a Goose Creek, a number 
of Turkey creeks, as -well as Pigeon 
Creek. There are Fox, Hawk, and Rat 
creeks to devour the domestic animals, 
and some Crow creeks, while there is also 
a Fly Creek and Mosquito Creek to 
worry the Summer boarders. Milk and 
Cold Water creeks are present, likewise 
a Hog Run and a Mud Creek, so that 
Bacon Creek is not strange. It is fitting 
that with a Bee Creek and a Bee Branch 
there should also be a Honey Creek. 
There are a couple of Cherry creeks, a 
Crabapple Creek, and plenty of Plum 
creeks, and for wild animals we have 
Bear, Beaver. Buck, Crane, Deer, Doe, 
Elk, Otter, Panther. Raccoon, Skunk, 
and V olf creeks. With a Keg Creek there 
is a Whiskey Creek and a Whiskey Run. 
Finally there is a Purgatory Creek.” 
Events of the Week. 
DOMESTIC.—George L. Newberry, of 
Kirkwood, N. J., a professional airman, 
fell and was killed May 31, at Troy, N. 
Y., while making a flight at a picnic. He 
went up in a biplane and was making 
ready to return to the ground when the 
machine suddenly tipped and dashed to 
earth, a distance of between 40 and 50 
feet. 
Fumes from tons of burning sulphur 
overpowered a score of firemen June 1 in 
a .$100,000 four-alarm fire which swept 
away part of the Sixth street basin of the 
Gowanus Canal, Brooklyn, N. Y. 
Governor Williams ordered a company 
of the Oklahoma National Guard .Tune 1 
to assist the sheriff’s force of Garfield 
County in quelling riots growing out of 
the demands of more than 500 men, who 
have been in Enid for nearly a week 
waiting for work in the harvest fields. 
Two hundred men were escorted to the 
railroad stations, placed aboard freight 
trains and told to leave. More than a 
hundred others who arrived in the city at 
the same time were warned to leave at 
once. 
Six persons were killed and 19 more or 
less seriously injured at Dallas, Texas, 
June 1, when a large passenger automo¬ 
bile truck fell over a high embankment 
about five miles east of Dallas. The party 
was returning from an entertainment at 
an orphan home east of the city and the 
driver ran close to the edge of the road 
while turning aside to let an automobile 
pass. 
While firemen fought a spectacular 
$50,000 fire in a six-story loft building in 
Pearl street, New York, .Tune 1, thou¬ 
sands of persons were attracted to the 
scene, with the result that pickpockets be¬ 
came almost as busy as the fire fighters. 
Two firemen were injured while at work. 
President Wilson signed an executive 
order .Tune 1 placing Mrs. F. Pierard, of 
Sausalito, Cal., on the roll of employees 
of the Mare Island Navy Yard as seam¬ 
stress and flagmaker without civil service 
examination. Mrs. Pierard’s husband was 
chief gunner’s mate on the submarine F-4, 
lost two months ago near Honolulu. Mrs. 
Pierard is the mother of twins seven¬ 
teen months old. She supports them and 
her invalid sister. Mrs. Lunger, whose 
husband also went down with the F-4. 
The appointment was recommended by 
Secretary Daniels, who had received from 
Mrs. Pierard a pathetic letter describing 
her plight. 
W. W. Whyard. Democratic boss of 
Rockland County, N. Y., was sentenced 
to eight months impi isonment and fined 
$250 and James Boyd, a road inspector, 
was sentenced to six months in the pen¬ 
itentiary June 1 by Supreme Court Jus¬ 
tice A. S. Tompkins for conspiring to de¬ 
fraud the State in road work. The Aetna 
Construction Company, of which Whyard 
was head, was fined $250. 
Greek letter fraternity men cannot at¬ 
tend any of the State schools in Missis¬ 
sippi. This xvas decided June 1 by the 
United States Supreme Court, which up¬ 
held the law barring fraternity members 
from Mississippi schools. 
Admiral Fletcher’s fleet of battleships 
and destroyers will not go through the 
Panama Canal on July 4, as originally 
planned. Instead they will remain in the 
Atlantic for some time—at least until 
the present European situation clears up 
considerably. 
Beginning with midnight June 1, the 
travelling man or woman who carries 
more than $100 worth of baggage on a 
railroad journey will have to pay the 
freight. This is required by the Cummins 
amendment to the rate act which pro¬ 
hibits a railroad from making any limi¬ 
tation on its liability in either the trans¬ 
portation of baggage or freight. If the 
baggage is valued at more than $100 the 
traveller will be requiied to pay 10 cents 
for each excess unit of $100 or fraction 
thereof. This may result in a good many 
complaints, but the law will be observed 
by the railways and enforced by the In¬ 
terstate Commerce Commission. Railway 
officials believe that a marked decline in 
the weight of baggage will result. The 
new law is one of the “reform” notions 
written into the statutes by Senator 
Cummins, author of the “Iowa idea.” 
The largest check ever written in this 
city was drawn on the National City 
Bank June 1 by Kuhn. Loeb & Co. It 
was for between $92,090,000 and $63,000,- 
000. and was payable to the Pennsylvania 
Railroad Company. It represented the 
proceeds of the sale of the $65,000,000 
Pennsylvania Railroad Company general 
mortgage 4% per cent bonds. 
After it had been raised from a depth 
of more than 300 feet to within 24 feet 
of the surface, further salvaging of the 
submarine F-4 at Honolulu had to be sus¬ 
pended June 2 on account of a large hole 
in the shell and danger of the hulk break¬ 
ing in two. A new method of lifting will 
be tried, and a month’s delay isexpected. 
Thirteen descents were made in search 
for the submerged submarine and every 
one broke a previous world’s record. Five 
of the descents were made to a depth of 
306 feet and eight to 275 feet. The for' 
mer world’s record was 274 feet. 
Seventy-five defiant Ute Indians from 
the Uintah reservation in Southern Utah, 
have invaded Colorado and camped at 
Douglas Creek and White River, an out- 
of-the-way section of Rio Blanco County. 
They assert that they own the land by 
treaties with the Federal government, and 
threaten to resist with arms any attempt 
to drive them off. The hostile braves are 
part of the old Chief Ouray’s tribe. 
June 12, 1915. 
President Wilson served notice June 2 
on the warring leaders in Mexico that they 
must compose their differences “within a 
very short time” by setting up a govern¬ 
ment that the world in conscience may 
recognize or the United States will be 
constrained to take steps “to help Mexico 
save herself and serve her people.” There 
was no direct threat of armed interven¬ 
tion in the President’s declaration, but it 
is generally recognized that extreme meas¬ 
ures of this character may ultimately be 
necessary to accomplish the President’s 
purpose. 
FARM AND GARDEN.—Under the 
auspices of the State Board of Agricul¬ 
ture a field day for the farmers of New 
Jersey will be held at the home of the 
president, J. S. Frelinghuysen, at Raritan 
Valley Farms, near Somerville, New Jer¬ 
sey, on Saturday. .Tune 19. Addresses 
will be made by IT. W. Collingwood: an 
official from the Department of Agricul¬ 
ture at Washington, D. C., and others. 
An interesting program has been ar¬ 
ranged. Luncheon will be provided for 
the guests by President Frelinghuysen. 
Somerville is on the Central Railroad of 
New Jersey, and is easily accessible from 
all connecting points. 
The Civil Service Commission. Wash¬ 
ington. D. C., will hold an examination, 
June 19. for the vacancy in the position 
of division park foreman in Washington, 
D. C.. at a salary of $90 per month. Ap¬ 
plicants must be between the ages of 25 
and 45 years and must have been for not 
less than five years in charge of men en¬ 
gaged in gardening work, park mainte¬ 
nance and park improvement, and must 
demonstrate practical knowledge of gar¬ 
dening and a thorough knowledge of care 
of trees, shrubs, flowers and lawns. A 
statement is also required as to whether 
applicant can ride a bicycle. 
The annual convention of the Texas 
State Florists’ Association, will be held 
at Ft. Worth. July 6-7. 
It is reported that three ounces of seed 
of a new English sweet pea were pur¬ 
chased for trial this season by an Amer¬ 
ican seedsman for $417 an ounce. 
The British Foreign Office has an¬ 
nounced to the State Department at 
Washington that it will not interfere 
with shipments of sugar beet seed from 
Germany on condition that it is shown 
that the seed cannot be obtained else¬ 
where. that no exchange of American 
commodities is involved and that ship¬ 
ments be made from a neutral port. The 
State Department’s announcement was: 
“The British Foreign Office has announc¬ 
ed that the British Government would 
consider each case of the exportation of 
beet seeds from Germany to the United 
States upon its merits and would be will¬ 
ing to give assurances of non-interference 
with particular shipments: (a) if it 
shows that the seeds cannot be secured 
except in Germany; (b) if there is no 
question of exchange of commodities with 
Germany involved, and (c) if the seeds 
are shipped from a neutral port, as Rot¬ 
terdam.” 
Coming Farmers’ Meetings. 
New Jersey State Board of Agriculture, 
Field Day, Raritan Valley Farms, Som¬ 
erville, N. J., June 19. 
Fourth annual Summer School, under 
auspices of Washington State College, 
Puyallup, Wash.; June 21-July 30. 
American Nurserymen’s Association, 
fortieth annual convention, Detroit, 
Mich.. June 23-25. 
Certified Milk Producers’ Association 
of America, eighth annual convention, At¬ 
lantic City, N. J., June 30-July 1. 
Texas State Florists’ Association, an¬ 
nual convention, Fort Worth, Texas, July 
6-7. 
International Viticulture Congress, 
Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francis¬ 
co, July 12-13. 
National Fertilizer Association, annual 
convention. Hot Springs, Va., July 13-14. 
Ginners’ Association of the Cotton 
Belt, Atlanta, Ga., July 23-24. 
American Gladiolus Society, Annual 
show, Newport, R. I., August 18, 19, 
1915. 
Warren County Farmers’ Picnic, Bel- 
videre, N. J., August 18. 
New York State Fair, Syracuse, N. Y., 
September 13-18. 
Genesee County Fair, Batavia, N. Y., 
September 21-25. 
Farmers’ National Congress, annual 
meeting, Omaha, Neb., September 2S-Oc- 
tober 1. 
International Dry Farming Congress, 
Denver, Colo., Oct. 4-7. 
Southwestern New York Breeders’ As¬ 
sociation. consignment sale, Randolph, 
N. Y.. Oct. 1. 
Chrysanthemum Society of America, 
annual show, Cleveland, Ohio, November 
10-14. 1915. Special show, San Francis¬ 
co., Cal. 
Annual Corn and Grain Show, Tracy, 
Minn., Jan. 3-8, 1910. 
There will be an important meeting of 
milk producers at Oneida, N. Y„ in the 
City Hall, June 12, 1915, at 10 A. M. 
All producers who are interested in bet¬ 
ter prices for their milk are urged to be 
present or send some one to represent 
them, as it is expected this will be one of 
the biggest meetings ever held by pro¬ 
ducers. GEO. B. BROPIIY. 
Oneida, N. Y. 
