corn.

the quotient for the number of bushels of shelled | ted stable manure will weigh, upon an average, 56 This is upon the rule of giving three heap- pounds. If it is coarse or dry, it will average 48 ing half-bushels of ears to make a bushel of grain. pounds to the foot. A load of manure, or 36 cuSome falls short and some overruns this measure. bic feet, of first quality, will weigh 2,016 pounds; Board Measure.-Boards are sold by face measecond quality, 1,728 pounds. Weight to the sure. Multiply the width in inches by any num- acre-Eight loads of first kind, weighing 16,128 ber of pieces of equal length, by the inches of the pounds, will give 108 pounds to each square rod, length. Divide by 144, and the quotient is the and less than 24 pounds to each square foot. Five number of feet, for any thickness under an inch. loads will give 63 pounds to the rod. An acre Every fourth-inch increase of thickness adds a containing 43,560 square feet, the calculation of fourth to the number of feet in the face measure. pounds per foot, of any quantity per acre, is easily made.-The Plow.

Land Measure.-Every farmer should have a rod measure, a light, stiff pole, just 16 feet long, for measuring land. By a little practice he can learn to step just a rod at five steps, which will answer very well for ordinary farm work. Ascertain the number of rods in width and length of any lot you wish to measure, and multiply one into the other and divide by 160, and you have the number of acres, as 160 square rods make a square acre. If you wish to lay off one acre square, measure 13 rods upon each side. This lacks one rod of being full measure.

Government Land Measure.-A township is six miles square, and contains 36 sections, 23,040 acres. A section, one mile square, 640. A quarter section, half a mile square, 160 acres. As this is 166 rods square, a strip one rod wide, or every rod in width, is an acre. A half-quarter section is half a mile long, north and south, almost universally, and a fourth of a mile wide, 80 acres. A quarter-quarter section is one-fourth of a mile square, 40 acres, and is the smallest sized tract, except fractions, ever sold by the government. The price is $1,25 an acre.

Measure of a Mile.-Our measure of distance is by the standard English mile, which is 5,280 feet in length, or 1,760 yards, or 320 rods. An English geographical mile is equal to 2,050 yards. Scripture Measure.-"A Sabbath day's journey" is 1,155 yards-about two-thirds of a mile. A day's journey is 333 miles. A reed is 10 feet 11 inches. A palm is 3 inches. A fathom is 6 feet. A Greek foot is 12 inches. A cubit is feet. A great cubit is 11 feet.

2

As the superfices of all our States and counties are expressed in square miles, it should be borne

For the New England Farmer.

RETROSPECTIVE NOTES. GYPSUM.-The attentive readers of this journal must have noticed an article with this heading which appeared, first in the weekly issue of Sept. 21st, and subsequently in the Nov. No. of the monthly edition. In it the reader is directed to sprinkle a small quantity of gypsum, more commonly known as plaster, or plaster of Paris, every morning, over his cattle stalls. And this direction is followed by the statement, that plaster is a good absorbent of ammonia, and consequently tends not only to economise a most valuable element of vegetable nutrition-namely, the ammonia-but also to sweeten and purify the air. These being the objects to be secured by the sprinkling of gypsum, readers who reflect upon what they read, and endeavor to make a practical application of every fact, truth and principle which may come under their cognizance, will hardly fail to come to this conclusion, namely, that if gypsum is of service in fixing or absorbing the ammonia in cattle stalls, and in purifying and sweetening the air of places where cattle are stabled, it must be much more serviceable to the stalls and stables of horses, as from the urine and dung of horses than from those there is always much more ammonia developed

of cattle.

To be convinced of this fact, that there is a much bles than in cattle-stables, one has only to comlarger amount of ammonia developed in horse-stapare his sensations when he first enters the one and the other, when first opened in the morning. On first entering a close, unventilated horse-stable, he Number of Square Yards in an Acre.-Eng-nose, and more or less of a smarting sensation in will experience a disagreeable pungent smell in his lish, 4,840; Scotch, 6,150; Irish, 7,840; Ham- his eyes, somewhat resembling that which is felt burg, 11,545; Amsterdam, 9,722; Dantzic, 6,650; when a bottle of hartshorn or of smelling salts is France, (hectare,) 11,960; Prussia, (morgen,) opened in close proximity to the nasal and visual

in mind that the contents of a mile is 640 acres.

3,053.

Manure Measure. This is generally estimated by the load, which is just about as definite as the phrase, "about as big as a piece of chalk." It ought to be measured by the cubic yard or cord. A cubic yard is 27 feet, each of which contain 1728 cubic inches. A cubic cord is 128 cubic feet. As the most of farmers have an idea in their minds of the size of a pile of wood containing a cord, they would readily compare that with the quantity of manure, if stated in cords. Every cart or wagon-box, before it leaves the maker's shop, ought to have the cubic feet and inches it will contain, indelibly marked upon it. This would enable the owner to calculate the amount of his load of grain, roots, earth, stone or manure.

organs. On the other hand, when first entering in the morning a similarly close and unventilated stable for cows or cattle, very little, or none at all, of this pungency will be felt, even though the atmosphere may be quite disagreeable through the impurities derived from the exhalations arising from the lungs, the skin, and the excrements of the animals confined therein. This difference is owing to the much larger amount of ammoniacal vapors in the former case than in the latter.

It appears, then, that so far as the two objects, for which gypsum is directed to be used, are concerned, the horse-stable needs attending to still more than the cattle-stable. Ammonia is more largely and more speedily set free in the former than in the latter. So let us consider both, as genWeight of Manure.-A solid foot of half rot-erally constructed and managed, much in need of

having something done for them. For, certainly, | heap, then, is of little use." How Liebig came to something ought to be done when the creatures make such a blunder is then explained, as also how committed to man's care are shut up in stables so naturally it has happened that one writer has copill-constructed and managed that they are obliged ied it after another, until now it is to be found in to live and breathe in an atmosphere so foul and almost every agricultural book and periodical in unwholesome as to injure seriously their health this country. and constitutional vigor, and to render them much more liable to the attacks of disease. Something ought to be done when animals are shut up in an atmosphere which no man could breathe in for many whole nights in succession without an attack of disease in his lungs or elsewhere. Something ought to be done, too, when ammonia-the most valuable element in the farmer's manure-is taking to itself wings and flying away.

When a farmer to whom thinking is not, as it is to so many, a dread and difficulty, takes these things into consideration, the inquiry will naturally

arise

Now, if all these statements from respectable journals in Great Britain and in this country are to be received as authoritative, then chemists and farmers are once more "out at sea" in regard to the absorption of hartshorn or ammonia in stables and manure heaps. We are sorry that it is so, as the sprinkling of a little gypsum would be so easy and so cheap a method of preventing the escape and loss of thousands of dollars' worth of ammonia from every State in the Union. But if farmers have been trusting to a delusion, it is better that they should have it pointed out to them, than that they should continue any longer laboring under a mistake. For, when it becomes settled, established, and more widely known that gypsum sprinkled as usually directed, will not absorb the ammoniacal effluvia of stables and manure heaps, farmers and chemists will begin anew to make search for something that will certainly effect this object. And it is as a contribution to this reconsideration or reinvestigation of the question as to what is to be done to save the ammonia and to destroy or deodorize the foul air of our stables, that this article has been written. Copperas water or a solution of copperas is certainly a good deodorizer, but it is open to the objection that the presence of iron in manure will occasionally, if not always, be injurious.

Dry muck and sawdust are the most efficient absorbents of ammonia which we have tried in the stable; and we have seen the fumes of a manure heap speedily arrested by sprinkling on it half an ounce of strong sulphuric acid, diluted with a pailful of water. Who will tell us of a better way?

MORE ANON.

For the New England Farmer. LUCERNE.

WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE TO IMPROVE OUR STABLES IN THIS RESPECT?-In a good many agricultural publications, as well as in Liebig's Agricultural Chemistry, Stockhardt's Chemical Field Lectures, Nash's Progressive Farmer, &c., he will find directions similar to those in the article now under notice, assuring him that sprinkling plaster in his stables will absorb the escaping ammonia, converting the volatile carbonate into a fixed or non-volatile sulphate of that valuable fertilizing element, and will also purify and sweeten the air. But doubts of this assertion cannot fail to arise in his mind when he reads in the same or other chemical authorities, that dry plaster cannot act upon ammonia; that it can produce the above results only in a state of solution, and, farther, that to dissolve plaster four hundred times its own weight of water must be added to it. He will see at once that if it requires four hundred pounds or pints of water to dissolve one pound of plaster, and thus reduce it to a state in which alone it can act on the ammonia escaping from his stables or his manure heap, but a very insignificant portion indeed of the plaster, which the authorities referred to have directed him to sprinkle in his stables or over his manure heap, can possibly accomplish anything towards the desired result. These doubts will be MR. EDITOR:-I was pleased to see your article still farther strengthened when he finds, as he may, on Lucerne in your last number of the Farmer. I in some of the best agricultural journals, both in think its value to our farms has been overlooked. this country and in Great Britain, that others as That it is a very valuable plant in many localities, well as himself have become skeptical as to the admits not of a doubt. For soiling, I think it will property usually ascribed to gypsum when merely be found the most useful plant that we can use. sprinkled in the dry state upon the floor of a sta- My experience with it is, however, limited. I ble, or upon a manure heap. Several expressions bought a farm in Rhode Island, that had a few rods of such doubts or skepticism have appeared, with- of lucerne, mixed in with other grasses, and had in a year or two, in the pages of the Country Gen- not a fair chance to grow to perfection. As it was, tleman; and positive denials of this asserted prop- it would start up much earlier than other grass, erty of gypsum have appeared in other journals. and be ready for cutting, near three weeks sooner. For example, the North British Agriculturist When I broke up the field, I found it almost imabout a year ago asserted that gypsum "is found possible to plow through it, the roots were so in practice not to be a good fixer of ammonia in tough and strong. Most of the plants would draw stables, byres (cow-houses,) &c." Again, a very through an eight-inch furrow, holding on so hard good authority in matters connected with agricul- as in many cases to cause the plow to slide around tural chemistry says, in the volume of the Genesee them. I dug up a single root in the garden, that Farmer for 1857, after stating objections to the had been cultivated in a flower-bed, which weighed, plans of fixing ammonia by the use of diluted sul-after laying through a hot June day, on the flagphuric acid, and of a solution of copperas, that gyp- stones the south side of the barn, over twentysum being cheap and easy of application, would be eight pounds. It was weighed by a neighbor, who excellent for the purpose but for this one fact, viz., thought it would have much exceeded thirty pounds "Plaster, unless in solution, will not convert the previous to its being wilted. There were several carbonate of ammonia into a sulphate of ammonia. hundred stalks, many of them over six feet in Scattering dry or moist plaster on the manure length. The root at the crown was near six inches

through, tapering down as large as a man's arm. | packing apples. The plan is worthy of trial at It was cut off about two feet below the surface.

least, for it would appear reasonable that the fruit thus surrounded with a compact mass of dry powder, should keep almost as well as if hermetically sealed. Mr. T. says he keeps pound pippins thus packed, in good order until the following June. We judge from a remark in his letter, that he does not store them in a cellar, but in any cool room of the dwelling or out-house. We are not certain whether the dry plaster would be a sufficient nonconductor to keep frost out, if exposed to severe cold-especially from the fruit near the outside of barrels.

For the New England Farmer. SEED CORN.

A gentleman at Adamsville, Little Compton, R. I., for a number of years cultivated lucerne, and cut it two and three times each season, according as the moisture might be. He used it as a hay crop, and thought it the best grass he could use. English writers give us very precise directions as to the best mode of preparing the soil for the seed, many of which are far too expensive for our adoption, and I think entirely useless. If the soil has been well worked and manured for previous crops, and the subsoil is not too hard, I think we need not fear but that it will grow, if not too wet a soil. No plant will stand a long drought better, as we have instances recorded where clover has died, and lucerne held out and made a good crop. Mr. Young tells us, the first use of this plant is that of MR. EDITOR:-A few weeks since, at a meeting soiling horses in the stable; for this purpose, no of the American Institute Farmers' Club, in New other article of food agrees so well with those an- York city, they had a discussion upon seed corn. imals; nothing better for oxen, cows, young cat-Much diversity of opinion prevailed, clearly showtle and even hogs in a farm-yard. He also thinks ing that the subject was involved in much uncerit well adapted to fattening beef. tainty, owing to the want of carefully conducted Chili clover is, I think, well worth experimenting experiments, persistently followed up, for a succeswith by those who have the means of doing so. It sion of years, or at least long enough to positively is near allied to lucerne, and, in many respects, re-settle the matter on a true basis. Some thought sembles it. It roots deep and strong, sends out an abundance of stalks, which, in a rich soil, will often grow to a wonderful length. Four years since, at the solicitation of a seed-dealer in New Bedford, I took off his hands some of this Chili clover seed, which I sowed on about one-third of an acre. It did not come up well, owing, I think, to its being damaged by the sea voyage. I plowed up the piece, but some of the plants by the side of the wall escaped, and have remained ever since. They grew rapidly and matured early, and could be cut two or three times in a season. I have no doubt it would be a good soiling, hay, or pasture crop. I have spoken of its stalks growing to a great length. I will here say that, in 1850, I furnished Commo-ished size of the ears. dore Jones with specimens of the wild oat of California, and also a clover plant which I think the same as the Chili clover. The stalks of this plant exceeded twelve feet. The Commodore forwarded them to the New York State Agricultural Society. Rochester, Mass., Nov. 18, 1861.

O. K.

KEEPING APPLES---NEW METHOD. Mr. M. R. Thompson, of Mifflin county, Pennsylvania, in a letter to the American Agriculturist, describes his method of keeping choice apples, which appears to be worth noticing. He packs them in barrels or large boxes, surrounding each apple with common dry ground gypsum (plaster of Paris.) This is readily done thus: Put into the bottom of the barrel, or box, an inch of the plaster and then a layer of apples, keeping them from contact with each other, and an inch from the side all round. Sift in more plaster to fill up the spaces and cover the whole nearly an inch. Then add another layer of apples and more plaster, and so on to the top. The plaster employed is, we suppose, the common ground plaster for fertilizing-not the calcined used for making casts, models, etc. The former is cheap in most parts of the country, costing from $3 to $10 per tun. Of course the plaster is just as good for application to the field after being used during winter for

best to reject the small end of the ear alone; others would include the but, and plant only the middle; others reject the but, and use the balance; while some prefer the small end to any and all the rest of the ear. There seemed to be a general agreement that it is a good practice to select in the field the first ripened, well matured, two eared stalks, in order to have succeeding crops earlier, and increase the number of ears on a stalk. One man stated that he had known the selection of two or more cars on a stalk for seed to be persisted in until the result was that a yield of six and seven sound ears on one stalk was not unusual, but with a loss to the producer, in the dimin

most extensive farmers, and above the average in These men, as a class, are probably some of our intelligence, and possess superior advantages for observation, and yet we see what a conflict of views are entertained respecting a question of permanent importance to every corn grower in the country. It is more than probable that we have men in our farming communities who are capable, and have the means of carrying out experiments in this matter to satisfactory results. None need to suppose that it will be a money remunerating undertaking, but the reverse. A higher and more benevolent motive must prompt the act. Suppose the gain by reason of the proper settling of this question should be only three bushels of corn to the acre, (I think it will much exceed that,) it would add to the aggregate corn crop of the country millions of bushels. I have been inclined to the opinion that as the small end of the ear grew last, and was generally not so well filled as the but, that it did not mature so well, and consequently would not germinate so vigorous a plant, nor produce so abundant a crop. Of one thing I am quite sure, viz., that by selecting the first ripened two eared stalks for seed, the succeeding crops will be earlier and larger in yield. I hope this subject will be thoroughly investigated, and the true practice established so decidedly that none can doubt or cavil about the matter.

Rochester, Mass., 1861.

O. K.

DESIGNED AND ENGRAVED EXPRESSLY FOR THE NEW ENGLAND FARMER.

In continuation of our series of hints for Rural Improvements, we offer at this time a design and plan for a suburban cottage of moderate size and cost. It measures thirty-one by thirty-six feet on the ground, and is one and a half stories high, with square rooms below, and good airy chambers, well ventilated, on the second floor.

Plan.-The front door-the upper half of which is glazed-opens into a vestibule, A, six feet wide,

B

A

E

and nine feet long. From the rear of this a passage extends to the staircase hall, F, which opens

out to the yard, or into a wood-shed, if desired. B, the parlor, is fifteen feet square, and is well lighted by a mullioned window in front, and a single window at the sides. It connects by means of a small passage with the living-room, D, (this passage might be converted into a closet-thereby entirely separating the parlor from the living-room.) This living-room is twelve by seventeen, and opens into the staircase hall at a point convenient to the back entrance to the house. Across the hall, and near the head of the cellar stairs, is a good sized closet or store-room, a, fitted up with shelves and cupboards, and lighted by a single window. (Owing to a mistake in drawing, the perspective view shows only one window on this side of the house, instead of two, as there should be-see plan.)

The sitting-room, C, measures thirteen by fifteen, and has two doors, one opening into the vestibule, and the other into the passage back of it.

The second floor is divided mainly like the first, and comprises three chambers, a bathing-room, and five closets-besides the hall. The chamber over the parlor is lighted by a dormer window at the side, and a mullioned window in the front, with swing sashes opening out upon a pleasant balcony shown in the perspective.

Interior Finish, &c.-The finish of the interior

For the New England Farmer.

of this dwelling is to be in the plain, simple cot- Cost.-Built in the above manner, and finished tage style, with no attempt at ornamentation, by throughout, this cottage would cost from $1500 to means of intricate detail work. The stock should $1700. be of good No. 2 pine throughout. The finish of the windows and doors is to be a plain architrave, with a simple cap moulding above. The base in the parlor, sitting-room and hall, is to be nine inches high, with a simple moulding above-and in the other rooms, eight inches high, beveled on top.

The parlor chimney-piece may be a marble slab, supported on neat bronze brackets-and in the other rooms, the mantles may be of wood. The walls are to be lathed and plastered, and finished for papering.

All the standing finish throughout the house is to be oiled and varnished. The kitchen floor, sink, &c., closet and bathing-room floors and closetshelves, should have two coats of lead and oil paint of suitable colors.

A NEW ERA FOR CHILDREN---THE
PROSPECT BRIGHTENING.

MY DEAR SIR :-Something over twenty years ago I wrote a series of articles for the old New England Farmer, on the advantages of a knowledge of the natural sciences to farmers. The time that has elapsed since then, and the experiences I have met, have only served to impress the facts mind. Many others have viewed the matter as I I then attempted to utter, more strongly upon my have done, but how to bring the thing about, so that young farmers could obtain a knowledge of these sciences, has been the question. Some have proposed agricultural colleges, with learned professors, as the best means of accomplishing the end. In a few States, such colleges have been established, and I am happy to believe they are meeting with gratifying success.

there are the girls; the black-eyed and the bluethe means of obtaining education there. Then eyed, laughing girls. They are as fond of knowledge as the boys, and their capacities are as bright, and their application in the pursuit of instruction are often greater than that of the more daring sex. It was a noble act in the formation of our government that established the common school system of education, a system that, to a great extent, is capable of supplying the necessities of so large a portion of our population, who, without them, would be very limited in their means of acquiring knowledge.

Exterior. The exterior of this house, as will be seen by the perspective view, has some ornamenBut colleges cannot meet the wants of every tal features, which, though not absolutely necessaone. There always have been, and always will be, a great many boys in the country, whose capacities ry, add to the convenience, and we think heighten are bright, and whose desires of knowledge are the artistic effect of the design. Thus the bal-equal, and often superior, to those in more favored cony-while it affords a pleasant retreat for the oc- circumstances, to whom the doors of the great colcupant of the chamber to which it is attached-leges are closed. They cannot afford the time, or serves also as a hood, shielding the parlor windows from the sun; and the veranda shelters the front entrance to the house, and fills up what would otherwise be a blank, cheerless space, combining use with ornament. Then, too, the widely-projecting eaves-the heavy brackets-the dormer windows and truncated gables, are all simple methods of giving character to the design, and, in order to produce proper effects, care should be taken that these ornamental details be executed in a substantial manner, of heavy stock, and not of the useless inch board stuff, which commonly finds its way into such places, to the great discredit of the builders. The outside of this house should then be painted with at least two different tints of lead and oil paint, the color of the trimmings being a few shades darker than the main body, unless the main body be quite dark-in which case the trimmings should be lighter, the object being to obtain a contrast between the two. For this house, we would recommend a fawn or a light freestone color for the vertical boarding, and a darker tint like that of the common brown freestone for the trimmings. The window-sashes should be drawn bronze green, and the outside doors grained and varnished.

The cellar is seven feet six inches high in the clear, the principal floor is ten feet in height, and the attics are also ten feet in the centre, and five at the eaves, the posts being sixteen feet long.

The walls are to be covered with vertical boarding and heavy battens, and the roof with cedar shingles.

It is one of the pleasing features of this age of progress, the improvements that are being made in every department of those institutions which have appropriately been denominated "the people's colleges." We are having better school-houses, spacious, comfortable rooms, well ventilated, well warmed in winter, with beautiful yards attached, in the places of the little, cramped up, smoky, dark, dingy rooms, located on the corner, so near the public way, as to cause the traveller to become a nuisance to the school, and too often the school a nuisance to the traveller. We are having teachers educated to their business, in the place of those who formerly taught a few winters, or a few summers, just to make the most of time in portions of their lives when this employment could be followed without injury to the main business of future years, and instead of the frequent changes once so often made in teachers, in our best schools, the best are obtained and retained in their position as long as possible.

How few of our readers can follow the memory, Book, the American Preceptor, or "the Third Part," back to the days when Webster's old SpellingMorse's old Geography, with two maps, one of the World, and one of North America, Webster's