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422 
American Agriculturist, December 20, 1924 
Surface Water—Good and Bad 
And Other Timely Farm Practices That Our Readers Have Liked 
D URING the past fall, the streams in about 
every eastern State were so low that the 
volume of “water power” in most of them 
is negligible. Not for many years has there 
been such a universally small “delivery” of fresh 
water into such trunk water-courses as the Mo¬ 
hawk, the Hudson, and the Conneclicut. 
But notwithstanding that springs and wells are 
failing we have not suffered (except in small local 
areas) really severe surface drought. This ap¬ 
parent contradiction is due to the fact that we have 
had no “long soaking rains” for some time. 
In other words, the precipitation records of 
State Experiment Stations tell one story, and the 
low streams tell another entirely different one— 
that we have had no rains to reach the springs— 
the source of their perpetual flowing—since the 
soaking snows of last winter disappeared into the 
ground. 
From every indication we are booked for heavy, 
if not excessive, rains in the next few weeks. 
the growing season. The fact is not generally 
known, but is nevertheless true, that whereas our 
annual rainfall here in the East is some forty 
inches per annum, and whereas the lighter rains 
that fall during the growing season are practically 
all absorbed into the soil as they descend—the 
very opposite is true of winter rains, both what is 
popularly known as “storm”'water and the March 
thawing from accumulated snows. 
Under these circumstances, therefore, a field 
that is entitled to forty inches of rain, half of 
, which should be in the form of soil water (that is, 
taken in and absorbed deeply into the sub-soil for 
subsequent delivery upward to the growing plants 
by capillary action) gets only or little more than 
half of this—the rest draining off immediately 
from the surface down the hill and being a total 
loss in nature’s economy as far as that particular 
field is concerned. 
It is our practice to terrace such orchards, vine¬ 
yards, asparagus fields, and so forth, in such a 
way that this down-rushing surface water is held 
in numerous pockets and pools upon the slopes— 
all winter, if need be, so that it is ultimately ab¬ 
sorbed for later use in the growing season—, 
“soaked” into the ground. 
This is done by running the rows of trees and 
other crops to conform to the contour of the 
slope—the exact opposite of up and down the hill. 
Where this is planned skillfully cultivation will 
naturally result in terracing and retarding this 
surface waste. Further, the accumulating ridge 
will protect each tree against all possibility of 
damage from the “squeezing” of surface water 
which often freezes solidly and suddenly. 
posts., One is a more premanent affair. A con¬ 
crete firebox i$ just as good as one made of 
bricks. The other illustration shows a more tem¬ 
porary arrangement in which two tight barrels 
are used, connected by a pipe around which a fire 
is built. 
There is no question but what creosote will add 
to the life of fence pq^ts. Those that are treated 
in creosote will last three to five times as long as 
untreated posts. This is especially true of the 
softer varieties, such as willow, ash, elm, soft 
maple, white cedar and cottonwood. 
It is better to use round posts for creosoting, 
rather than split ones, as the penetration will be 
more uniform. All bark must be stripped off and 
the timber well seasoned before treatment. The 
posts are immersed in the creosote, which is kept 
An Argument in Favor of Turf Mulch 
A Permanent Creosoting Kettle 
Rains that will reach these shrunken streams be¬ 
sides a surface surplus that will fill up the old 
swamps everywhere. 
However, should these hard rainfalls be delay¬ 
ed until the ground is frozen solid, their falling 
will mean an excess of surface water which will 
not merely cause dangerous and damaging floods,’ 
even in small streams, but leave an accumulation 
of damaging ponds scattered over every level farm 
in the country. 
# Worse still, heavy rains falling upon an un¬ 
yielding surface, in their mad race for the valley, 
cut terrible gashes in sloping land, especially if 
not protected by cover crops. 
How Some Farmers Minimize the Damage 
It is the practice of many good farmers, under 
conditions such as confront us this season, to plow 
around the slopes of their hill land sown to winter 
grains and grasses, turning a medium furrow 
down hill and so following the contour that these 
furrows are nearly level, though really draining 
toward some chosen depression, where the rushing 
water they are designed to, gather can be disposed 
of with the minimum of damage. To be sure these 
furrows are an injury which must be carefully 
repaired the following spring, but it is compara¬ 
tively slight to what may happen in their absence. 
If the land is actually bare and the slope is more 
than seven or eight degrees, these furrows may 
well be every twenty-five or thirty feet—both for 
the above and for another quite as important rea¬ 
son : 
Let us say that the field under consideration 
a young orchard or vineyard, or an asparagus 
ntation, in fact assigned to any important per- 
‘ crop which requires a maximum amount of 
oisture ready to be delivered upward during 
The above is further aided as an orchard be¬ 
comes mature by the “turf belt” which inevitably 
finds its place along the row of tree trunks. And 
parenthetically, this is one of the unnoticed argu¬ 
ments in favor of “turf mulch” in a bearing or¬ 
chard. An acre of such turf mulch will absorb 
several inches of precipitation per annum than 
the same acre would if bare ground. 
In certain geologic formations, not only in New 
York State, but on plains land everywhere there 
are found “sink-holes” which have no drainage, 
natural surface drainage. In times of drought 
like this they are dry as a bone. In times of flood 
they are "sometimes yards deep in water, and 
whether this occurs in winter or summer, threat¬ 
ening disaster to everything so flooded. The best 
way to handle such situations is to take advantage 
of the present dryness and, digging down to the 
inevitable hard pan at the lowest point of these 
“sinks,” dynamite through the pan, thus letting 
the bottom out so that this water will rapidly soak 
away. 
We had a ludicrous proof of the practicability 
of the above when a few years ago a neighbor in a 
dry spell like the present tried to deepen a 
“spring” which he claimed was at the bottom of a 
sink hole in his pasture. Almost always there had 
been a little pond of water there, and he said he 
could make it flow by digging down—and he did 
—it has floated downward ever since! He punc¬ 
tured the bottom of his water-pail, despite our 
A Temporary Creosoting Device 
at a temperature of about 200 degrees or more for 
a period of two hours. The penetration should 
extend at least one inch. It is a good idea to dip 
the tops of the posts in the hot creosote to avoid 
rotting at the upper end. The end that goes into 
'the ground should be creosoted at least eight 
inches above the ground line. 
Make Hog Feeding Easy 
jLJERE is one of the greatest temper-savers a 
** man can build. There is hardly a fiarmer liv¬ 
ing who has not wished that he could whale the 
life out of every hog in creation for climbing into 
the trough and making feeding or slopping prac¬ 
tically an impossibility. We 
all know only too well how 
many times hogs, through 
their crowding, are responsi¬ 
ble for half of the swill go- 
-WALL 
ing out of the trough. 
The 
device FITS INTO SLOT 
. , . UweOTHSIDU OF TROUGH 
consists sim- 
hing- 
warnmg.—D avid Stone Kelsey 
ply of 
ing a panel in 
front of the „ 
trough high 
LEVER 
TO WORK DOOR. 
SHOWING DOOR 
CLOSED 
A Creosoting Device 
Back a year or so ago I saw a picture in American 
Agriculturist of a handy device for creosoting fence 
posts. Foolishly, I didn’t keep that issue for future 
reference. Now I would like to know what it looked 
like and I am sure other readers would be interested, 
especially if they are up against the proposition of 
cutting post out of a wood lot that is rather skimpy. 
We have done some replanting in our wood lot, but 
it will be a good many years before those seedlings 
will be post-size or near it and we have got to make 
every new post that we set last a long time— F. N. G., 
New York. 
TT HE accompanying pictures were printed in the 
June 24 issue of American Agriculturist, 
1922. They show two devices for creosoting fence 
enough above to permit it to swing in. The de¬ 
tails in the sketch are sufficient to show how this 
is accomplished. The panel is hinged on the in¬ 
side and a lever is attached to swing it inward, and 
swill is poured into the trough from outside the 
pen. Notice that one side, the inside, of the 
trough is much higher than the other. This is not 
necessary, but is to the feeder’s advantage. If too 
much space is allowed between the door after it is 
swung in and the inside of the trough, the hogs 
will get their snouts in the opening and make it 
practically impossible to close the trap down after 
the feeding has been accomplished. We have seen 
this in operation on many farms and believe it one 
of the handiest contrivances a man can put in. 
—F. W. -4 
