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THE NEW AGRICULTURE:

OR,

THE WATERS LED CAPTIVE,

ILLUSTRATED.

1885.
THE AMERICAN ANGLER.
NEW YORK.

i)

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, by
WILLIAM C. HARRIS,
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

DEDICATION.

This volume is respectfully dedicated to Dr. J. H. Vincrnt, of Plainfield, New Jersey.

A. N. COLE.
HoME ON THE HILLSIDE, N. Y., October Ist, 1885.

3.)
Tt «th ota
neg

PUBLISHERS’ ANNOUNCEMENT.

In announcing the publication of this book the publishers would
state that the claims of the author in behalf of his discoveries and
methods seemed, when first presented to our attention, well nigh
incredible. It was not until after a personal examination, at the
“Home on the Hillside,” of Mr. Cole’s system of cultivation and an
inspection of some of the wonderful resultant products, that we
became thoroughly convinced that he has practically substantiated
the claims set forth in this volume.

He could not have selected a more unpromising piece of land for
testing the merits of “The New Agriculture.” It was a steep and
sterile hillside of Allegany hardpan, thinly covered with a soil,
which was surface-washed and gullied by heavy rains and sun-baked
in dry weather.

His system of culture based upon underground irrigation and
fertilization maintained constantly and uniformly the year around
by means of his own devising, after thirty years of investigation
and study, has transferred this waste of ground, which nobody
thought could be made profitably productive, into, comparatively
speaking, a Garden of Eden. He simply makes “The New Agri-
culture” a willing Handmaid to Nature. He gathers and conserves
in his trenches or subterranean reservoirs all the waters from dews,
rains and melting snows, which, after equable filtration through
the soil, are released at the foot of the slope in a never-failing stream
of pure water at spring temperature. It would seem that not more
than one-fifth of this fertilizing moisture is absorbed by a maximum
crop. Fungus, that deadly foe to root growth, is completely elim-
inated. Drouth is forestalled and the ground in winter no more

freezes than around a natural spring. The producing season in
that latitude is elongated from forty to sixty days.

As to the expense of the new tillage, the improvement of the land
in productiveness and the economies of the system in all ways, largely
dispensing with the cost of plowing, spading and weeding and the use
of expensive manures, turn every dollar of outlay into five at least
in a short space of time. In a word, the roots of trees, shrubs
and plants are constantly supplied, but never in surfeit, with the
amount of moisture needed for their healthy and rapid growth and
for the perfect development of leaf, bud, flower and fruit. These
magnificent results are not, with us, matters of conjecture, nor have
they been accepted without personal and careful inspection at
Father Cole’s “Home on the Hillside.”

Wm. C. Hannis.
H. H. Tuompson.

O-ON TD BND. Si

Page.

THE Lire or A. N. Cour. By HON. JOHN H. SELEREG............ 000 ceeeeces -. 11-14
CHAPTER I.—THE DISCOVERY, DEVELOPMENT AND PUBLICATION OF THE NEW

AGEIOULLO RE), LO) SELIG) WORAD sy; etsn's) 0/0, ucie/ele sisigre isi sid siete ole Rretiaeicls 15- 81

CHAPTER II.—CIRCULATION OF WATER ON LAND—THE WONDERFUL MESILLA., 82- 99
CHAPTER III.—DxscrieTION oF THE NEw SystTemM—‘‘HoME ON THE HILL-
BIDH’—THH Hor WATHR: SYSTEM... <0 6005.6 x ig us vin veeec ccs 100-110
CHAPTER IV,—PRacTICAL RESULTS OF THE NEW SYSTEM............. eee eee eee 111-134
CHAPTER Y.—THE INFLUENCE OF THE NEW AGRICULTURE UPON THE HEALTH
or Man AND DomESTIC ANIMALS—COMMUNICATION FROM THE

Hon. JOHN SWINBURNE—THE BANE OF FUNGUS BY PROFESSOR

OAR. HARTEN bi s vicGiasis oc ssists.g> ceive e aia asa Wikgiw Rie Ss penta we ayiova sie 135-170
CHAPTER VI.—RECLAIMING THE GREAT AMERICAN DESERT......... .---+.-++-- 171-178
CHAPTER VII.—THE EXPENSE OF THE NEW SYSTEM............-cee cece ceeeee ees 179-186

CHAPTER VIII,—1850—1885, ‘‘THE HOME ON THE HILLSIDE’? THEN AND Now. .189-206
CHAPTER IX.—MANURING UNDER THE NEW SystEM—THE AMERICAN POMOLOG-
ICAL Soctery—A WELCOME FoR ALL AT THE ‘‘HOME ON THE

FITEGROD YH oraipccicielerecs le oor retare brptdiclears gene em acid acalsherein ieiminy aids «.nlcje ROT —aneem

ILLUSTRATIONS.

Page.

PORPRAVE NOR WE PAT DOR asa) < fo; ican: asian Susie, oicis’s niente !ain wie meus aie were oe FRONTISPIECE.

ARS W OOD IC ONUAG I Jo 25 atere 0's a1 ois)s sis Sta fara eins ial el aeays oyun ae espe eislere erate eistaie varie eiee este een ao
core HOME “ON Tia FITEUGSIDE ?%). 2. occas sieis es ere 6, eat om sha obs wists elelore ia iayehd nia Ces eset 45
dice UCC) ergy ol oh ye! la oo Ie PRCA AOR HAG acne cre aon aas4 aGpedees oeaccsos 63
SINGEE (PGUM, NATURA) SUZMs. « ois sears = sia)e a eels clesetia oi oone sik oe Sate wine roe eiselateiale 75
GROUP OF PHUMS, | NATURA | BUZM s/2)aic 05:5 ain! oislstain's/aigialaiaiucialatmpisierttahdlviaia ma eieoe aie siete 85.
DIAGRAMH TOR ‘Tek NEw! SYSTEM, « 2 <icic.< vinci mis ois.0isiniaieitsa\ns sisteiemiel a olelais Ole aloe nicaletsazata 103
HE SLBAWHEREY IBGUQUET., . 2.7. cic. oi cm we cise ecrs'e saievers ain aise niera ie rere siel as entrees 125
RERAWBERGY, NATURAL (SIZE, oso. c o'e anic ie vigininiv icine «ales #lslvis e's wala icista a vee nisie rte arte 139
DIAGRAM OF INFECTED STABLES AND OUTHOUSES......... 2.20.00 -ceeeeeeeseceees 155
IGHODP) OF GEEAS oiaa's o's wie Wr.5 56 tale bois misia meee ete inate aoe aldtalocs (alte a Rotel e peieteal aetna erareen 175
SINGLE "LOMAGG PUAN TS 0 Gi hss o,. Gis ie Selene we ote te clare as Reba oe ee ete deena 181
TRIO TGEES POR © DOMEA TION s (oie 's's\ s/o o's eos Sow) ofs)ial cysts’ ce mobi roe eters tapas ofan ie ei alin im ate emote 187
SINGLE |ACOMATO; NAWUIRAT:) ‘SUZ. «5 als oie cle/aisis ainlb tiene weeeoeis Meno an ni masini Seana te 193
SPECIMENS OF APPLES, NATURAL SIZE, FROM OLD APPLE TREE................-- 199

QUINGE, NATURAL ‘SIZE ic a fase ckein's sian cask vinc omeeine a wereinte miele paisa ainiate aie ee els arate 209

THE LIFE OF A. N. COLE.

The life of the author of this book has been an eventful one and into it has been crowded
far more than can be found in that of ordinary public men. Knowing this and deeming a
brief biographical sketch of Mr. Cole would be of interest to the general reader, the following
has been prepared from memorandums procured from him and from others who have held
intimate acquaintance with him during his life.

Asahel N, Cole was born on the 15th of October, 1821, in the town of Freedom, Cattaraugus
County, N. Y., and is therefore 64 years of age at date of the appearance of this volume. His
father, Daniel Cole, was a descendant from the family settling Cole’s Hill, at Plymouth, Mass.,
and his mother, of maiden name Joanna Williams, was a lineal descendant of Roger Willlams,
of Rhode Island.

Enjoying a very retentive memory and possessed of an exceedingly active mind, it is not to
be wondered at that Mr. Cole has made his mark in political and other circles, and was con-
nected with large enterprises, which commenced by him were before completion appropriated
by others who enjoy the fruits of growth planted by his hand.

When but four and a half years old the father and mother of the author died. Thus thrown
upon his own resources, he early commenced the “ battle of life,” and even now when above
three score he has all the energy of youth and the fire of mature manhood in his nature.

He was adopted by foster parents residing at Pike, at that time part of Allegany, now Wyom-
ing County, N. Y. Un to the age of sixteen, when his foster father died, he had received the
barest elements of a common school education. Starting out he sought employment as best
he might in canvassing the state of Ohio for an agricultural and horticultural publication en-
titled the BucKEYE PLOUGHBOY, published at Cleveland. His early study of odd numbers of
this little monthly and Poor Richard’s Almanac beyond doubt had much to do with the impor-
tant discoveries set forth in this volume.

The year 1839 was spent in Michigan, our author having by this time gained, through his
limited studies, sufficient knowledge to commence teaching school, which he continued
to do until the year 1844, and then deciding to abandon his plans of becoming a minister of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, for which he had prepared himself, he turned merchant and
lumberman, working hard in the woods for a livelihood.

Divisions in the Methodist Church, growing out of the issues of slavery and anti-slavery,
were the occasion of this new departure. Young Cole, interesting himself in politics, became
an ardent Free Soiler, and, having patrons in the persons of Gerrit Smith and James S. Wads-
worth, both large landowners in the timbered sections of Allegany County, his acquaintance
and agreement with them politically brought, not only the gentlemen above named but many
others, leaders of the free soil movement, to the side of a man from ten to twenty years

12, LIFE OF A. N. COLE.

younger than themselves. When the revolutionary period of 1848 was reached, and A. N. Cole
was but twenty-seven years of age, he was better known by, and more closely linked with,
Joshua R. Giddings, Gerrit Smith, James 8. Wadsworth, William H. Seward, Charles Sumner,
Salmon P. Chase, John P. Hale, John Van Buren and others of like political affinities, than any
man of his age in America.

What made him especially a most important factor in the politics of the period was his close
attachment to and alliance with Horace Greeley, whose acquaintance he formed so early as
1843.. Mr. Cole became the trusted personal, private and confidential correspondent of this
great journalist, and thus remained to the close of Mr. Greeley’s life in 1872.

In the meantime Mr. Cole had, so early as 1852, assisted by General James S. Wadsworth, es-
tablished the GENESEE VALLEY FREE PREss a8 a Republican paper at his home in Allegany
County. In the columns of this, the pioneer Republican newspaper of the country, appeared
the first call for a convention to organize the Republican party. This convention met at
Friendship, N. Y., in May, 1854, and dates the birth of the Republican party, though the town
of Angelica, N. Y., succeeded in 1884 in establishing her birthright by showing that the first con-
vention called for nominating candidates convened at that place about the middle of October,
1854. The celebration of the birth of the party took place at Angelica just before last fall’s
(1884) election. A. N. Cole presided, having been for years acknowledged and recognized as the
Father of the Republican Party.

It is not however, in politics or public life where Mr. Cole has won his proudest laurels.
He never held but one important public trust, that of readjuster or reassessor of income taxes
in the Second district of Brooklyn for a period of about one year of the first term of President
Grant, receiving his appointment from Secretary Boutwell. Mr. Cole held court in revenue
cases with such energy, force and knowledge of the revenue laws as to gain his admittance to
practice in all the courts of the state, receiving his diploma at a general term of court held at
Poughkeepsie in May, 1868, Before this, however, he had been waited upon by the solid New
York delegation of Republican Senators and Members of Congress from the State of New York
for appointment to the office of Internal Revenue Supervisor for the Metropolitan District, but
President Johnson interposing objections the Hon. Silas B. Dutcher received the appointment. —

Up to this period Mr. Cole had only been known as a journalist of wide influence, but he had
also won laurels without number at Albany for his advocacy of measures for improvement of
the cities of New Yors and Brooklyn, and as early as 1877 saw carried through the experiment
in Greenwich Street testing the question of practicability of the elevated railroad system as
now in operation in the metropolis. General John A. Dix and the Hon. 8. L. M. Barlow, asso-
ciated with others, employed Mr. Cole as advocate and attorney, breaking the powerful combi-
nations of opposing interests to the system of rapid transit now existing.

The energy and earnestness of Mr. Cole up to this period had produced a marked impression
on the public, and he was recognized as the trusted and confidential friend of the highest officials
in national and state governments. He was selected to have charge of the bill reorganizing the
Erie Railway, which when perfected and passed saved that great work from wreck and ruin.

“Governor Cornell in 1880 signed the bill granting to a company to be organized, the aban-
doned Genesee Valley Canal for railroad purposes. This achievement came of seven

LIFE OF A. N. COLE. 13

years of persistent labor on the part of Mr. Cole, saving to the population of the Gene-
see Valley a magnificent property otherwise lost. The syndicate finally securing the grant,
mortgaged it for two millions of dollars, while the solitary individual (A. N. Cole) who practi-
cally did the work secured a merest fraction of the amount for labor and expense in securing
the grant. Twice in his life the author of the New Agriculture, worked down and out, has
succumbed for a few months at a time, and his work has seemed at an end, the tax upon his
energies being such as to apparently break him down.

About four years ago his neighbors were astonished by the growth of fruits and vegetables
of marvelous size, beauty, profusion and perfection upon his grounds. He was understood at
first as making experiments in under drainage, nor did his nearest neighbors and most inti-
mate friends have an intelligent conception of the methods under which he was proceeding—
those of subsurface, subterranean or underground irrigation, better known as ‘‘ The New Agri-
culture.”

And so it is that, to a man who never had to exceed three years of education at school, has
been left the discovery of the fundamental laws governing the movements of the waters upon
and beneath the soil, which the writer of this brief biography, the publishers of this volume
and many others who have visited ‘‘The Home on the Hillside” unite in believing will effect
a revolution in the present systems of agriculture. J. H. SELEPEG.

Irnaca, N. Y., October 15, 1885.

Vall)

aye Ve
eS a! ‘ ;
‘ibe Pies Mie 5

CHAPTER I.

THE DISCOVERY, DEVELOPMENT AND PUBLICATION OF “ THE NEW AGRICULTURE”
TO THE WORLD.

That there is a divinity shaping the ends of mortals, the author
of this volume deems a certainty. In no other way is it possible to
account for the inevitable. Solomon had it right when he said :
“There is a time for all things under the sun.” The time would
seem to have come when the waters may be so controlled, as to
pass them through soils, rather than allow them, as hitherto, to find
their way from summits to plains and valleys along their surfaces.
What has been done by the individual in this respect, is to be done
ere long by the multitude. The immensity of such an undertak-
ing, is calculated to discourage, at first, the bravest and most hope-
ful. The Chinese wall, the pyramids and other evidences, all along
the track of time, indicate that great undertakings have only to be
persevered in, and the end is ultimately reached.

Were every farmer or land-holder having lands situated on hill-
sides, slopes and inclines, to put but a single acre in condition to

16 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

gather in, house, husband, handle and control the waters falling
down during the year, such would be the scene of transformation,
as to make an end of hesitation and doubt. Coulda model acre be
shown in each county of every state and territory of our Union, a
decade would not pass before spades would everywhere be found
to be trumps, and such would be the multiplication of means for
holding and handling the waters, as to result within a single gen-
eration, to an approach to transformation of the earth’s surface.

Upon the author of this volume has devolved the work of making
a beginning. As things look at this time of writing it seems prob-
able, that by the tenth of July, 1885, two acres of a model five un-
der treatment, will be in condition to show what can be done to
control and use the waters for purposes of agriculture and horti-
culture. Not under three years, however, will our model five acres
be so perfected, as to make a complete demonstration of anything
like the utmost possibilities. How it has all occurred that the au-
thor has been the one to find out the way, and seeking and finding,
to lead the van of this, one of the greatest of works yet devolved
upon man, will be understood as the story is told of a lifetime
spent in following the waters. I was eight years of age when I
read in “ Poor Richard’s Almanac” that :

“Tf the farmer or gardener would know the difference in fruit-
age, between a tree left to turf about its roots, and one where the
soil is loosened, let him try the experiment.”

In our garden were plum trees bearing, to a most gratifying de-
eree. These were on rich soil, with wash from the barnyard. Bait
for trout-fishing was here obtained ; the angle or earth-worm, in
abundance. To loosen the soil about the roots of these trees, be-
came correspondingly a pastime and profit. That the plums would
grow larger, and their flavor be improved, Dr. Franklin had said,
and of course he knew. Suffice it to say that the loosening seemed

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. nrg

to call for a pushing away at the trunks, till their roots took only
weak hold in the ground. It was, if we recollect, in the spring of
1829, when we were scarcely nine years of age, that the trees thus
treated, refused to put out bud or blossom, nor so much as gave
evidence of life. From that hour, losing faith in Poor Richard’s
Almanac, we followed thereafter our own inclination and methods.
How many were the plants taken up and put back into their own
or new places we cannot now say. To examine their roots, and find
out their ways of germination, became a passion. Nothing so dis-
turbed us as the wrong end up in which the beans came out of the
ground. Why again should the potatoes grow beneath the soil,
and the balls upon the tops of the vines, was a puzzle to us. Peas
the fourth of July, and cucumbers the middle of that month, with
which to give keener relish for our trout, was an ever yearning am-
bition.

We think it was at about the age of twelve, when we came across
a newspaper mention of an experiment which we decided to forthwith
make. This was one with which nearly everybody has become
familiar ; that of a tight barrel set on end, and filled with round
stones so far up as the open bung, then shingled with flat stones,
and these covered with straw and a coating of coarse manure, fin-
ishing up by filling the barrel with rich earth, and planting on this
a hill of cucumbers. The handiest barrel was accordingly seized
upon, that used by our foster mother for pounding clothes. We
began operations in earnest, but conflict ensued, since it was im-
possible to convince our maternal guide that her pounding barrel

was the spot in which to grow pickles. Threats of castigation did
not deter us from persistence, and promising our mother another

and better barrel within a few days, we went defiantly ahead with
our “gardening.” The maternal word was kept to the letter, but

18 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

this was something of daily discipline, and so we did not seriously
object to it, in view of the harvest in prospect.

Our experiment was made with care, since we had found out thus
early, that what was worth doing at all, was worth well doing. Our
one hill of cucumbers did wonders, and yet came far short of a
barrel of pickles. We estimated them at a half bushel, but now,
having gotten over the ardor of youth, we are bound to admit that
they would have filled only a peck measure, and possibly have come
short of that by at least “one pickle.” But the pounding barrel
having been ruined, and the “rod in pickle” having been applied,
and the crop falling far short of our expectations, we resolved not
to give it up so, but repeated our experiment the ensuing year,
well convinced that we could demonstrate the fact that a pounding
barrel was a good place in which to grow pickles ; and the second
time we succeeded in an eminent degree, since the one hill, in the
barrel, produced nearly or quite a half bushel, and doing the pick-
ing ourselves, and the barrel being in close proximity to a fine
patch in the garden, we convinced our foster mother that her boy
was a prodigy in growing cucumbers ; nor told a lie any more than
would George Washington probably have done under similar cir-
cumstances, but left our mother to tell the story of her boy having
grown a full half barrel of pickles from one hill, planted in her
pounding barrel. .

In the season of 1840, finding ourself in Michigan, we made care-
ful note of the good effects upon grasses and grains in proximity
to the primeval forests, more especially in fields lying below the
level of the wilderness in which the maple, beech, basswood and
other like timbers prevailed ; nor did the corresponding dearth in
fields on and about the prairies and oak-openings, escape observa-
tion. Again, in tracing what we presumed were tracks of hidden
waters beneath the surface operating as we conjectured as inlets

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 19

and outlets, connecting multitudinous lakes, ponds, swamps and
morasses, covered in many instances with turf trembling upon their
surfaces, we remarked the deep green of the verdure, when con-
trasted with that of grasses and grains on more elevated planes,
and along undulations.

From Lower California, far away on the Pacific coast, rumors
came of a valley of green amid the sands of the desert, perennial
in products of the olive and vine, where buried were the waters of a
river in subterranean flow, and where the roots of trees and plants,
deep dipping down, found nourishment at a depth of from twenty
to thirty feet. In reading of the Sahara and other deserts of earth,
the oasis was our only solace, and how to grow an oasis, became a
study of intensest interest. The artesian well we longed to look
upon, nor could we be satisfied till our eyes had seen it.

Returning to our native state of New York in the autumn of that
year, the green of the grasses of Allegany and Wyoming Counties,
as seen amid the sere and yellow leaf, begat dreams of a land
somewhere hidden from view, in which no deserts are found, and
where grasses greenly growing, alongside of flowers unfading, and
fruits that perish not as apples of the Dead Sea, turning to ashes
in the hands of men, but growing ever on amid immortelles of the
great hereafter, made the gloomy winter of 1839 and ’40, to appear
the less dark and dreary, on account of our dreamings.

The next Spring, Summer and Autumn were spent in looking
over, from time to time, that delightful section of Western New
York, embraced in the valleys of the Genesee River and its num-
berless tributaries, noting, more especially, those outgushing
fountains of living waters, appearing as springs, chiefest among
which are those at Caledonia, Avon and Wethersfield. The Oatka,
Honeoye, Tonawanda, Canaseraga, Cohocton, Canisteo and other
creeks and rivers, come largely from springs bubbling out all along

20 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

their channel ways. Tracing these waters to their sources, and
dwelling upon the methods employed by the Creator in begetting
springs, rivers, rivulets and lakes, we learned lessons of incalcul-
able value. On return therefore from Michigan to Wyoming
County, New York, we drifted as naturally back to the Cattaraugus
of our birth, and Allegany of our breeding, as follows the trout
in ascent to the sources of streams amid the forests and among the
mountains.

From early childhood, we had had liquid manures on the brain.
So early as 1844, we undertook to grow a few cabbages to impress-
ive proportions, for the sole purpose of convincing the champion
cabbage grower of our acquaintance that there were things in
heaven and earth not so much as dreamed of in his conceited phil-
osphy. We had barely set out in life, and occupying a rented
house, had the narrowest limits for garden making. A few rows of
potatoes, a bed of beets, another of onions, lettuce, etc., to which
was added a few cabbage plants, made up the sum of our venture.
Near by dwelt the boss farmer and gardener of the neighborhood,
Squire C. Our ground was rich, and we could not understand
why the Squire had fine cabbage, while ours had scarcely begun
heading.

“What do you do, Squire,” we asked, “to make your cabbage
grow so rapidly ?”

With a mischievous twinkle of the eye, our venerable neighbor
answered :

“That’s a secret worth knowing, and if you will not tell anybody,
and try it yourself, I'll let you know how it’s done.”

We promised, of course ; when coming up closely, the old gentle-
man whispered in our ear :

“T always hoe my cabbage before sunrise.”

Forthwith we resolved to get even with him. Our plants were fine

’ THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 21

ones, thrifty growing, and we had somewhere heard that weak brine
turned upon the soil was a good thing for cabbage, and having
heard also that hen manure was best of all fertilizers, our mind
was made up instanter, to show our neighbor the Squire, what
could be done in growing cabbages in absence of early rising. Pro-
viding ourself therefore with a solution of salt, hen manure, and add-
ing ashes and lime as ingredients, we set about rebuking our neigh-
bor for even hinting that we were the identical individual pointed
out in Proverbs, 6th chapter, 6th verse, etc.

Rising early each morning for a week, we “doctored” our cab-
bages, in confident belief that, in the course of a month or six
weeks, we would be able to show neighbor Couch what a boy
knew about growing cabbage. It took just six days to kul every
plant as dead as so many Egyptian mummies. From that hour,
though sticking to theories of liquid manuring, we gave up that sort
of “ doctoring” which applies it in allopathic doses.

On page 65 of Mr. Stewart’s book on irrigation for the farm,
garden and orchard may be found the following :

“Tn applying liquid manure it is always necessary to use it in a
highly diluted state, even so much diluted that if it would run off
perfectly clear it might be found of sufficient strength for all pur-
poses. The danger lies in using it of too great strength, rather
than in diluting it too copiously.”

We did not mention to our venerable Mentor, the Squire, the re-
sults arising from our use of liquid manuring, but we ceaselessly
sought the rule to follow in compounding them and what propor-
tions of potassium, ammonia, lime, sodium, magnesia and other ele-
ments of liquids and solids are required, for this and that crop, in
order to obtain the best results.

Not far from five years subsequent to our experiment in growing

cabbage, we found ourself occupying a home on the banks of the

22 : THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

Genesee. In our farm barn yard manures had lain for years in huge
piles, from the bases of which ran off streams of liquid, dark as lye,
distributing and diffusing their influence over three or four acres
of alluvial lying between the barn and the river. In the track of
this current of inspiration to plant growth, stood a pine stump
with a breadth of top telling the story of one of those departed
giants of the forest, occasionally found in the wilderness of this
region at the commencement of the present century. That some
pioneer had attempted, years before, to grub out this stump, and
after making a good beginning, abandoned the undertaking, was
evidenced by the fact that on its upper side toward the barn, was
an excavation telling the tale of the undertaker. Into this hole
the liquids from the barn had been discharging for years, and
sinking below the surface their subterranean track was plainly
marked by a wealth of verdure the equal to which we had never
before seen. Immediately below the stump grew a most wonder-
ful blackberry bush, the canes at base averaging an inch in diam-
eter, and growing to a length of from twelve to fifteen feet. From
this one bush, our family picked nearly a bushel of native black-
berries, rivaling in beauty, and greatly superior in flavor to any
we had ever tasted.

Here was evidence conclusive that to Mother Earth may at all
times safely be left the work of elaboration, combination, com-
pounding, mixing and mingling of ingredients necessary to the
germination, growth and development of plants.

In Beers’ Illustrated history of Allegany County, page 362, may
be found a picture of Basswood cottage, the home in the wilderness
where we made in reality, our first garden ; hence, what would
perhaps otherwise seem inappropiate, becomes fit and opportune,
and we make a quotation from the history, as follows :

“Basswood Cottage, the home to which Mr. Cole and family had

COTTAGE.

BASSWOOD

sia

2 eee

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 23

retreated, represented in accompanying engraving, was a log cabin
in the pine woods, and is thus pictured by the graphic pen of the
since widely known journalist, in one of his easy chair letters,
appearing in the Elmira Advertiser, under date of February 24th,
1875.”

“The spot chosen for our dwelling place was as wild, sylvan and
rustic as any to be found amid the forests primeval of Allegany Co.,

N. Y. Our house was one built of logs, unhewn, but not rudely so, or

without architectural pretentions in an humble way—a neat cottage
with wings, portico in front, over which ran climbing roses, while
ivies twined, and morning glories in sinuous wanderings and wind-
ings found their way to the roof of the cottage. Flowers bloomed
in the dooryard, planted, cared for and watered by the ever busy
hand of ‘Mrs. Easy Chair.’ In the rear of the house was a lofty
hill quite like to a mountain, from the base to the brow of which
rose up tall pines, oaks, maples, beeches, birches and basswoods,
whose shadows fell upon us daily, as the sun went down before its
time in the west. In the front and to the north was a carpet of
greensward, partially shaded by beautiful trees, planted by nature’s
plastic hand, and scattered here and there were maples of second
growth with spreading branches. On the left was a garden, where
was early cultivated that taste for horticulture since grown to be a
passion.”

Yes, dear reader, it was here, amid the shadows of the forest, we
made our first garden. The spot was a pocket of alluvial, rich,
deep and dark, less than an half acre, created by drift from the
mountain side above, pure vegetable mold; no spot could have
well been richer in soil, or more naturally productive. Here were
grown such potatoes, peas, beans, cabbages, turnips and other
garden vegetables, as we have never seen until the adoption of our

present system of culture.

V4 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

Few stone were found in the soil. Here and there, however,
buried and out of sight, was found an occasional pine or hemlock
knot, resisting for generations the tooth of time. Here we found the
first clump-foot cabbage, and forthwith, suspecting something was
not quite right, we dug down, and brought out a huge pine knot.
Here, again, we began experiments with Hovey’s seedling, succeed-
ing after a year or two of patient endeavor, in gathering from a
bed of thirty hills nearly a pint of strawberries, the largest speci-
men of which measured three inches in circumference. So great was
our triumph that one of our friends traveled on foot six miles to see
that big berry. Were our friend now near by, instead of far away
we would, were he to visit us next July, 1885, show him bushels of
berries, averaging as large as the one, which at that time, was the
greatest of wonders. When it comes to specimens of our best,
viz: Jersey Queens, Jumbos, Manchesters, Monarchs, &e., we
could exhibit them by scores and hundreds, measuring from five
to seven inches in circumference.

But the reason of the barrenness of most of our strawberry plants
in our first garden puzzled and vexed us to find out, as it probably
did every other producer in our county. While onions grew to
larger size than we had seen anywhere, and cabbages, beets and
turnips astonished us with their prodigious growth, only about one
out of three of our strawberry plants showed berries. The vines
appeared sickly, and the roots of the plants did not seem to get
firm hold in the earth, and we took to pulling them up, and digging
down, seeking the cause of infecundity and unthrift. With scarce
an exception, we found at the depth of from twelve to fifteen inches
the inevitable pine or hemlock knot, and still more frequently, a
flat stone. We found the roots of our plants, reaching deeply down,
had come in contact with buried obstructions, and that disease had

followed. Making use of the spectacles of 2n aged person serving

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 25

admirably as a microscope, and securing a focus best calculated to
bring out the hidden enemy, it did not take long for us to become
satisfied that the seed of fungus was nearly everywhere present, the
great begetter of disease. Of this seed of fungus we had read much in
books, found in the library of a physician, in whose family we spent
much time in early life.

Suffice it to say that we were thirty years old before we became
convinced of the baleful influence of this arch enemy of plant
erowth. We found it amid damps and moulds, and equally amid
soils in which was a lack of moisture. Wherever the roots of
plants came in contact with sticks covered with mould, or with
stones hidden in the soil, more especially with the inevitable flat
stone completely destructive of plant thrift, we found fungus, bring-
ing decay and death. Nor was this all, for hovering about the roots
of plants diseased from infection by fungus, were found parasites in
form of the wire-worm, earth-worm and more especially the minute
white grub or maggot, the latter fatally destructive, eating away
the roots of plants, and bringing not merely disease, but certain
death.

In a few instances, so deep down did we dip to find the offender,
as to reach the subsoil, evenly and smoothly descending to the
stream flowing alongside our little delta, so rich in surface as
to enable us to grow more on our single half acre than was gather-
ed from two to three times the area devoted to gardening by neigh-
boring farmers.

During our first year’s experience, there came suddew showers of
such force and volume, as to bring from off the mountain side above,
an amount of soil and debris from the recesses of the forest as to
convince us that a ditch, sunk at the base of the hill and connect-
ing with the stream traversing the valley, would be just the thing

to provide against accidents. Plowing our garden late in autumn,

26 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

we took the precaution to direct the plowman to leave a deep fur-
row as near the base of the hill as convenient. This was done, and
here was found what had seemingly been a channel for waters, or
from conformation of the ground, more probably such a recepta-
cle as to send them in even flow along the subsoil to the stream,
leaving the mold in their track, and begetting our little pocket
of a garden. Applying the pick and spade, our ditch was com-
pleted, but as this in its curve described a crescent, with point ter-
minating in the bed of the creek up the stream, discharge of the
waters into the creek only took place when the ‘dish’ overflowed.
To prevent our trench from filling with soil therefore, recourse was
had to filling it with stone, a quantity of which had been thrown |
out by the plow, and so a burial spot was made for stone and knots,
old boots, shoes and other castaways of the household, in promis- |

cuous minglings. Over these was cast the pure vegetable mold,

and thus, in descending the hillside, the waters dropped into the —
trench, and thence flowed along the dip of the subsoil, until in sub-
terranean movement they reached the stream. In the sinking ofour —
ditch, not so much as a dream had we, that demonstration was be-
ing made of a method which was to ultimate in so modifying ante-
cedent systems of farming and gardening, as to amount to what
now looks like revolution. And yet so it proved in more ways than
one, since it was this crudely conceived and carelessly sunken
trench, with its surface of sponge, that told a story to be yet heard
all over the world.

Not least of good fortunes was the one of emergence, at base of
our mountain side, of considerable numbers of minute springs,
even in the driest of weather, whose waters in spring, autumn and
winter, warmly descending from what may be fitly denominated
“our great dipper” on the mountain side above, supplied the
household with excellent water. Finding the waters lost in the

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. a

depths of our ditch, we ascended the slope and arrested them by
making a second ditch, thus aggregating the waters at the rear of
the house, and, the winter proving an open one, we secured a foun-
tain of pure water during its continuance. The snows in the woods
began melting in February, and their waters descending the hill,
striking the surface of our trench, disappeared, only to emerge in
the stream beyond, and all along through the spring ensuing
seemed to render more crystal-clear the waters of the creek The
effect upon the soil of our garden seemed miraculous ; for such was
its condition as to enable us to plant potatoes the last days of Feb-
ruary, doing so in hopes of being able to mature them in season to
avoid the rot, at that time threatening extinction of this most valu-
able among root crops.

Not until within the last ten years have we been enabled to see
that it was the waters of rains, dews and spring melting snows,
descending from among the damps and moulds, mosses, ferns,
flags, wild grasses, mucks and minglings of a swamp in the depres-
sion of that mountain side above, moving out from under the snows
at spring water temperature and dropping into our trench and
continuing to flow along the incline of the subsoil—not for ten
years did we discover that these waters removed the frost from our
garden, preparing it for germination of seeds two or three weeks
earlier than otherwise.

We see it all now, having found out there was the best of reasons
existing why we, that season, grew as fine potatoes as we had ever
seen, the frost having been kept out of the ground during March
when the Frost King coming in fiercest fury, laid his hand on
the lands of our neighbors, freezing them to a considerable depth,
fully three weeks after we had committed our seed to the ground,
and making an end of crops on every other spot, within, perhaps,
an hundred miles in any direction from our home. Nor was it

28 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

alone the condition of the soil as regarded temperature, but so
even and uniform was the flow of the waters, and so perfectly were
food and drink supplied to the tubers, food always in abundance

t
:
f

and never in surfeit, that the effects of fungus, about that period de-
veloping infection of soils on both sides of the Atlantic, and ie
very season reducing the potato crop to a point threatening extine- ‘
tion, did not touch our little patch of about a quarter of an acre, i
and we harvested fully thirty bushels of potatoes in beauty of per- f |
fection. This was so much a matter of surprise to our neighbors,
that the ensuing spring they took to early planting as a remedy
for the blight; but nobody seemed to realize benefits from so doing,
since the season succeeding proved equally one of blight and
destruction, so far as the potato was concerned.

That season, the last spent in Basswood Cottage, was the one at
date of which practically began the work of our discoveries.

Though meeting Horace Greeley from time to time, from 1843
to 1861, counseling with and confiding in him as in none other among
public men of our country, it was not until the latter year that our
relations became those of intimate companionship. Though hon-
oring and esteeming Salmon P. Chase, Charles Sumner, William H.
Seward, Joshua R. Giddings, Gerrit Smith, James S. Wadsworth,
Abraham Lincoln and hundreds of others we might name, advising
with and confiding in them, Mr. Greeley was the only one we had
never found at fault on questions affecting the health and wealth
of earth’s peoples. This deep thinking and profound moral and
political philosopher, a second Doctor Franklin, has had no equal
in our judgement among the public men of our country.

John C. Fremont, the Pathfinder, had but little more than made
search for those passes over and through which, first the weary
wagon train, and since then long successions of steam cars have
coursed their iron way, linking ocean with ocean, when Horace

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 29

Greeley by stage, on horseback and on foot, made his overland
journey to California. At the time of setting out the editor of the
Tribune had a better knowledge of the composition of soils and their
adaptation to the growth of this and that crop, than perhaps any
man of his day and generation. Profoundly believing the way
would be ultimately found to make the desert to blossom as the rose,
Mr. Greeley, before starting on his journey, during a most interest-
ing conversation on the subject of reclaiming desert lands, said to
us that he would not think of going were it not for an irrepressible
desire to see and determine for himself whether there existed, in
fact, an American desert. On his return, meeting our friend and
Mentor at Hornellsville by appointment, he said:

“T want to see and talk with you, Cole, and tell you all about
what I have seen. Let me say to you now that Clark, Lewis and
Fremont were greater discoverers than Christopher Columbus. Col-
umbus found a new world, albeit his discovery was made at a time
when navigators of a half dozen nations were finding their way in-
to distant and unexplored seas and oceans, and he only followed in
the track of predecessors, though more adventurousas he was braver
and more intelligent and intuitive, than others of his day and genera-
tion. But, my dear fellow, this new world that Columbus discover-
ed is about being rediscovered; and these Horatios all about us,
are to find out there are millions of things in heaven and earth they
have never dreamed of in their philosophies. The South is a great
country, cursed with madmen, fancying themselves statesmen and
sages, men who cannot be convinced that the fetters forged for.
their slaves, and the chains about the bodies of their bondsmen are
not those of iron, but of fiax and toe, which, at the touch of fire are
bound first or last to turn to ashes all, and the places knowing now
the oppressed and oppressor to know them no more forever.

“T have made a long journey, and seen more, and learned more

30 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

than in all my life before. Ours is the greatest country, and thi
is the greatest people on the face of the earth. England, Frane
Germany and all the other nations of Europe are as old men, the
energies exhausted, their resources largely wasted, and their possi
bilities thoroughly tested. There is more of gold and silver an
of precious stones in our great American desert, than in all of th
countries of the Old World, and among the hills, along the plains, —
and in the valleys of the Rocky Mountain and Sierra Nevada and

Coast Ranges, and along the Pacific slope, are found greater possi-

bilities as regards population and production than in all of th
older sections of our own country, or, in fact, any other portion of
our globe. I want to tell you about those big trees, and all of the —
other big and little things I have seen since I have been gone. I
will only say now that Sumner had it right. We ought to buy the
slaves of their masters and pay for them, if to do this, as Sum-
ner says, it becomes necessary to builda bridge of gold over which :
these bondsmen may cross in reaching a land of liberty. We can
afford to build it. There is money enough in the mines of Cali-
fornia now being dug out to buy the whole South, lands, cotton,
corn, slaves and slaveholders, and colonize them all in Africa to-
gether, or somewhere else, if need be. But colonization is a fraud,
a delusion and a snare. There is work enough, and will be found
wages enough, for all sorts of workers inside the boundaries of |
what has been denominated the great American desert, to employ
an hundred millions of white and black men alike. It’s all a lie,
.that because people are black they will not work. Who built the
pyramids? Who the Chinese wall? Who was Hannibal ?

“The Egyptians were no more a white people four thousand years
ago than now. I tell you the Carthagenians had no more ‘physical
and intellectual power three thousand years ago than have the

Nubians and Abyssinians of to-day. This whole thing of black and

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 31

white, and all this nonsense about white men taking more to work
than black ones, is only an excuse for enslavement. Let me tell you
that white people do very little work south. John M. Botts under-
stands it, as also does Cassius M. Clay. Everybody who knows
enough to keep out of the fire, North and South alike, under-
stands it, but people are not generally honest enough to confess
it.

“T have been out among all sorts of folks who work, and if I
except the Indians, people of any and all nations will work, only
give them freedom, free soil, and an opportunity to secure free
homes. Possibly the Indians will work also, should any be left at
the close of the present century, which I very much doubt, since
whiskey and the vices of mean white men are rapidly making an
end of our aboriginal tribes, and I think sometimes that the
sooner the thing is done and the last Indian’s grave is dug the better.
I believe in God and his providence ; you know I do, Cole, but
what is providence so far as Indians go, God only knows. Come
down to the city and see me, dear Cole, and give me a chance to tell
you about my over land journey.”

Such was the tenor of what Mr. Greeley said at Hornellsville.
A month later found us in New York for three or four days, a con-
siderable portion of the time being spent in the company of Ameri-
ca’s greatest journalist. How to reclaim the desert by irrigation,
was the burden of Mr. Greeley’s every discourse. Artesian wells,
windmills, current-wheels and other methods of lifting the waters
from levels below to inclines and planes above, was a subject he
continually dwelt upon. Mr. Stewart, in his admirable book on
page 23 says :

“The late Horace Greeley, who, although an enthusiast on the
subject of irrigation, was nearly correct in his estimate, when he
concluded that one artesian well would serve to irrigate no more

32 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

than a quarter section of land, or one hundred and sixty acres.”

When discoursing on artesian wells, we asked Mr. Greeley if he
felt confident that water would be reached in a majority of in-
stances, if the experiment of sinking such wells was made in the arid
portions of our country. His answer, given in the affirmative, was
coupled with hesitation, and he concluded by saying, that while he
was quite confident, he was so doubtful at times aboutit, as to experi-
ence a feeling of despondency, since the resources of the richest
portion of our country could only be developed by ample water
supplies.

With his usual clearness of vision, he made frequent mention of
a faith within him, that the time would come when those seas
and oceans of water, descending in rivers of ceaseless flow from the
melting of snows and ices upon the summits of great ranges, would
in some way be arrested, held back and made use of for purposes
of irrigation. Solar evaporation, as he impressively declared, was
the great obstacle to success in this direction.

“Dam up these waters as you may,” he said, “and hold them
back as you will, or move them forward, that tongue of fire which
comes from a sky completely cloudless from April to November,
with the mercury ranging from eighty to one hundred and fifty
degrees between sunrise and sunset of each day, leaves little hope
for such a system of water preserve and supply as will gather them
in for mechanical, manufacturing and mining purposes, to say
nothing of domestic uses or those of irrigation.”

In one of these conversations, Mr. Greeley made mention of the
reported existence in Southern California, if our memory serves
us well, in the neighborhood of Los Angeles, where, in the midst
of a desert, was seen an oasis so remarkable as to occasion surprise.
This was a valley, as described to him, of perpetual green, along
which for several miles was found growing at all seasons of the

ES

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 33

year, such fruits, flowers and profuse vegetation as scarcely
anywhere else seen on the face of the earth. Dipping down, at the
depth of twenty-two feet, there was found a sunken river three or
four feet deep, and a mile or two broad. This concealed river, one
of crystal waters, was what begat the oasis. To see for himself, Mr.
Greeley assured us, so became a passion, and that there were days to-
gether, when he felt he could not return home without looking
in upon this wonderful valley. He returned, bringing with him
the evidence of those he deemed credible witnesses and having in his
mind no doubt about its existence, and furthermore that all along
this wonderful subterranean river the roots of trees, and even of
the wild clover and other productions of Southern California, reach-
ed the waters in their dippings down.

These conversations with our most trusted counsellor and friend,
had great influence, and the subject of subsurface, subterranean
or underground flow of the waters as a means of irrigation, became
more and more a constant study. That a deep covering of earth
would shield the waters from solar evaporation was evident. The
law of gravity inclining the waters to sink into the earth, and
another law, that of capillary attraction, quite as mysterious, magi-
cal, powerful and all-pervading, became at once a source of con-
stant study and observation.

While according to Mr. Greeley the credit and honor of being a
continual prompter, intensifying our lines of thought, not to him,
however, or to any other one man, but to individuals, here and
there met with, in a majority of instances, comparatively speaking,
unlearned, or rather, unlettered men, we gained most of knowl-
edge. It wasduring our residence in Brooklyn that from an ex-slave
black as Othello, at blackest painted, we learned how lands were
reclaimed in the neighborhood of the Dismal Swamp. From the
Hollander we found out how dykes were constructed, and from an

34 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

unlettered son of the Emerald Isle we learned how fuel was secured
in the bogs of his native Ireland. It was from the Germans, how-
ever, that we obtained most valuable information. Intelligent, as
a rule, patient workers, staid, steady, sober thinkers, slow-going,
and yet sure, we found them always good authority on matters of
soil and production, irrigation and drainage.

Reading the Tribune daily, we never omitted to note what our

friend Greeley and his former editorial associates had to say about

farming and gardening. Forming the acquaintance and becoming
warmly attached to Col. D. D. T. Moore, of the old Rural New
Yorker, and getting acquainted with Mr. Andrew S. Fuller, a com-
panionable and remarkably well-informed gentleman connected
with the Tribune, we asked them and nearly everybody else with
whom we conversed, what each thought about the waste of the
waters coming of ordinary methods of tiling and drainage with
stone drains.

Though not saying a word about it to anyone, we could not help
feeling provoked at seeing mankind indulging in what seemed to
us a wicked folly, amounting to madness, as they made haste to get
the waters out into seas and oceans, instead of using them while on
the lands, and only conducting portions of the surplus down to the
sea levels.

From 1866 to 1870 we were formulating plans and devising
methods of drainage, which should at once irrigate lands and pro-
vide against stagnation of the waters, and coming across the stray
writings of Major Hugh T. Brooks, of Wyoming County, N. Y., he
seemed to us the man who had found out things which all of the
world ought to know by intuition. But having heard people say
that “what Horace Greeley and Hugh T. Brooks didn’t know about
farming” would fill a much larger book than what a regiment of
that sort of farmers did know, we felt doubtful as regarded our

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 35

own views, not being any sort of a farmer at all, and concluded
that what Major Brooks and ourself had found out about drainage
would do to keep. We bided our time, for it occurred to us that it
might do those of our neighbors good, who had been poking sticks
and making game of our “mining for myths,” should they care to
learn how to do it, rather than hold on to their ways of how not to
do it; that to secure a patent and insist on their paying moderately
for right of “mining” would increase their graces, and so we kept
our own counsel.

The old year of 1884 was waning, and the new one 1885 about
being ushered in, when we came across the following from the pen
of Col. Curtis :

“Farmers in 1882 expended $5,500,000 for tile and dug nearly
53,000 miles of drains to put them in. Besides, thousands of miles
were laid with stones. Tile-makers and theorists have created and
fostered this craze, and if continued it will result in a perpetual
water famine. Wholesale rules adopted without discrimination are
a big curse in agriculture, and drainage is one of the most potent
for mischief. It is true that in many cases drainage improves land
and makes it more tillable, but not always more fertile. Often-
times a wet lot, or a wet patch, will, on account of the wetness pro-
duce more grass than any other portion of the farm, and by being
let alone supplies some spring which is invaluable. The drain
fever seizing the owner, the water is speedily carried off, the early
and constant pasture spoiled, and the spring fed from it destroyed.
Does this outlay pay? The same thoughtless improvement sends
the melting snows and the spring rains, without hindrance into the
farm rivulet, where they quickly flow beyond reach to the distant river
The stores of water being gone early in the summer the rivulet
dries, and the stream into which it flows gets wonderfully small,

and the mill stops, and on the river the boats ground.

THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

o3
Ss

“Ditches and drains are made to carry the water away and they
do it. Ditches are the outlets, and the water will always flow away
in them. To keep up a supply of moisture or of water there must
be a holding back of the water. This is done in many ways, when
the avenues of nature are undisturbed. On the surface it is kept
in hollows or basins, where swamps and bog-holes are formed; in
sloughs; in mucky land; underneath rocks; under the leaves and
trees, where the sun does not cause it to evaporate. To prevent
evaporation there must be coolness, and to make coolness there
must be shade and humid surroundings. Under the surface it is
held in pockets, in veins and subteranean places where it has wash-
ed out its own bed, and in the constant percolating and oozing out
from swamps, wet places and other natural reservoirs on top of the
earth. Where there is no drainage to carry the water away it fills
all these fountains for the drier portions of the seasons. Each rain
adds to its supply. Before there was so much drainage,water was
furnished by wells of moderate depth and springs were plenty.
Now permanent springs are scarce, and theold wells get dry early
in the season.”

Far back in our memories of childhood we retained the faintest
recollection of a few lines from the pen of Dr. Benjamin Franklin,
found in Poor Richard’s Almanac, which would serve as a text upon
which Col. Curtis might have based the above extract; yet that dur-
ing the half century in which the world had moved farther on, than
in any one thousand years of earth’s history, foresters and farm-
ers should have been found manifestly retrograding on this ques-
tion of the world’s water supply, was a mystery to us. Though we
had even then begun writing out the story in briefs of our new ag~
riculture, more than once we came near to giving up the hope of
living long enough to convince the world of the efficacy of our new

system. Here however was one man (Col. Curtis) at least, who had

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 37

discovered the world’s greatest want, and secured a hearing through
the columns of the Tribune, speaking to hundreds of thousands of
readers, and although it was the merest mention yet a beginning
was secured. Just at this time also, our eldest son, Asher P. Cole,
of Brooklyn N. Y.,forwarded to us Mr. Stewart’s work from which
extracts are frequently found along the pages of this volume.
Scarcely had we opened it, when the following lines attracted our
attention:

“The summer rainfall in our climate is rarely, if ever, adequate
to what would be a maximum crop consistent with the possibilities
of the soil.”

This was not news to us since we had found out that a single
hill of cucumbers would drink a half barrel of water in three day’s
time, and having done so, would begin languishing for want of
moisture, and failing to secure it, die in a week. In this connection
note the amount of absorption of water by plants in the following
extract from the Country Gentleman under the caption of “ Import-
ance of Water to Plants,’ which appeared subsequent to the an-
nouncement of “ The New Agriculture” to the world. The italics
are ours :

“In experiments performed by Sir. J. B. Lawes he found that
most plants exhaled during the four or five months of their growth
more than 200 times their dry weight of water, drawn up from the
soil in which they grew. Dr. J. H. Gilbert stated that the amount
of water given off by plants during growth might be approximately
estimated as equal to a depth of three inches of rain for every ton
of dry substance grown. Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert found by act-
ual experiment that a crop of hay growing on land that had been
manured, and giving about a ton and a half per acre, evaporated
two inches more water than an unmanured crop of less than a third

ofaton. These two inches were equal to 200 tons of water. A heavy

38 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

crop of barley evaporated nine inches, or 1800 tons of water more
than bare land lying alongside. These experiments show the im-
portance of underdraining so as to keep the soil pulverized and mellow,
to hold like a sponge the water which falls on ut, and give rt off to growing
plants as they need ut. A good growing crop keeps the soil in better
condition than a soil without a crop, the latter being easily flood-
ed, and again parched by drought : and without underdraining,
either artificial or natural, the soil cannot be brought into a good
condition to absorb and hold surplus water.”

And yet, with all of this, we reasoned, the world seems to have
gone stark mad in efforts to dry up and carry off the waters, acting
on the theory that better crops might be thereby grown.

Though we had commenced this volume when Mr. Stewart's
work came to hand, we laid by the pen, and scanned carefully
everything found in Mr. Stewart's pages. It was a cornucopia of
good things, the fairest, most frank and undisguised declaration of
faith we had ever seen from the pen of any one writing on the sub-
jects of irrigation and drainage. We found it invaluable. Having
shown that in European countries, more especially in the British
Isles, the rainfall is not only in excess of the average in America,
but also that there is less of sunshine ; and that the atmosphere
being a humid one, evaporation is correspondingly retarded, Mr.
Stewart continues :

“Our intense heats, cause a large portion of the rainfall to be evap-
orated directly from the soil, and our copious summer rains are
seldom fully retained, but frequently in large part escape into
streams and water-courses, and are lost to vegetation. Our fall,
winter and early spring rains, come at times when the crops de-
rive the least benefit, or none at all, from them. The amount of
rainfall that thus escapes paying tribute to our crops is by far the
largest portion of it. To estimate it at three-fourths of the whole,

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 39

would not be unreasonable. There would then be left less than
twelve inches of water to meet the necessities of the growing crops.
That this sufficiently accounts for the low average of our yearly
production of grass and grain, is not at allimprobable. The supply
of water then becomes the measure of the fertility of our soil, and
our climate, subject to torrid drouths in the midst of the growing
season, is the obstacle to success which meets the farmer, rather
than the impoverished soil—a condition, indeed, mainly due to a
poverty of water.”

“To remove this obstacle to successful cultivation, it is only nec-
essary that a system of irrigation be adopted. An adequate sup-
ply of water, ready for use in case of emergency, will render the
farmer, the gardener, or the fruit grower, to a very large extent,
independent of the vicissitudes of the season, and secure, beyond
accident, a full reward for his labor. If, with a system of irriga-
tion, a proper system of drainage be also adopted, the cultivator of
the soil will have removed two adverse influences, against which he
is now called upon so frequently and so ineffectually to strive.”

“To irrigate economically and successfully, however, is a business
which requires a large amount of technical knowledge and skill,
and the expenditure of a considerable amount of capital, either in
money or labor. Irrigation belongs, in fact, to a highly advanced
condition of agriculture, and can only be applied to land of high
value or capacity in the hands of intelligent owners.”

Now, here is this eminent author of a most remarkable book,
wherein is found a larger amount of research than is combined in
all others on a similar subject which it has been our fortune to
come across, reaching the conclusion that only by methods of irri-
gation and drainage successfully combined, can the former be made
advantageous; and equally concluding that in this way, and this
only, can anything like a full measure of production be realized;

40 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.
2

and also, that to attempt to render lands productive to a degree of
profit, not only calls for an expenditure of a considerable amount
of capital, either in money or labor, but that “irrigation belongs, in
fact, to a highly advanced condition of agriculture, and can only
be applied to land of high value or capacity in the hands of intelli-
gent owners.”

We have alluded on previous pages to the depressions of spirit,
not to say discouragements, experienced for years in pursuit of
what seemed to the world a phantom. While we had found, here
and there, a friend among the more eminent public men of our
country, such as Hon. Warner Miller, Hon. John Sherman, Hon.
Henry M. Teller, and it gives us pleasure to say, General Chester
A. Arthur, who, reading patiently letters addressed to them at
length upon the subject matter of our discoveries, turned away
from public and private duties to give ear to what the world at
large deemed an illusion—we except Hon. C. R. Earley, whose paper
on fungus will be found further on in this volume, also Hon. T. L.
Minier of Elmira, Hon J. H. Selkreg of Ithaca, and Hon. Augustus
Frank of Warsaw—no expression could we get from anybody calcu-
lated to encourage us in the. work we had undertaken. Among
the above named gentlemen Senator Sherman alone was an experi-
enced farmer. General Benjamin Butterworth, Commissioner of
Patents, gave patient hearing, and reading our letters, encouraged
and cheered us by pleasant words doing the heart good.

When therefore on November 29th, 1883, we received from Hon.
William M. White, President at that time of our New York State
Agricultural Society, a letter unreservedly endorsing our system,
words fail to express the satisfaction we experienced. We had
known Mr. White a lifetime, and had found him standing squarely
by our side for upwards of a quarter of a century, a disciple of

Horace Greeley, in advocacy and defence of the more advanced

“A
yi

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 41

ideas of that great era. Mr. White was also the owner of a thousand

- acres of hard pan lands, and had stuck to them, and fortunately

possesses them to-day, nor will he be likely to part with them
while the work is progressing of demonstrating to the world that
such lands are more valuable than any other class of soils. To
this latter proposition we do not expect that the owners of bottom
lands and prairies will give ready assent, but they will be forced
in the end to admit the fact. To publish Mr White’s letter in full,
we cannot. Here, however, is an extract :

“T am happy to find you interested in making two blades of
grass to grow, where but one grew before ; intent on the useful,
and determined to make the hillside more productive than the
valley, and what is more, by seeking a patent, inspire others to
conclude, that what is worth patenting, is worth possessing.
What a taking idea? “Subterranean Irrigation,” an improvement
on Nature’s plan in Dakota’s wheat fields. ;

“T have not a doubt that the results will prove astonishing, giv-
ing three or four feet of fertile and productive soil where only
three or four inches have been hitherto realized, and placing the
future of agriculture and horticulture as much ahead of the past,
as thousands are ahead of hundreds.

“You say you can grow living, perpetual springs by your system
of deep trenching, centering on a lower plane. I get your idea,
one of reservoirs, automatic, self-acting and self-regulating, water-
ing the other end of the grasses, feeding and watering vegetation
at its roots, by inducing it to reach down for supplies of food and
drink, at the same time attracting moisture and nutrition from be-
low.

“That you are right, I know, and yet I fear you will find the
average farmer, and even the most enlightened and progressive of
gardeners, unprepared to accept your system as one promising

49 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

profitable returns, on account of the expense incurred in fitting
lands as you are doing. The silo doubles the value of the growth
of an acre, and yet, so long as the old way produces meat and milk
enough for the present generation, old men and young ones too,
will, I fear, prefer the past to the present and future.” P

Upwards of two years have passed since Mr. White’s letter was
received, and despite the apprehensions of the author that our system
may fail of early adoption, we confess to have been made happy by
the knowledge, that while thousands and ten of thousands of farm-
ers still reject ensilage, every day of our life brings evidence of the
fact that the new agriculture is steadily making headway, finding
friends all over the country, and that no event of the future is more
certain than its general adoption. It is this general adoption which
is destined to demonstrate its possibilities. Not by the trenching
and fitting of five or even of ten acres can a trout stream be grown
and yet, ten acres of trenching on any hillside having a firm sub-
soil will bring out a steady flow of crystal waters, telling the most
wonderful story told since that of Moses at Horeb.

In Tue American Anoter, of November 4th, 1884, occurred the
following lines, from the pen of Mr. H. H. Thompson, an ardent
student and lover of the woods and waters, and an associate of Mr.
Wm. C. Harris and Seth Green, in the conduct of the above named
paper:

“A new era for the brook trout is dawning. In these latter days
its saviour has arisen. A remarkable man stretches forth his wand
and trout streams are created. He smites the hillside and a purling
brook or a rushing river issues in never ceasing flow from its base.
He gathers the waters from the clouds, dews, and melting snows,
and after their utilization in the production of marvellous results
in agriculture and horticulture, releases them to form a lake of cold
water absolutely pure, or a never failing crystal stream.

en

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 43

“Mr. A. N. Cole, of Wellsville, Allegany county, New York, has
been sedulously engaged for two or three years past in developing
at his “ Home on the Hillside” a new system of uniform drainage,
subterranean irrigation and fertilization, applicable to all mountain-
ous, hilly or undulatory sections having a firm clay or hard-pan
sub-soil. His discoveries and experiments have led to most sur-—
prising results.”

Subsequent to the publication of the above, and the week pre-
vious to an address made by us at the Cooper Institute in New
York City upon invitation of the Executive Committee of the
Farmers’ Club, of the American Institute, of New York, the follow-
ing communication was published in Tae Amertcan ANGLER, under
the heading of “ Man Begotten Trout Streams.”

* * * * x * * * *

“Let me state a few facts, prefacing with a statement by way of
illustration. The fall of water in overflow at our village mill has
been capped completely with ice, hiding the water from view, dash-
ing down an apron at an angle of forty-five degrees or thereabouts.
The Genesee, Chemung, Canisteo and Susquehanna are at many
points frozen to their bottoms. Brooks issuing from springs are
frozen which never within my knowledge were known to freeze be-
fore. My spring brook, evoked from our hillside, among others, has
frozen in the prism of the canal into which the waters from my
trenches discharge. This prism is completely filled with ice, and
yet, so warm are the waters entering at the bottom of the canal, they
find their way out by melting the ice above in the coldest of
weather. These waters in trenches along my hillside are found in
chambers of stone at a depth of about three feet and a half,
covered with an earth sponge of pure mold or rich loam. There
are nearly two feet of snow along my side hill on the average. Such

is the effect from evaporation of the waters beneath at spring-water

44 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

temperature, that the snows melt at their bottoms, and their waters,
dropping down into the chambers of stone in the trenches, keep the
latter full to the surface of the subsoil, and overflowing through the
surface soil as though a sponge, keeping the frost out of the earth;
and I find my strawberry plants growing green beneath the snow,
making the white roots, etc.

« And so it is, that the deeper down the waters are dropped the
warmer they become, and the deeper the snows the warmer the soil
beneath them, and the more the melting at their bottoms goes on.
What could be done in countries like Labrador, Alaska, Greenland,
Iceland, etc., by deep trenching during their short summers, I leave
to the imagination. To say the least, if they have the right kind of
slopes and hillsides in Canada, if that cold country can be annexed
to the United States, we will allow our neighbors of that hitherto
less hospitable region to come in under our system of protection
from the rule of the Frost King.”

“THe ANGLER comes as a cheerful companion, pointing back to
memories of youth. It is a charming paper. Long may it wave.

A. N. Cote.

Home on the Hillside, Wellsville, N. Y., March 19, 1885.

In the following quotations from our address at Cooper Union
the reader will bear in mind that, on the succeeding morning,
March 25th, the metropolitan press teemed with mention of Dr.
Edson’s report touching the impurities of the waters of the Croton,
As the briefest among these editorial articles and the one coming
most directly to the point, we quote from the Sun as follows:

“The Health Commissioners yesterday considered Dr. Edson’s re-
port of the examination which has been made of the Croton water-
shed, but refused to make it public. It was learned that the report
speaks of the rapidly growing population of the surrounding dis-
trict as a source of increasing contamination of the water supply.

tim austin thin orl

”

“TOME ON THE HILLSIDE.

eel

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 45

Along the Croton River and its tributaries in many places are

_ drains which discharge their contents into the water. A condensed

milk factory at Brewster’s, containing 100 hands, and another at
Purdy’s containing 75, discharge their refuse into the water, and
the offal of a slaughter house at Brewster’s goes the same way.
Other cases of a similar nature on a smaller scale are told of in the
report.”

During our remarks, we made use of the following language.

“While an attempt to trace my lines of thought, examination and
investigation into the laws governing the movement of the waters
over, along, through and beneath soils, ultimating at length in my
discoveries, would doubtless weary my audience, I may be permit-
ted to read the following communication made to the Farmers’
Club of Elmira in confession of my obligations to that body for
generous treatment received during a discussion of the merits of
my system.

Home on THE Hinistpr, Wertsvitte, N.Y., Jury 31, 1884.

To Tue Farmer’s Cuvs, or Exmira, N. Y.

“T address you through the Husbandman to express my gratitude
and profound appreciation of the compliments so unexpectedly
paid me by a body whose proceedings I have been for years noting
with deep interest.

“T have been quite generally presumed to be one who cares little
for any matter outside of politics, and the tone of your expressions
while discussing the question of questions with me, not merely at
the present but all along through my life, touches my heart in a
way I scarcely know how to sufficiently express.

“Tn no boastful spirit do I point to the facts connected with my
lineage as found epitomized in an article in the Free Press, copies
of which I send. From earliest childhood, two passions have
seemed to rule with me, the hatred of oppression and correspond-

46 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

ing love of liberty, and the desire to see our mother earth restored
to a condition akin to the one pictured of Eden.

“Do not misunderstand me. I would not see earth made a gar-
den by the hand of the Father, but holding as I do that work is
worship, I would have the worship on the part of the children go
on, till nations becoming families and families dwelling each under
its own vine and fig tree, shall make home, with the farm and gar-
den, an Eden of love the world over.

“For this disposition, and what I have done and am doing in the
direction suggested, I am entitled to neither honor nor riches.
Riches I have not gotten, but honor has come at last, not in the
way the world counts it, as arule. But your club seems to be im-
pressed with the conviction that, to make money, I would not have
recourse to deception. I surely would not, since I could not and
be myself.

“T have, indeed, found the way to the new agriculture so fitly
denominated by one of your most eminent members, Mr. C. H.
Lewis. Nor the way only. Yes, I have found the thing itself, and
no possible escape from it.

“Tf I should make money out of my discoveries it will come good,
and will be used, beyond the comforts and becoming adornments
of home, to do good in all ways.

“T sought the patent, not to place an embargo on the glebe, but
as an incentive to improvement of the glebe.

“T was but a boy in the summer of 1838, when, amid distresses,
not merely of business, but of drought almost without precedent,
I travelled on foot over a large portion of Ohio, canvassing for a
little horticultural and agricultural monthly, the “ Buckeye Plough-

boy,” on more than one occasion sleeping in the open air, eating
fruit by the way, and shelling out the wheat, eating it, doing the

erinding with my then young and firm teeth.

LK

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 47

“Tt was in the counties of Sandusky, Huron, Seneca and others
of northwestern Ohio, where I found fires sweeping along the
prairies and farms, destroying crops and timber, the trees having
in many instances dropped their foliage before their time. Water
was scarce for man and beast, and pestilence followed in the track
of the droughts and desolation. Three hundred graves of fathers,
mothers and children were unwet by the rains at lower Sandusky,
(now Fremont). The scum upon the waters of the river was so
thick that squirrels were said to have crossed it in droves without
wetting their feet.

“Swamps and morasses were on fire burning to a depth, in many
instances, reaching the rock from three to six feet beneath the sur-
face, since a uniform lime-rock underlies whole counties of this
portion of Ohio. It was this rock formation that especially attract-
ed my attention. To obtain water from wells was stubborn work.
Great streams in some instances gushed out in copious flow, but
disappeared quickly as some deep fissure in the rock was reached in
the flow of their waters.

“Thus early did I begin the observation and study of soils. Not
merely did I seek to know the surface. In streams, dry in their
beds, and in furrows of field and farm my studies went on. The
subsoils were especially observed.

“Whence came the waters? These I knew dropped down from
the clouds in the form of rains, dews, frosts and snows. When it
came winter, I found out the treasures of the hail. I looked
back longingly during nearly a year of dreary discontent to the
leeks and onions, rains and dews and even the drifting snows of
that Allegany of nearly fifty years ago. Iremembered the crystal
waters of the good-bye land I had left for the attractions of the
then great west, and dreamed dreams of grasses all green in their
verdure and grateful in their juices.

48 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

“This is a goodly land, I said mentally, and yet, without water
it seems much like a place we read about, in no sense attractive.
There was no end to my dreams. How can these great seams in

the rocks be sealed? was the question uppermost in my mind. ~

These streams so abundant in flow along smooth rocky channels,
I said mentally, in spring and autumn, are fearful to contemplate
as found amid the fervors of the summer solstice. Great rains
would come in ordinary seasons, lasting at times for days in mid-
summer, and in three days time no desert was ever more dry.
Here, in favorable seasons, was grown that wonderful white wheat
we used to see in our boyhood, eclipsing that, if possible, grown in
the valley of the far-famed Genesee.

“This was the school, added to a few lessons learned in Michigan,
then just admitted into our Union as a state, where I studied geol-
ogy and geography, physics, physiology, botany and other sciences
without number in their application to the constitutions of men
and animals, plants, trees, grasses, grains and all else of life in its
multitudinous forms and phases.

“ And all along since I have studied on, and reached conclusions
and demonstrated them as follows:—

“1. The Father gives us the rains and dews and frozen waters
in copious abundance, nor need any of the sons and daughters of
men, nor beasts of the field, or fowl, or fish, or flesh in any form,
nor so much as the grass beneath our feet want for food and drink.

“2. Man, made but little lower than the angels, and monarch as
he is of earth, has the ability to gather up the waters in store to be
used as wanted, controlling their flow as they make their ways
adown to the seas, and in facile direction so conduct them in cur-
rents as to make their tracks the ways of pleasantness and paths of
peace, at the same time furnishing fruitions to earth’s inhabitants

in basket and store of measureless abundance.

e THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 49

“In the discussions indulged in on the part of your Club at date
of July 26th, while considering the systems of horticulture and
agriculture, proposed by your correspondent, the question unan-
swered was the one always asked ‘will it pay?’

“That a body of men like yours should have been found in sub-
stance agreeing to every proposition I make in urging the merits
of my system, and that, too, when that system proposes the most
startling of new departures, is evidence that the world has reached
a point where all things seem possible with men as with their
Maker. Reading your discussions as I do, you agree to this:—

“J. The rains and dews and melting snows can be gathered into
store, and in regions of country where hard-pan and clay subsoils
are found, so held back or allowed to flow on as to feed and water
vegetation in their track, giving to all trees, plants, grasses, grains
and other forms of plant life what is needed by way of food and
drink in abundance, and never in surfeit.

“2. You agree that the waters moving evenly and in uniform
currents from mountain and hilltop along slopes and inclines till
the streams are reached, passing through the soil in subterranean
flow, bear with them nutrition for plants at their roots, which, by
capillary attraction are watered and fed in conformity to the neces-
sities of each and all.

“3. You equally agree that irrigation and abundant supply of
food being realized, all forms of plant growth will be perfectly
developed.

“4. Again, you agree that when my system comes to be gen-
erally adopted, there will be fewer floods, fewer frosts of a deadly
character, and as for droughts they need not occur in regions of
country at least underlaid with the prevailing subsoil of the slopes
and inclines of the Southern Tier, and of other regions similarly
conformed.

50 THE NEW AGRICULTURE. :

“By way of encouragement, let me say therefore, that the con-
clusions which seem to have been reached by your club are those
arrived at by Hon. William M. White, President of our State Agri-
cultural Society, Hon. Warner Miller, Chairman of the Committee
on Agriculture of the United States Senate, General Benjamin But-
terworth, Commissioner of Patents, Hon. Henry M. Teller, Secre-
tary of the Interior, and, if I am correctly informed, Hon. Geo. B.
Loring, Commissioner of Agriculture, and hundreds of others, as
eminent in all ways as the most notable in our land.

“Tn conclusion, let me say that, all I have claimed can be done,
and most of it has been done and demonstrated by myself ; the re-
sults are so wonderful in all ways as to incline me to shrink from
their enumeration and specification, and yet here is an epitome.

“Waters having descended their incline, however impregnated
or discolored at their sources, reach the level of the streams in
purity, having left all behind in their track adapted to the develop-
ment of plant growth.

“The stones, sticks and all else in the soil inducing fungus
growths at the roots of plants being removed and placed deep
down in the trenches, and manures having been so composted with
lime, ashes, salts and other fermentizing and assimilating agencies
as to prevent germination of seeds, and completely destroying the
seed of fungus, every root of every plant will be free from disease,
and perfect stalks, buds, blossoms and fruit follow, and health
coming at all stages of growth, it is transmitted beyond to the
consumer not merely, but to the seeds and germinations of future
plant growths.

“Stagnation of waters nowhere occurring, health rather than
decay and death will be found in the track of the waters. The
potatoe rot will be conquered, wire worms and the small grub
eating the white roots of vegetation will largely if not wholly dis-

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 51

appear, and when it comes to malaria with all of its animalcule
“in the air above, the earth beneath, and the waters under the
earth,” these will in their baneful infections pass away.

“ Among our hills and mountains, springs will gush out in purity
and permanency, lakes be begotten, rivers formed, and reservoirs be
found where none have hitherto been seen ; and these, swarming
with fish, will so multiply the food products of land and water and
so improve them in flavor and quality, as to eclipse anything real-
ized in the past.

“But this applies only to lands such as are found in the region
round about us and to similar subsoils elsewhere.

“On nearly all portions of the world, outside of sea levels, by the
use of tile and kindred appliances in the form of troughs on the
elevations and slopes in which to aggregate the waters, all of
which are provided for under our system, the retention of water
beneath the soil in its flow along declines in subterranean cur-
rents, evaporation through the earth sponge being uniform and in-
spiring, the climates of New Jersey and Long Island, if not of Dela-
ware and Maryland, will come to New York and New England.

“Will it pay? LIanswer: Come one, come all to our “Home on
the Hillside” and see for yourselves. My neighbors have seen,
tested, feasted and felt, and my work is before their eyes. .Some
of your own citizens know and realize what I have demonstrated
and accomplished.”

The balance of my address at the Cooper Union in New York,
will be found in the following article from Tur American ANGLER as
reported by its Managing Editor Mr. Wm. C. Harris, who was
present on the occasion ; it appeared under the heading of “The
Waters Led Captive.”

“On Tuesday last, March 24, Mr. A. N. Cole, of Wellsville, Alle-
gany County, N. Y., addressed, by invitation, the Farmer’s Club of

52 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

the American Institute, at their semi-monthly meeting, on the sub-
ject of his ‘New Agriculture. He took his audience by storm,
nearly or quite every person present pronouncing his address one
of the most striking ever delivered before that body; convincing,
apparently, his hearers that he had found out the way to grow
springs, spring brooks, lakes and rivers of water, going to the
clouds for sources of supply and gathering in the rains, dews and
waters from melting snows, ‘holding, husbanding and housing’ them
at will, and moving them forward in a way to produce such results
in agriculture and horticulture as to astonish everyone in this age

of marvels.

“Mr. Cole denominated his servant (the waters) “Leviathan,” de-
clared he had him yoked, a hook in his jaw, and proposed to plow
with him until paradise lost shall be regained. The people who
are just at present not only vexed in spirits about a plentiful sup-
ply of Croton, but are fearful that our water is being poisoned by
surface washings, will, we feel sure, read with interest the conclu-
sion of Mr. Cole’s address, as follows:

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, having extended to me a pa-
tient and attentive hearing, for which thanking you once more,
permit me in closing to say that I have been engaged for three or
four years in demonstrating the use to be made of the waters, and
have become convinced that by gathering them in and directing
their flow in subterranean currents they may be dropped deeply
enough into reservoirs along inclines to hold them not only in re-
serve, but at a temperature considerably above freezing, keeping
frost out of the soil. To say the least, in moderate winter weather,
by evaporation through the soil, the snows will be melted at their
bottoms, and the waters dropping into the reservoirs below, their
movement will follow in even flow through surface soils, as

through a sponge, and through subsoils in percolation, bearing

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 53

with them inspirations to plant growth, having an influence as yet
scarcely dreamed of.

“Tt is not only subsurface, subterranean or underground irriga-
tion which is realized in perfection under operation of the methods
governing in my system, but a perfect method of drainage also,
carrying off the surplus waters and leaving to mother earth the
work of elaboration, and to plants their selections of food and de-
sired fill of drink, always in abundance, and never in surfeit.

“The time has come when around and about every home of our
entire land the work should begin of subsurface or underground
irrigation and drainage. If on slopes and inclines, with firm sub-
soils and an abundance of stone, the work can be readily and econ-
omically done. If the soils are porous, then should clay or cement
be used in construction of reservoirs and inclines, and the form of
tile, to which recourse may be had, has only to be shaped for the
work in hand, when yoking of “ Leviathan” will be begun in a way
to demonstrate what he is capable of doing.

“ Suffice it to say that were the slopes on the east and west banks
of the Hudson thus generally trenched and fitted, your great and
grand river would show a steady current of pure spring water
moving down to the ocean, regardless of droughts or removal of
the forests, so defying diminution of its tides as to make navigation
of any portion of its channel, even in midsummer, a something un-
necessary to provide otherwise for. You will find the begetting of
lakes at any altitude chosen among the mountains, hills and valleys
of the counties of Albany, Columbia, Schenectady, Schoharie,
Montgomery, Herkimer, Dutchess, Putnam, Greene and Ulster,
not to mention others farther north, not only a pastime but a
profit, of which not one in a million of the American people yet
dream. You will find that growing of crystal springs, and beget-

ting of rivulets and rivers of water is a something as easy of

54 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

accomplishment as the sinking of a well, or of an ordinary cistern.

“You will find the grasses of your dooryards and lawns and the
plants in your gardens greenly growing and making root all winter
beneath the snows; and the snows melting at their bottoms, the
waters will find their way to bases of slopes at temperature several
degrees above freezing. You will find water, evolved on and out
from your lakes, hung up along your hillsides sufficient to provide
all of reserve needed to hold the Hudson at high tide during every
month of the year; and, applying like principles to what has been
denominated the Great American desert, you will see gathered in
those torrents of water continually descending the slopes of the
Sierras and Rockies, coming of melting snows and passing on
from trench to trench, borne down mountain sides, across plain,
and descending into valleys, nowhere appearing on the surface,
except as man may direct, making confluence with the rivers in
purity and perpetuity of flow.

“You will find surface and subsoils alike made softer, more
porous and spongy, alkali extracted or again infused, salts, ammonia,
etc., evenly diffused, fertilization perfected, and production in-
creased to a degree beyond computation. You will find hundreds,
yea, thousands of trees growing, giving shade and bearing fruits
to where one is being felled by the woodman’s axe, and clouds
forming and rains and dews descending in hitherto rainless and
treeless regions. The English grasses, growing greenly all over
our southland amid the fervors of the summer solstice, will give
to our brethren of that section the milk and honey, butter and
cheese, and other like products of our graver northlands. By way
of experiment, try this method on the dooryards, lawns, gardens,
etc., about your houses, and let your city fathers look into it and
make up their minds to have babbling brooks, with occasional cas-

cades, dropping waters crystal-clear into miniature lakes of the parks

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 55

and places already existing, and steadily multiplying, in and about
New York, Brooklyn and other towns in circuit, and see what will
come of it. Lest “Leviathan ” be underrated as regards his powers,
let lakes everywhere be hung up among the rocks and mountains
of New England, and, by use of the water motor, let the wheels
moving the mills, factories, foundries and workshops of that region
be run under the force and impulse of his self-begotten, auto-
matic, self-regulating, unfed, unwatered, yoked, tamed and magic
movements—and so shall the harvest be.”

The following discussion of our system by the Farmer’s Club of
Elmira, N. Y., occurred at a meeting on July 26, 1885, and was
fully reported in the columns of The Husbandman of Elmira, from
which it is now transcribed : :

“Tn the discussion of the subject of Mr. Cole’s system by the
Farmer's Club of Elmira, at its weekly meeting of July 26th, the
following report published in The Husbandman, demonstrates the
interest manifested in it :

“On the call for correspondence the Secretary read a letter de-
scribing a new system of irrigation. Although it had not been ad-
dressed directly to the Club, and the writer perhaps had no thought

_ that it would be submitted for discussion, it seemed pertinent, and,

in fact, was invited by members to whom a synopsis had been
given, and they gave attentive hearing during the reading, for the
matters presented were calculated to excite interest in the minds
of farmers whose hill lands of obstinate soil and under ordinary
treatment failed to give due returns for labor expended in fitting
them for grain and grass crops. The first expressions were by
gentlemen who had personal acquaintance with Mr. Cole, and who
evinced pleasure in testifying to his worth as a citizen and his high
sense of honor. They believe he would not lay before the people a

scheme to defraud a single farmer, no matter how much profit he

56 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

might reap from the transaction. Mr. Lewis was particularly warm
in his expressions of regard, and referring to matters embraced in
the letter he said :

“«We all know that it is possible to increase crops four-fold by
irrigation, taking as the standard the average yields on lands that
are subject to extremes of drought and wet, and our clay lands are
nearly all of this character. I have seen an illustration on my own
land of the principle embraced in Mr. Cole’s system where a ridge
held an accumulation of water from rains until it could slowly pass
through and furnish moisture for plants growing below. Their
growth was two or three times as great as on other portions of the
field of like character where moisture was not provided at the right
time. If we can, by any system, hold back the surplus water that
comes from rains and snows,—water that usually runs over the
surface to the nearest creek or river—and let it out just at the time
when the plants need it, Iam confident that we can reap harvests
uniform in excellence and always full. The question to be consid-
ered is—can we afford to inaugurate the system and carry it to
completion when its cost will add greatly to the investment, mak-
ing the farm cost, let us say, twice as much as before the improve-
ment? I think the expense may be afforded with proper manage-
ment, and that its gradual improvement, so that a piece of land
treated by this system may give profits to be applied to the im-
provement of more land. If we were required to treat our hillsides
in the way proposed all at once, there is not money enough in this
county to effect the improvement, but with a very small part of the
money that would be required to do the whole work we can begin
and then use the profits to carry forward the work. I believe the
time is coming, and is not far distant, when the face of the earth
will be changed and a new agriculture, more profitable than ours,

will be open to every farmer. I believe the ingenuity of man will

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 57

devise ways by which every acre that we now cultivate will be
made to produce two or three times as much as we get from it
now. That will be our new agriculture. Perhaps this system dis-
covered by Mr. Cole is the first step toward the general improve-
ment.

“G.S. McCann. If we can adopt any plan that will increase
crops to two or three times present yield we can afford considera-
ble expense to effect the improvement. It is not so much a matter
of cost in the outset as returns afterwards.

“W. A. Armstrong. That is the right way to view the new sys-
tem. First, ascertain by actual inspection of the grounds treated
by Mr. Cole two or three years ago what improvement is effected,
what advantage is already seen; in fact, get full information from
every available source. Now suppose his estimate of cost be taken
at $200 or $250 to the acre. Manifestly it will not be within the
range of possibilities for farmers generally to improve fifty or a
hundred acres inasingle season at such great cost. But take
another view, premising of course that benefits received will repay
the outlay. Take one acre and treat it by this system. Suppose
its profits in annual crops are one-fifth of the cost required to pro-
vide irrigation. Why plainly in five years the profit will provide
funds for treating another acre. Then there will be two acres to
yield profits, and accumulation of gain would, in a few years, pro-
vide for treating an extensive field. Sometimes it is advantageous
for farmers to lay out a good deal of money in improvements, even
when the money must be borrowed. As for instance suppose a
field never does more than return cost of labor expended on it.
The land may have cost a hundred dollars an acre, but if it will
produce nothing more than fair compensation for labor employed
on it, the value is nothing, because the labor can be sold for the

money without waiting for crops to grow, or it might be employed

58 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

on other portions of the farm where it would secure fuller returns.
But if this field, by a proper system of improvement can be made
to pay a large profit, not only on the money expended in improve-
ment but on the original cost of the land, and also on the labor
employed in cultivation, why, to the dullest mind the argument in
favor of making the improvement will be very plain. That there
are such fields on a great majority of our hill farms, there can be
no doubt. When we find the new agriculture, of which Mr. Lewis
speaks, we shall find these lands improved by some system and the
gain to farmers who now own them will be very great.

“©. H. Lewis. Thatis precisely what I am looking for. My
farm is mainly heavy soil that has cost a great deal of labor to
bring to its present condition where some profit can be derived by
cultivation. But developement is not completed. I suppose that
after all the years I have spent in trying to improve my farm it
may be worth $50 per acre. Now if it could be improved by Mr.
Cole’s plan, as I believe it might, it would bring better profits on
$500 per acre than it does now on $50. If this supposition be cor-
rect it would be wise economy to expend a large sum of money on
every acre to bring it to the highest state of production. I dare
say that $100 or $200 expended on an acre might, in the course of
eight or ten years, put into my pocket a great deal larger sum of
profit than I can have by cultivating the land as it now is, and the
gain after the original, cost is returned, would be all profit.”

The foregoing is only a portion of the discussion upon the occa-
sion, the members participating in it being its President, Mr.
Cann, its Secretary, Mr. Armstrong, Editor of the Husbandman and
others, several of the number being among the first farmers of the
Chemung Valley. Such was the tone of the discussion throughout
as to cheer our heart and strengthen our determination to speak
out boldly, and tell what we had found out. This we began doing,

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. , 59

and yet, so startling were our statements, and so far short had we
yet come of a satisfactory demonstration, that we went slowly,
_ proceeding step by step, fortifying as we progressed. Not all of
the members of our family, nor so much as a single individual
among our more intimate neighbors and friends were able to
understand us, so complete was the revolution impending. Then
too, we may as well confess it, faithful friends never before doubt-
ing, felt that we were deceiving ourself, over confident, and were
spending money in a way that would never return. That our
credit correspondingly suffered is a fact we may as well confess.
At this juncture, through the kind consideration of President
Arthur and the Hon. Henry M. Teller, Secretary of the Interior,
both of whom had know us a lifetime and had taken a deep interest
in our discoveries, we received a commission sending us to the
Pacific Coast, to examine the last completed link of the Northern
Pacific Railroad. This, though helping to the extent of less
than a thousand dollars, came at the time most needed, enabling
us to go forward with the work of demonstration. Before going on
our official western visit, we assured the President and Secretary
that we had no doubt whatever that such were the nature of our
discoveries, that were our system to be applied to the reclamation
of the lands belonging to the government in that desolate region
denominated the Great American desert, these could be made as
generally productive as those of other sections of our country,
now thickly populated, and in certain portions, vastly more produc-
tive. Going out, and returning, we were convinced, beyond the
shadow of a doubt that millions of acres of the lands skirting
that greatest of lines, the Northern Pacific Railway, as seen along
mountain sides, plateaus, plains and valleys found in treeless and
rainless regions could be completely reclaimed, and made as fertile
and productive as those of the most favored countries of earth.

60 . THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

Reaching home about the tenth of May 1884, all went hope-
fully on for a while, till came that fearful blizzard, not soon to be
forgotten, about the last of the month, and so chilling our expect-
ations as to bring us near to discouragement. It was while journey-
ing to the Pacific coast that we had occasion for a few hours to look
squarely in the face a champion blizzard, gotten up at Manitoba’s
best, leaving no room for doubt as regards the place where, congel-
ation putting on the intense, “the frozen waters gendered are.”
Whether the one which struck western New York and other sec-
tions in the East and West on the 29th of May, 1884, has been
equalled in the memory of the oldest inhabitant is doubtful. No
more decisive test of the efficacy of our system as protection
against frost could have been applied. The ground was frozen to
the depth of from one to two inches on all plowed lands upon our
fifty acres outside of the acre and a quarter at that time per-
fected in trenching under our system. In the latter, evaporation
of spring water through the soil was such as to prevent freezing,
and the damage to our garden was correspondingly mitigated.
Our strawberries were much injured by the frost striking the buds
and blossoms, and the currants were killed at the tops but not at
the bottoms of the bushes. The result was, damage, but by no
means that total loss of the crops experienced by farmers and
gardners in western New York generally. This convinced us that
our system is proof against the effects of frost to a degree that
makes it, in this particular, worth millions annually to regions sub-
ject to disaster from this source.

It was a consolation to know that our system had proven in
some degree protective against Manitoba’s champion blizzard, and
yet, in view of the fact that we had gotten up great expectations,
confident of being able to show to the world the wonder workings

of our system to an extent coming so near to demonstration as to

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. or

make our way clear to immediate success, sush were the effects of
frost upon our grounds as to cause us to feel that we wished no-
body to come and see till another season. Many came, neverthe-
less during the summer, and in no instance did anyone go away
unconvinced. Individuals came without number, chief among
them being Mr. J. Austin Shaw of Rochester, and Mr. D. C. Hop-
kins, of the Almond Fruit Farm, both saying pleasant things and
doing all that was possible to cheer and encourage us to persever-
ance in the work we had undertaken. In the meantime, a few
brave men among our Allegany county farmers, having organized
a club, had so far gotten a start with their organization as to make
themselves felt all over our county. Discussion of the merits of
our system had begun in a lively way, the news getting out that
our patent had been allowed. The good effects were immediate,
prompting the Allegany Farmers’ Club to appoint a committee to
visit our grounds, and examine into the merits of our system. The
committee came, and after spending several hours in examining in-
to our work and noting results, reached conclusion as follows:
Wettisvittz, Aug. 11, 1884.

Mr. A. N. Cots:

The undersigned committee, representing the Farmers’ Club of
Allegany county, having examined the plot of ground fitted under
your improved system of subterranean drainage, irrigation and fer-
tilization, take pleasure in assuring the public that our observa-
tions justify us in concluding that you are enabled to realize all
you claim to accomplish by that system.
EK. E. Hypr, Belmont, Jas. S. Wincox, Belmont,
C. A. Winpus, “ I. P. Truman, €
D. H. Norton, Friendship.

This committee was as ably constituted as any one of equal number

that could be chosen from the membership of any like organization

62 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

in our State. Two of them, to wit : Messrs. Truman and Hyde being
physicians, while Messrs, Wilcox, Windus and Norton are among the
mostsuccessful of Allegany farmers, the latter at this time President
of the county club. Hon. B. F. Langworthy, widely known in Alle-
gany and adjoining counties as a gentleman of rare enterprise
and intelligence, one of the most substantial and successful of Alle-
gany farmers, came about the same time, and making careful ex-
amination, pronounced the new agriculture the way to success. It
was the year before, that Mr. J. F. Langworthy came, and about
the same time also Mr. D. C. Hopkins, of the Almond Fruit
Farm, both of whom formed favorable conclusions touching the in-
fluence of subsurface irrigation on fruit trees, as shown by the sin-
gle apple tree left standing on our grounds at the time trenching
was begun.

On the first of July, 1885, the “Home on the Hillside ” was visited
by Dr. J. P. Roberts, now of Ithaca, N. Y., who has in charge the
University Farm, at Cornell, N. Y., an agriculturist having a na-
tional reputation. Layman, as we are, though having faith amount-
ing to sightin our system, we felt nevertheless, a trifle anxious
lest this most eminent of farm doctors might discover defects in
our system as to the conformation of soils, methods of fertilizing,
or in other particulars of a serious nature, hence we were especi-
ally gratified, when he uttered his opinion as follows :

“Yes, Mr. Cole, you do all you claim to accomplish; you gather
the waters into your reservoirs and pass them through the soil
rather than leaving them to run riot along the surface; you trans-
form this hitherto shunned and dreaded hardpan into soft, porous,
productive and best of soils to the depth of your trenches, thereby
enabling the roots of vegetation to descend deeply into the earth.
You remove the stone operating as obstructions and diseasing the

roots of plants, and put them where they will do most good; you pro-

-

x.

a tr
ELS

S&

‘UHUL AIddvY GIO FHL

ra

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 65

vide against floods and droughts, and to a great extent, if not
wholly, defeat the effects of frost, but in doing this, it seems to me
that you are digging your trenches much wider than necessary,
and it would be better to sink them deeper, thus avoiding unne-
cessary cost, and at the same time making warm, soft, porous and
productive soil to greater depth.”

In discussing this point, the Professor told a story of his experi-
ence while in Iowa of tracing the roots of clover in their descent
in a gravel bank, beating the one told us by Horace Greeley as re-
garded the descent of the roots of trees to a depth of twenty-two
feet to reach the waters of a river in subterranean flow. Mr. Gree-
ley made his statement as one of information and belief, coming
from credible witnesses in California, while Professor Roberts based
his statement upon personal knowledge of the fact that, in order to
reach water, clover roots descended to a depth of either eight or
eighteen feet. (We are quite sure it was the latter depth but as
we may have misunderstood him, we will therefore refer the public
to the author of this last story to say whether it was eight or eigh-
teen feet that the clover roots found their way into the earth.)
Whether eight, or eighteen, it is safe to conclude that the tops of
that clover corresponded to the length and strength of the roots.
Having settled this point, every reader will not fail to discover the
reason why there is now growing and ripening in our garden in
boundless profusion more bushels of luscious strawberries to the
acre than the average farmer grows of potatoes, and that these are
in hundreds of instances, the size of ordinary peaches. Consider-
able numbers of these berries measure from four to eight inches in
circumference. We have decided, as suggested by Dr. Roberts, to
go down a little deeper, sinking our trenches from three to four
feet into the subsoil, and arranging all overflow trenches beneath
the surface soil out of reach of the deepest spading or plowing.

66 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

A memorable day was the 7th of July, 1885, the one upon which
occurred the formal introduction of our system to the world. We
are now writing at the date of August 3rd, 1885. On Wednesday,
July 30th, Mr. William C. Harris, Editor in Chief of the American
Awneter, published at 252 Broadway, New York City, made us a
visit. He spent a day with us, looking over our system in detail
and gave decision as follows: “The New Agriculture” is the way
to a new earth with pure waters and healthy plants and peoples,”
adding “Brothers Cole and Thompson are right about it, the
brook trout must not go, and will not go.”

Below will be found an extract from the correspondence of the
Buffalo Express, second in circulation and influence to no paper in
our State outside of the metropolis, it appearing on the day suc-
ceeding our exhibit, July 8th.

“Yesterday was a notable day for Wellsville, or at least for one
of its most widely-known inhabitants. Nestled away among the
ragged Allegany hills, this snug town of about 4,000 people has in
common with the rest of the world, its ambitions and its celebri-
ties. The particular industry that yesterday took a long stride
toward popular recognition and favor is one growing up on the
western hill of the town, and is known as Cole’s system of under-
ground irrigation. Reckoned either as a freak or curiosity, or
better than both of these, as a step into the next century in the
domain of agriculture, this little plot of five acres of land, only
two of which are as yet developed, will bear the closest inspection
of either the skeptic or the willing convert.

“ But perhaps everybody is not aware of the system, now under
practical trial, which promises to revolutionize the world’s agricul-
ture, nay, according to its enthusiastic author, has already done so.
Some four years ago Mr. A. N. Cole, better known as the “ father
of the Republican party ” and the veteran editor of the Wellsville

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 67

Free Press, began to put in operation a system of agriculture
based on underground irrigation, an idea entirely his own. He
had been studying the system a number of years before that time,
but had not until then carried it into practice. There were draw-
backs that need not be mentioned here and there was, of course,
a town full of people who laughed at the idea as a crazy notion
sure to come to nothing. But Mr. Cole persevered, and it is safe
to say that yesterday he was able to demonstrate his success so
entirely as to ensure him the title of the proudest man in western
New York and perhaps out of it as well.”

From beginning to end of a two column article, commendatory
throughout, the correspondent of The Express drew a faithful
picture of what he saw on this occasion.

We now give the report of Mr. Charles A. Green, sent to our
place as special correspondent of the New York Tribune. In mak-
ing the report Mr. Green dates his letter at Clifton, July 8th, on
the day succeeding our exhibition:

“A short ride from Rochester up the Genesee Valley among
promising grain fields, fragrant meadows and shady pastures, and
another hour along the southern tier bring me to a prosperous,
hill-girt village, lying like a speckled egg in a bird’s nest. In this
pretty village of Wellsville is the home of Mr. A. N. Cole, the vet-
eran editor and horticultural experimenter. His residence is
situated on an eastern slope commanding views of the village and
surrounding country. I found here a company of about 100
gentlemen, ministers, politicians, physicians, the press and neigh-
bors, who, like The Tribune correspondent, had been invited to wit-
ness the results of “The New Agriculture,” as Mr. Cole has named
his new method of irrigation. Mr. Cole expressed his pleasure at
seeing The Tribune represented, and remarked that it was Horace ©
Greeley who gave him his first insight into this method of agri-

68 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

culture, by relating the peculiarities of a section of country in
California. Near Los Angeles a river disappeared from view and
followed a subterranean course for a distance of twenty-two miles
on an average of twenty feet below the surface of the soil. The
land surrounding this portion of country was a desert, but that
immediately over the subterranean river was covered with luxur-
lous vegetation. He also spoke of a similar mysterious disappear-
ance of ariver in the Mesilla Valley, New Mexico. It was the
knowledge of these lost rivers, he said, that gave birth to the ideas
which have grown into “The New Agriculture.” In speaking of
the remarkable growth over these rivers, Mr. Greeley mentioned
the fact that vegetables and trees growing there, sent their roots
down until they reached the river water beneath. Mr. Cole
says that Professor Roberts, of Ithaca, has told him that he
has traced red clover roots to a depth of eighteen feet,
that were growing in a bed of gravel overlying water.

“Mr. Cole has been studying irrigation since he was seventeen
years old, but his present system flashed upon him within the past
few years. He has not yet extended his working model over more
than two to three acres. I shall attempt to explain what I saw,
and to state the claims of Mr. Cole as clearly as I can, considering
our brief and frequently interrupted conversation.

“We were first shown a patch of strawberries containing nearly
two acres. These plants were grown in hills about eighteen inches
apart each way, mulched with forest leaves, liberally fertilized
with yard manure, and irrigated after the new method. I was
told by the former owner of the hillside that when he sold it to
Mr. Cole it was an unproductive piece of ground. The soil proper
‘was not over ten or twelve inches deep and rested upon a tena-
cious, clayey hard-pan, which was impervious to water. He said
the frosts acted so seriously upon this soil, on account of the sur-

—— es SO

bil

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 69

plus water not being able to escape through the subsoil that it was
almost impossible to keep plants alive in it during winter. Even
the fence posts would be thrown out by the frost in a very short
time. A prominent contractor who was walking by my side at the
time, said that all that section of the country was underlaid by
this peculiar subsoil, which is a great drawback to plant growth.
Iwas also informed by this same gentleman that this part of
Allegany County was not favorable for strawberry growing, or
other fruit except apples, and that the supply of small fruits is re-
ceived largely from other sections. Mr. Cole has planted numer-
ous varieties of strawberries upon his side hill, among which I
recognized the Bidwell, Sharpless, and other familiar varieties.
The fruit was of an astonishing size and grew in great abundance.
While I live in a strawberry country, and am myself a strawberry
grower, I cannot remember when I have seen so fine a display of
strawberries growing upon the vines as Isaw here. There were,
however, evidences of high culture. A gentleman by my side
echoed my sentiments by remarking that we could increase the size
of fruits in our own gardens by such thorough cultivation as this.
I regretted that Mr. Cole did not have a plot of strawberries grow-
ing near by which did not receive any benefit from his method of
irrigation, for then we could have compared results. Adjoining
the strawberries were growing different kinds of garden crops,
also currants, raspberries, blackberries, potatoes and a few fruit
trees. At one point, where the ground was terraced, I noticed,
growing on the ragged edge a row of onions. I called attention
to the fact that while these onions were on the very brink, there
was no indication of their being disturbed by washing of the soil,
as might have been expected in such a position. In fact every-
thing showed that in no place had the rainfall run down the sur-

face as ordinarily, to the detriment of anything growing thereon

Mr. Green’s article covers a full column and a half of The Tri-
‘bune, and is remarkably conservative in tone from first to last,
written by a manifestly level-headed and even-handed man, but —
one nevertheless coming wholly unprepared for what he saw.
Himself an extensive gardener, fruit grower and nursery man at
Rochester, the Flower City, where gardens and gardening form a
distinguishing feature of business, and coming, as he did, out of
that far-famed delta of the Genesee, (which is ordinarily exempt
from frost, a fortnight earlier in Spring, and three or four weeks
later in Autumn than other sections of western New York) to find
at Wellsville near the source of the Genesee River, the climate of
Delaware and Maryland, not to say of the Virginias, growing fruits
and vegetables superior in flavor, and immeasurably prolific of yield. @
Fair minded and just, his summing up as follows need not be won-

70 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.
as the water passed into the drains underlying.” * * *
;

dered at.

“The correspondent of The Tribune was asked on every hand,
“What do you think of this ‘New Agriculture?’” I reply frankly
that, while I consider that Mr. Cole claims too much, there appears
to be in it much that is novel and useful. Others who try similar
experiments in different soils and locations may not be able to ob-
tain such results. I do not doubt that an acre of ground can be
made to yield an increased harvest by the new method, but whether
it is a paying investment is another question, and would depend
upon circumstances. For high gardening, near large cities, where
the subsoil is tenacious, it would doubtless be profitable. For gen-
eral field culture of common farm crops, I should hesitate to recom-
mend it until I had investigated further, owing to the great ex-
pense to be incurred.”

That the editors of The Tribune were unprepared for even so fav-

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. OL.

orable a report as this, is evidenced by the following, appearing on
the editorial page of that paper at date of July 14th.

-“Those who have read that most suggestive of all American
books on agriculture, “ What I Know of Farming,’—will be inter-
ested in the account in another column which Mr. Charles A. Green,
the well-known horticulturist and nurseryman of Rochester, gives
of some novel experiments in irrigation by Mr. Cole, of Wellsville.
The foundation of the new agriculture is subterranean irrigation
by a system of drains, which being kept supplied with water, in
turn afford a permanent supply of moisture ready to be taken up
by the plant growth above as fast as it is needed. There are other
principles involved, but this is the main one, and Mr. Cole claims
that his system will produce ten tons of hay to the acre, or 300
bushels of strawberries, etc., and thus yield a profitable return on
the money expended. It will be noted that while Mr. Green does
not indorse these claims he thinks that the result of the experi-
ment at Wellsville are remarkable and worthy of attention.”

Eminent among editors who came on this day was Mr. R. S.
Lewis of the Progressive Batavian, published at Batavia, Genesee
County, N. Y., from whose report it would be impossible to make
extracts and do justice either to its author or to the public, and
therefore we copy nearly all of it.

“Mr. Cole’s farm consists of five acres of what was, four years
ago, and a part of which is now, a sterile hillside of clayey soil so
poor as to grudgingly yield sufficient substance to grow field daisies.
It is as steep as the steepest part of Burleigh hill Pavillion, the’
Bethany hill just east of the Centre, or any other hill in Genesee
county of which we have any knowledge; and as to its ever be-
coming profitably productive, we don’t believe there is a foot of
land in all our county which was equally unpromising. Some
thirty years ago Mr. Cole conceived the idea that plant life might

Te THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

on nah

be greatly, almost immeasurably, stimulated by underground irri-

gation. He had neither time nor opportunity then to perfect and
test his thought, but it continued to simmer through him and to
recall itself to his attention again and again as the years passed on.

“His conviction on the matter was greatly strengthened and stim-
ulated by a conversation with Mr. Horace Greeley, in which that
gentleman told him what he had heard of the wondrous produc-
tiveness near Los Angeles, California, where vegetation was fed by
a subterranean river. Mr. Cole had thought and investigated un-
til he had no doubt about the fact of a theory, but how to accom-
plish the irrigation—how to make his thought practical, was the

question.
“ At last how to do it dawned suddenly upon him—the mists of

questionings and doubts were gone—his dream of the years had
materialized—his vision was clear. Where could he better test
and demonstrate the truth and value of his discovery than on his
own sterile, unpromising hillside. Along its eastern front runs a
highway with wayside gutter adjoining his land. Parallel with
this, and some forty to fifty feet apart, and across about half his
land to its highest boundary, he caused a series of trenches about
two and a half feet wide by four and a half to five feet deep to be
dug, and filled to within eighteen inches of the surface with coarse
large stone covered with loose flat stone, for subterranean water
reservoirs. These reservoirs were connected by numerous shallow
and smaller trenches partially filled with small stones at about eigh-
teen inches from the surface and designed to carry off from trench
to trench all surplus water. After the laying of the stone all the
trenches, little and big, are covered with straw or litter of any
kind, as in ordinary ditching, and then covered with dirt. Thus
each large trench is a reservoir capable of holding from three to
three and a half feet of water through its entire length before it

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 73

ss

‘
;
ft
4

_ reaches the height where carried off by the cross trenches. The

water from the rains and melting snows instead of passing off in

_ surface rills and channels is caught in these reservoirs and slowly

and continuously filters through the soil from trench to trench—

_ sweats through it, so to speak—rendering it porous, pliable, spongy

—always sufficiently damp to feed and stimulate vegetation to the

highest degree, and yet always sufficiently dry to be in the best

possible order for cultivation.
“On a part of his plantation which Mr. Cole has thus treated he

last year cut three crops of timothy grass, each crop being in the

_ head when cut. Most of the trenched ground is now planted with

blackberry and raspberry bushes and strawberry vines. What the
berry bushes will do yet is only conjectural—they have a strong,

healthy, prominent development—but the strawberry vines—it is

utterly impossible to appropriately describe their wonderous
wealth of productiveness. The vines are literally loaded with ber-
ries and their average size is marvelous. Many were readily
found which measured nearly eight inches in circumference, and
there were no small berries. Mr. Cole proudly said : ‘I have ber-
ries this year as big as peaches,’ and, he confidently added, ‘I will
grow them next year as large as apples.’ He claimed he would
this year harvest more bushels of strawberries from his vines than
any farmer would grow bushels of potatoes from the same area of
ground. He said the cost of putting his ground in its present
condition of reservoirs and consequent productiveness was about
$500 per acre, and he expected to realize $1,200 from his strawberry
crop alone this year.

“One or two facts more are worthy of mention, 1st—-While the
ground all around this plot was last winter frozen several feet deep,
this ground was not frozen—the plants grew the winter through.

2d—One of the delugy rains so prevelant this season poured down

74 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

upon Wellsville a few days since, and while the hillsides all around

were furrowed and ditched by the running waters, this plot was
not washed in the least—the torrents sank into its porous soil, were
caught in its reservoirs and the surplus passed off through its
transverse trenches without in the least disturbing its surface or
the crops grown thereon.

“Brother Cole claims that by his ‘New Agriculture’ every kind
of vegetable production can be increased from five to ten fold,—
that by it men could realize more from five or ten acres, and with
less labor too, than they now do from farms of hundreds of acres—
that this fact will become rapidly apparent—that ‘The New Agri-
culture, something the world has never seen or realized before
has been discovered and will prevail.’ If it shall in any measure
fulfill its early promise as shown in Mr. Cole’s small experiment
then it ought to and will prevail. Some wise man has remarked,
‘He who causes two blades of grass to grow where only one grew
before, is a benefactor of his race’ or words to that effect, and for
what his new idea has already established we have no hesitation in
saying Mr. Cole is entitled to honor arid esteem as a public bene-
factor. His experiment has demonstrated that his new idea has at
least great practical value for application to every hillside and
slope, if not for valley and plain. He claims that it may be worked
with wondrous success even on what we call level lands. The cen-
tral idea of ‘The New Agriculture’ is the capturing and utilizing by
subterranean reservoirs and irrigation, of all the dews, rains and
snows for plant growth, and Mr. Cole shows in his side hill experi-
ment that the filtration of the water through the hardest, toughest,
most unpromising soil, renders it pliable and most wonderfully
fertile and productive.”

We must not omit the report made by Mr. James McCann,
President, and Mr. George W. Hoffman, ex-President of the Far-

/
z
;

aac

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. fi5.

mers Club of Elmira. This was presented at a meeting of the
Club on July 11th, 1885, and appeared in The Husbandman under
head of “The New Agriculture:”

“Nearly a year ago the Club resolved to make careful inspection
of Hon. A. N. Cole’s new system of irrigation, and what has come
to be regarded as ‘The New Agriculture’ but favorable opportu-
nity was not found until Tuesday, July 7th, a day appointed by Mr.
Cole, whose invitation to attend for the purpose of examining his
work and its results had been received by the Club some days be-
fore. Several members who had an earnest desire to accept the
invitation found themselves hindered by prior engagements, but
President McCann and ex-President Hoffman went as the direct
representatives of the Club and were accompanied by several
gentlemen more or less nearly related to the institution that gladly
accepted them as its representatives. There was much desire on
the part of those who attended this meeting to hear the account,
and among the number were several that came in after the narra-
tion of incidents and observations had been partly made, among
them Professor Lazenby, of the Ohio Agricultural College, Hon.
J. 8S. Van Duser, an old-time member of the Club, Thomas Flood,
of the city, and G. F. Spinney, of the New York Times. Mr. Hoff-
man’s report ran substantially as follows:

“My observations were made mainly with the purpose of attain-
ing clear understanding of the methods by which Mr. Cole had
produced what must certainly be regarded as surprising results.
But I made no notes, and must therefore rely upon memory in my
endeavor to convey to you ideas that impressed me. Notwith-
standing what I had read descriptive of the ‘The New Agriculture,’
and Mr. Cole’s account given to the Club some months ago, I had
not clear views of his method, and I was therefore quite desirous

of making the visit with the purpose of inspecting every part of

76 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

the work and its results. I found the situation a slope on the east-
ern face of a ridge, ascending, I judge, four feet in the first hun-
dred. Along this slope trenches were cut on a horizontal line
or course, deviating from a straight line when necessary to suit the
inequalities of surface, the bottom of the trench having a horizon-
tal run along the face of the slope. The first trench, the pattern
after which all other trenches are constructed, is four feet deep
and two feet wide, filled with stones to within fifteen inches of the
surface, then covered with flat stones and refuse stuff,—grass,
weeds, anything to serve as a sort of filter holding the soil placed
above to the natural line of the surface, leaving water to drop into
the trench and be held for the uses designed. The filling, I was
informed, was first by round or shapeless stones gathered from the
field, leaving interstices that serve in their aggregate as a recepta-
cle for whatever water may find entrance, principally from rains
and melting snows and any springs that may be tapped. It will
be seen that the stone filling serves, as the principal purpose, to
support the superincumbent earth and the flat stones placed on
the top as a kind of cover to prevent the loose soil from dropping
into the receptacle below. The horizontal ditches are constructed
at suitable distances along the slope, the series intended to hold
the surplus of rains so that none flows over the surface. Between
these horizontal trenches there are sub-trenches, leading from one
of the main excavations to another. These cross-ditches have less
depth but otherwise are constructed in the same manner as the
main trenches, their purpose to convey surplus of water from an
upper to a lower trench, and so equalize the supply. They are
filled in the same manner and covered with fifteen inches of earth.
The soil is what I may call clay-Yoam, with stones intermixed, but
no appearance of sand, the close, compact subsoil not easily pene-
trated. I refer to condition before treatment, and of this I had

SIZE.

NATURAL

PLUM,

——

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 77

fair opportunity to observe in the adjoining land not yet brought
under the new system, also in an excavation in progress where
workmen had to strike heavy blows with their picks to penetrate
the hard clay. The land treated by Mr. Cole was originally part
of a considerable tract that was regarded as extremely poor, and
my observations led me to conclude that the estimate was just.
The most striking effect of the treatment, as it seemed to me, was
entire change of character, particularly mechanical condition, due,
in large part, no doubt, to the very thorough manipulation, for it
is not comprised in the trenching alone. The entire area is dug
up to the depth of fifteen inches, and all stones of any considerable
size, even down to an inch in diameter, removed, thus changing
mechanical conditions to such a degree that one is impressed with
the great difference between the land treated and that immediately
adjoining. You step upon the trenched land anywhere and you
find the soil yields to pressure of the feet, not a spot where it is
not soft and yielding; but on the land adjoining it is hard and the
foot makes no impression whatever, Another change is in color.
That hard, forbidding clay has taken the appearance of muck, or,
at least, the color of muck and loam intermixed. Its texture is
aptly described by Mr. Cole, who calls it an earth sponge.

“ We were called to examine strawberries from plants set, as we
were informed, last October, and I am free to say that the plat was
a very interesting object inviting study. There was a full crop of
most remarkable berries—remarkable in size, color and quality. I
cannot undertake to estimate the yield, but it was certainly very
large. I called Mr. McCann’s attention to one plant of older set-
ting that had ripe berries and others in the various stages of growth,
enough, I thought, to fill my hat if they could be picked at one
time. One peculiarity of these berries was the absence of what
may be termed a core, or hard stem in the middle; they were juicy

78 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

and tender all the way through. As to the foliage, I can only say
that I never saw anything like it. I measured a leaf that was five
and one-half inches across, and I plucked a broader one, with Mr.
Cole’s consent, and brought it home.

“JT must say that the changes wrought in the soil and its pro-
ducts constituted a great surprise.

“As tothe soil, I could judge by comparison with land that
must have been originally of the same character. It now lies
hard and compact adjoining the renovated earth, that under Mr.
Cole’s treatment has certainly become very fertile, whether with
manure in abundant supply, or not, I am not prepared to say.
The soil under treatment has the appearance of being thoroughly
enriched with manure ; then there is the water supply for the
roots to reach and use, obviating drought apparently ; and besides,
there is entire freedom from washing. Heavy showers had fallen
in the week before our arrival, but there was not the slightest ap-
pearance of washing, and Mr. Cole informed us that all danger
from washing was obviated ; a statement which I can .accept as
true, for he has provided reservoirs into which all surplus of water
must pass, and if there is too much the overflow runs from one to
another reservoir. Besides all this the earth worked to fine tilth
fifteen inches deep serves as a sponge to take in a great deal of
moisture and retain it for the use of plants. Ten days before our
visit there was a rainfall of three inches, as reported, and no ap-
pearance of washing.

“Of course I can not give you such description as will inform
you fully, because one must see what has been done and its results
to have complete understanding of the system. I believe there is
a great deal of advantage in Mr. Cole’s plan, although I may not
with my one opportunity for inspection have such full faith as he
possesses, for I cannot have such full knowledge as he has obtained

=r =

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. a ee
in the practical work that has engaged his thought for years.
Still, when I see a crop of strawberries much larger than I have
ever seen under other conditions, no dead leaves, no runners,
growth most luxuriant and long succession in bearing, I must say
that results are convincing. There were other proofs about which
Iam not so well prepared to judge. For instance, an apple tree
standing in this improved land was reported worthless, its fruit
gnarled and valueless before the land was trenched, now bearing
largely and the fruit of fine quality. Of course I cannot say how
much difference there is between the tree as it now appears and as
it was before the land was improved. I observed, however, a young
tree, the trunk five or six inches in diameter perhaps, its growth
most vigorous, the limbs smooth as if recently washed with lye
foliage fresh, full and green. But on inquiry I learned that it had
only ordinary treatment ; the limbs had not. been washed, and its
vigorous growth was attributed to the system of trenching and
irrigating that increased the yield of strawberry plants and the
size of fruit, the effect being visible in growth of all kinds. There
were no weeds on the ground occupied by strawberries—it was
absolutely clean.

“Prof. Lazensy. There are three or four questions that I would
like to ask. What distance apart are the cross ditches ?

“G. W. Horrmay. I can not say precisely. I asked Mr. Cole,
and he told me three or four rods, leaving me to infer that he had
exercised no care to place the cross ditches at regular intervals.
You will understand that these cross ditches tap the main trench
two feet above the bottom, that they are but two feet deep and
serve only the purpose of drawing off surplus water, or, in other
words, equalizing water in the trenches.

“Prof. Lazensy. What is done with the subsoil taken from the
main trenches? Is it carted away?

80 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

“G. W. Horrman. It is all used on the land, intermixed, I sup-
pose, with the surface soil during the working, as I have said, toe
the depth of fifteen inches. We saw workmen engaged in excavat-
ing a trench, and the compact clay taken from the bottom was dis-
tributed over the land to be brought into cultivation. The work-
men said that the hard clay would become friable upon exposure,
and pointed to places where it had been thrown where it had be-
come soft and yielding. The first working of ground below that
trench, we were told, was last May, but the workmen said they

“would go over it again soon and take out such stones as had been
overlooked in the first picking.

“ Prof. Lazensy. Still another question—Were those strawberry
plants that were put out last October potted previous to placing
them in the ground?

“G. W. Horrman. I do not know that they were ; I suppose
they were not. They were not as prolific as the older vines.

“President McCann. We were informed that the strawberry
leaves kept green all winter, and that the ground was almost free
from frost during the coldest weather. Mr. Cole told us that frost
rarely penetrated more than an inch or two, while ground not
treated was frozen fully three feet deep. Of course, if the soil re-
mains open and there is snow protection strawberry plants may
keep fresh and green through winter.

“G. W. Horrman. There is certainly very great change produced
by the new system. How much may be credited to irrigation, how
much to very thorough working, and how much to manure, I can
not decide. Mr. Cole spoke very highly of forest leaves as a
mulch or manure, and, I think, he has made very free use of them.
Speaking of leaves, he said: ‘They are the very best manure God
ever supplied for agricultural use.’

“ Now, as to this system of irrigation, there may be a great deal

——————— ee ee Oe

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 81

in it I have not seen, although I have seen much to cause surprise.
Water flowing out below came clear, no discoloration, and I was
told that it was of good drinking quality. Mr. Cole claims that the
land will become loose and friable as deep as the trenches. Per-
haps this is not overstated. Ido not care to speak of claims, nor
of opinions not well supported. There is enough in the new sys-
tem to interest investigators. Itis costly. We were informed that
the work done by Mr. Cole had cost $500 an acre, but the improve-
ment may be great enough to justify that outlay. I suppose that
on an acre set to strawberries there may be 11,000 or 12,000 plants.
Now if each one of these produces a quart, the product will give
pretty fair interest on $5,000. It must be understood that such re-
markable berries as are produced under this system will sell for
more than ordinary prices. I want to make another visit later in
the season, when we have here the usual summer drought. If I
find everything fresh without appearance of drought on Mr. Cole’s
improved land, I shall regard it as another strong proof of merit in
his system.”

In conclusion of our introductory or first chapter we beg leave
to answer the question asked by Prof. Lazenby by saying that
we never pot plants, but grow them, taking pains to catch them in
with a trowel, giving them good root. This is done in August and
September, and our plants are removed with the trowel quite as
often as with the spade, leaving an abundance of earth upon the
roots, and they grow right along, though set as late as October, or
even November. They grow indeed beneath the snows, and make
deep roots in winter.

CHAPTER II.

CIRCULATION OF WATER ON LAND——-THE WONDERFUL MESILLA.

To Dr. J. H. Vincent, of Plainfield, N. J., the world is indebted
for a system of education reaching the hearthstones and homes of
thousands of families all over our goodly land. Chief of these, in
form of school or college, is the Chautauqua Literary and Scien-
tific Circle. The organ of this institution is The Chautauquan, pub-
lished at Meadville, Pennsylvania, Theodore L. Flood, D. D.,
Editor. From the November number of 1883 we copy an article
in which, if carefully read and studied, will be found an amount
of information which cannot be overestimated in its value to
the farming class. Here can be learned the ways of the waters
as run by nature’s laws, over, through and under the soil. We
give this remarkable article in full, for were we to search the
literature of the soil to exhaustion, we could not find in so compre-
hensive and compact a form, a compend upon which to base the
text of this volume.

However, before transcribing it, we are equally bound to accord
to Mr. Henry Stewart, civil and mining Engineer, member of
the Civil Engineers’ Club of the North-west and associate Editor of
the American Agriculturist, the credit of having written, about two
years ago, a work on the subject of irrigation from which copious

MOS.

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 83

extracts will be found on future pages of our book. Following in
the footsteps of progressive experiences beginning, for aught we
know, when the deluge in which irrigation was made so general
as to drive Noah and his family to seek refuge in the Ark, the
author of the volume referred to, “Irrigation for the Farm, Gar-
den and Orchard,” confines himself to the subject of applying the
waters to the surface of lands, merest mention being made of
underground or subterranean methods. Had we the satisfaction
of knowing that the farmers and gardeners, the fathers, mothers,
sons and daughters of America generally, taking an interest in
that most delightful of all pursuits, the one of growing grasses,
grains, fruits, flowers, trees and plants in their varied forms, had
read Mr. Stewart's book we should omit much of quotation herein-
after made. It isso meritorious a work that we do not hesitate to
pronounce it an invaluable adjunct to our own, and would advise
every reader of “Our New Agriculture,” to couple therewith the
study of Mr. Stewart’s “Irrigation for the Farm, Garden and
Orchard.” We now give the article in full from the Chautauquan,

under the caption of “The Circulation of Water on the Land.”

“ Although air is continually evaporating water from the surface
of the earth, and continually restoring it again by condensation,
yet, on the whole and in the course of years, there seems to be no
sensible gain or loss of water in our seas, lakes, and rivers; so
that the two processes of evaporation and condensation balance
each other, ;

“It is evident, however, that the moisture precipitated at any
moment from the air is not at once evaporated again. The disap-
pearance of the water is due in part to evaporation, but only in
part, A great deal of it goes out of sight in other ways.

“The rain which falls upon the sea, is the largest part of the
whole rainfall of the globe, because the surface of the sea is about

St THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

three times greater than that of the land. All this rain gradually
mingles with the salt water, and can then be no longer recognized.
It thus helps to make up for the loss which the sea is always suf-
fering by evaporation, for the sea is the great evaporating sur-
face whence most of the vapor of the atmosphere is derived.

“On the other hand, the total amount of rain which falls upon
the land of the globe must be enormous. It has been estimated,
for example, that about sixty-eight cubic miles of water annually
descend as rain even upon the surface of the British Isles, and
there are many much more rainy regions. If you inquire about
this rain which falls upon the land, you will find that it does not
at once disappear, but begins another kind of circulation. Watch
what happens during a shower of rain. If the shower is heavy,
you will notice little runs of muddy water coursing down the
streets or roads, or flowing out of the ridges of the fields. Follow
one of the runs. It leads into some drain or brook, that into some
larger stream, the stream into a river; and the river, if you follow
it far enough, will bring you to the sea. Now think of all the
brooks and rivers of the world, where this kind of transport of
water is going on, and you will at once see how vast must be the

part of the rain which flows off the land into the ocean.

“ But does the whole of the rain flow off at once into the sea in
this way? A good deal of the rain which falls upon the land
must sink underground and gather there. You may think that
surely the water which disappears in that way must be finally
withdrawn from the general circulation which we have been trac-
ing. When it sinks below the surface, how can it ever get up to
the surface again ?

“Yet, if you consider for a little, you will be convinced that what-
ever becomes of it underneath, it can not be lost. If all the rain
which sinks into the ground be forever removed from the surface

GROUP OF PLUMS.

aes uta

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 85

circulation, you will at once see that the quantity of water upon
the earth’s surface must be constantly and visibly diminishing.
But no such changes, so far as can be seen, are really taking
place. In spite of the rain which disappears into the ground, the
circulation of water between the air, the land, and the sea contin-
ues without perceptible diminution.

“You are driven to conclude, therefore, that there must be some
means whereby the water underground is brought back to the
surface. This is done by springs, which gush out of the earth,
and bring up water to feed the brooks and rivers, whereby it is
borne into the sea. Here, then, are two distinct courses which
the rainfall takes—one below ground, and one above. It will be
most convenient to follow the underground portion first.

“A little attention to the soils and rocks which form the surface
of a country is enough to show that they differ greatly from each
other in hardness, and in texture or grain. Some are quite loose
and porous, others are tough and close-grained. They consequent-
ly differ much in the quantity of water they allow to pass through
them. A bed of sand, for example, is pervious ; that is, will let
water sink through it freely, because the little grains of sand lie
loosely together, touching each other only at some points so as to

- leave empty spaces between. The water readily finds its way in

among these empty spaces. In fact, the sand bed may become a
kind of sponge, quite saturated with the water which has filtered
down from the surface. A bed of clay on the other hand, is im-
pervious; it is made up of very small particles fitting closely to
each other, and therefore offering resistance to the passage of
water, which, unable to sink through it from above on the way
down, or from below on the way up to the surface again, is kept in
by the clay, and forced to find another line of escape.

“ Sandy soils are dry because rain at once sinks through them;

86 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

clay soils are wet because they retain the water, and prevent it —
from freely descending into the earth.

“The rocks beneath besides being in many cases porous in their
texture, such as sandstone, are all more or less traversed with
cracks; sometimes mere lines, like those of a cracked window-pane,
but sometimes wide and open clefts and tunnels. These numerous
channels serve as passages for the underground water. Hence, al-
though a rock may be so hard and close-grained that water does
not soak through it, yet if that rock is plentifully supplied with
these cracks it may allow a large quantity of water to pass through.
Limestone, for example, is a very hard rock, through the grains of
which water can make but little way; yet it is so full of cracks or
“joints,” as they are called, and these joints are often so wide, that
they give passage to a great deal of water.

“Tn hilly districts, where the surface of the ground has not been
brought under the plow, you will notice that many places are
marshy and wet, even when the weather has been long dry. The
soil everywhere around has been perhaps baked quite hard by the
sun; but these places remain still wet, in spite of the heat. Whence
do they get their water? Plainly not directly from the air, since
in that case the rest of the ground would also be damp. They get
it not from above, but from below. It is oozing out of the ground;
and it is this constant outcome of water from below, which keeps
the ground wet and marshy. In other places you will observe that
the water does not merely soak through the ground, but gives rise
to a little run of clear water. If you follow such a run up to its
source, you will see that it comes gushing out of the ground as a
spring.

“Springs are the natural outlets for the underground waters.
But, you ask, why should this water have any outlets, and what
makes it rise to the surface? Let us suppose that a flat layer of

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 87

some impervious rock like clay, underlies another layer of a porous
material, like sand. The rain which falls on the surface of the
ground, and sinks through the upper bed, will be arrested by the
lower one, and made either to gather there, or find its escape along
the surface of that lower bed. Ifa hollow or valley should have
its bottom below the level of the line along which the water flows,
springs will gush out along the sides of the valley. The line of es-
cape may be either the junction between two different kinds of
rock, or some of the numerous joints already referred to. What-
ever it be, the water cannot help flowing onward and downward, as
long as there is any passage along which it can find its way; and
the rocks underneath are so full of cracks, that it has no difficulty
in doing so.

“Butit must happen that a great deal of the underground
water descends far below the level of the valleys, and even below
the level of the sea. And yet, though it should descend for several
miles, it comes at last to the surface again. To realize clearly how
this takes place, let us follow a particular drop of water from the
time it sinks into the earth as rain, to the time when, after a long
journey up and down in the bowels of the earth, it once more
reaches the surface. It soaks through the soil together with other
drops, and joins some feeble trickle, or some other ample flow of
water, which works its way through crevices and tunnels of the
rocks. It sinks in this way to perhaps a depth of several thousand
feet until it reaches some strata through which it cannot readily
make further way. Unable to work its way downward, the pent-
up water must try to find escape in some other direction. By the
pressure from above it is driven through other cracks and pass-
ages, winding up and down until at last it comes to the surface
again. It breaks out there as a gushing spring.

“Rain is water nearly in a state of purity. After journeying up

88 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

and down underground it comes out again in springs, always —
more or less mingled with other materials, which it gets from
the rocks through which it travels. They are not visible to the
eye, for they are held in what is called chemical solution. When
you putafew grains of salt or sugar upon a plate, and pour
water over them, they are dissolved in the water and disappear. —
They enter into union with the water. You can not see them, |
but you can still recognize their presence by the taste which
they give to the water which holds them in solution. So water,
sinking from the soil downward, dissolves a little of the sub-
stance of the subterranean rocks, and carries this dissolved ma-
terial up to the surface of the ground. One of the important in-
gredients in the air is carbonic acid gas, and this substance
is both abstracted from and supplied to the air by plants and
animals. In descending through the atmosphere rain absorbs
a little air. As ingredients of the air, a little carbonic acid gas
particles of dust and soot, noxious vapors, minute organisms,
and other substances floating in the air, are caught up by the
descending rain, which in this way washes the air, and tends
to keep it much more wholesome than it would otherwise be.

«But rain not merely picks up impurities from the air, it gets a
large addition when it reaches the soil.

“Armed with the carbonic acid which it gets from the air, and
with the larger quantity which it abstracts from the soil, rainwater
is prepared to attack rocks, and to eat into them in a way which
pure water could not do.

“Water containing carbonic acid has a remarkable effect on
many rocks, even on some of the very hardest. It dissolves
more or less of their substance, and remoyes it. When it falls,
for instance, on chalk or limestone, it almost entirely dissolves

and carries away the rock in solution, though still remaining

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 89

clear and limpid. In countries where chalk or limestone is an
abundant rock, this action of water is sometimes singularly
shown in the way in which the surface of the ground is worn
into hollows. In such districts, too, the springs are always hard;
that is, they contain much mineral matter in solution, whereas
rainwater and springs which contain little impurity are termed
soft.

“When a stone building has stood for a few hundred years, the
smoothly-dressed face which its walls received from the mason is
usually gone. Again, in the burying-ground surrounding a ven-
erable church you see the tombstones more and more mouldered
the older they are. This crumbling away of hard stone with the
lapse of time isa common familiar fact to you. But have you ever
wondered why it should be so? What makes the stone decay, and
what purpose is served by the process ?

“Tfitseem strange to you to be told that the surface of the
earth is crumbling away, you should take every opportunity of
verifying the statement. Examine your own district. You will
find proofs that, in spite of their apparent steadfastness, even the
hardest stones are really crumbling down. In short, wherever
rocks are exposed to the air they are liable to decay. Now let us
see how this change is brought about.

“First of all we must return for a moment to the action of car-
bonie acid, which has been already described. You remember
that rainwater abstracts a little carbonic acid from the air, and
that, when it sinks under the earth, it is enabled by means of the
acid to eat away some parts of the rocks beneath. The same action
takes place with the rain, which rests upon or flows over the sur-
face of the ground. The rainwater dissolves out little by little
such portions of the rocks as it can remove. In the case of some
rocks, such as limestone, the whole or almost the whole, of the

-

90 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

substance of the rock is carried away in solution. In other kinds,
the portion dissolved is the cementing material whereby the mass
of the rock was bound together; so that when it is taken away,
the rock crumbles into mere earth or sand, which is readily washed
away by the rain. Hence one of the causes of the mouldering of
stone is the action of the carbonic acid taken up by the rain.

“Tn the second place, the oxygen of the portion of air contained
in rainwater helps to decompose rocks. When a piece of iron has
been exposed for a time to the weather, in a damp climate, it rusts.
This rust is a compound substance, formed by the union of oxygen
with iron. What happens to an iron railing or a steel knife, hap-
pens also, though not so quickly nor so strongly, to many rocks.
They, too, rust by absorbing oxygen. A crust of corroded rock
forms on their surface, and when it is knocked off by the rain, a
fresh layer of rock is reached by the ever-present and active oxy-
gen.

“Tn the third place the surface of many parts of the world is
made to crumble down by means of frost. Sometimes during
winter, when the cold gets very keen, pipes full of water burst,
and jugs filled with water crack from top to bottom. The reason of
this lies in the fact that water expands in freezing. Ice requires
more space than the water would if it remained fluid. When ice
forms within a confined space, it exerts a great pressure on the
sides of the vessel, or cavity, which contains it. If these sides are
not strong enough to bear the strain to which they are put, they
must yield, and therefore they crack.

“You have learned how easily rain finds its way through soil.
Even the hardest rocks are more or less porous, and take in some
water. Hence, when winter comes the ground is full of moisture;
not in the soil merely, but in the rocks. And so, as frost sets in,
this pervading moisture freezes. Now, precisely the same kind of

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 91

action takes place with each particle of water, as in the case of the
water in the burst water-pipe or the cracked jar. It does not mat-
ter whether the water is collected into some hole or crevice, or is
diffused between the grains of the rocks and the soil. When it
freezes it expands, and in so doing tries to push asunder the walls
between which it is confined.

“ Water freezes not only between the component grains, but in
the numerous crevices or joints, as they are called, by which rocks
are traversed. You have, perhaps noticed, that on the face of a
cliff, or in a quarry, the rock is cut through by lines running more
or less in an upright direction, and that by means of these lines
the rock is split up by nature, and can be divided by the quarry-
men into large four-sided blocks or pillars. These lines, or joints,
have been already referred to as passages for water in descending
from the surface. You can understand that only a very little water
may be admitted at a time into a joint. But by degrees the joint
widens a little, and allows more water to enter. Every time the
water freezes it tries hard to push asunder the two sides of the
joint. After many winters, itis at last able to separate them a
little; then more water enters, and more force is exerted in freez-
ing, until at last the block of rock traversed by the joint is com-
pletely split up. When this takes place along the face of a cliff,
one of the loosened parts may fall and actually roll down to the
bottom of the precipice.

“Tn addition to carbonic acid, oxygen and frost, there are still
other influences at work by which the surface of the earth is made
to crumble. For example, when, during the day, rocks are highly
heated by strong sunshine, and then during night are rapidly
cooled by radiation, the alternate expansion and contraction caused
by the extremes of temperature loosen the particles of the stone,

92 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

causing them to crumble away, or even making successive crusts
of the stone fall off.

“ Again, rocks which are at one time well soaked with rain,
and at another time are liable to be dried by the sun’s rays and by
wind, are apt to crumble away. If then it be true, as it is, that a
general wasting of the surface of the land goes on, you may nat-
urally ask why this should be. Out of the crumbled stones all ©
soil is made, and on the formation and renewal of the soil we
depend for our daily food.

“Take up a handful of soil from any field or garden, and look
at it attentively. Whatis it made of? You see little pieces of
crumbling stone, particles of sand and clay, perhaps a few vege-
table fibers ; and the whole soil has a dark color from the decayed
remains of plants and animals diffused through it. Now let us
try to learn how these different materials have been brought to-
gether.

“very drop of rain which falls upon the land helps to alter the
surface. You have followed the chemical action of rain when it
dissolves parts of rocks. Itis by the constant repetition of the
process, drop after drop, and shower after shower, for years to-
gether, that the rocks become so wasted and worn. But the rain
has also a mechanical action.

“Watch what happens when the first pattering drops of a show-
er begin to fall upon a smooth surface of sand, such as that of a
beach. Each drop makes a little dent or impression. It thus
forces aside the grains of sand. On sloping ground, where the
drops can run together and flow downward, they are able to push
or carry the particles of sand or clay along. This is called a
mechanical action ; while the actual solution of the particles, as
you would dissolve sugar or salt, a chemical action. Each drop of

rain may act in either or both of these ways.

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 93

«Now you will readily see how it is that rain does so much in
the destruction of rocks. It not only dissolves out some parts of
them, and leaves a crumbling crust on the surface, but it washes
away this crust, and thereby exposes a fresh surface to decay.
There is in this way a continual pushing along of powdered stone
over the earth’s surface. Part of this material accumulates in hol-
lows, and on sloping or level ground ; part is swept into the rivers
and carried away into the sea. As the mouldering of the surface
of the land is always going on, there is a constant formation of
soil. Indeed, if this were not the case, if after a layer of soil had
been formed upon the ground, it were to remain there unmoved
and unrenewed, the plants would by degrees take out of it all the
earthy materials they could, and leave it in a barren or exhausted
state. But some of it is being slowly carried away by rain, fresh
particles from mouldering rocks are being washed over it by the
same agent, while the rock or subsoil underneath is all the while
decaying into soil. The loose stones, too, are continually crum-
bling down and making new earth. And thus, day by day, the
soil is slowly renewed.

“Plants, also, help to form and renew the soil. They send their
roots among the grains and joints of the stones, and loosen then
Their decaying fibers supply most of the carbonic acid by which
these stones are attacked, and furnish also most of the organic
matter in the soil. Even the common worms, which you see when
you dig up a spadeful of earth, are of great service in mixing the.
soil and bringing what lies underneath up to the surface.

“One part of the rain sinks under the ground, and you have
traced its progress there until it comes to the surface again. You
have now to trace, in a similar way, the other portion of the rain-
fall which flows along the surface in brooks and rivers.

“You cannot readily meet with a better illustration of this sub-

94 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

ject than that which is furnished by a gently sloping road during
a heavy shower of rain. Let us suppose that you know such a
road, and that just as the rain is beginning you take up your
station at some part where the road has a well-marked descent. At

first you notice that each of the large heavy drops of rain makes

in the dust, or sand, one of the little dints or rain-prints already
described. As the shower gets heavier these rain-prints are ef-
faced, and the road soon streams with water. Now mark in what
manner the water moves.

“ Looking at the road more narrowly, you remark that it is full
of little roughnesses—at one place a long rut, at another a pro-
jecting stone, with many more inequalities which your eye could
not easily detect when the road was dry, but which the water at
once discloses. Every little dimple and projection affects the flow
of the water. You see how the raindrops gather together into
slender streamlets of running water which course along the hol-
lows, and how the jutting stones and pieces of earth seem to turn
these streamlets now to one side, and again to another.

“Toward the top of the slope only feeble runnels of water are to
be seen, but further down they become fewer in number and at
the same time, larger in size. They unite as they descend, and the
larger and swifter streamlets at the foot of the descent are thus
made up of a great many smaller ones from the higher parts of the
slope.

“Why does the water run down the sloping road? Why do
rivers flow? Why should they always move constantly in the
same direction? 'They do so for the same reason that a stone falls
to the ground when it drops out of your hand; because they are
under the sway of that attraction toward the center of the earth,
to which, as you know, the name of gravity is given. Every drop

of rain falls to the earth because it is drawn downward by the

a

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 95

force of attraction. When it reaches the ground it is still, as
much as ever, under the same influence, and it flows downward in
the readiest channel it can find. Its fall from the clouds to the
earth is direct and rapid, its descent from the mountains to the
sea as part of a stream is often long and slow; but the cause of the
movement is the same in either case. The winding to and fro of
streams, the rush of rapids, the roar of cataracts, the noiseless flow
of the deep sullen currents, are all proofs how paramount is the
sway of the law of gravity over the waters of the globe.

«“ Drawn down in this way by the action of gravity, all that por-
tion of the rain which does not sink into the earth must at once
begin to move downward along the nearest slopes, and continue
flowing until it can get no farther. On the surface of the land
there are holiows, called lakes, which arrest part of the flowing
water just as there are hollows on the road which serve to collect
some of the rain. But in most cases they let the water run out at
the lower end as fast as it runs in at the upper, and therefore do
not serve as permanent resting-places for the water. The streams
which issue from lakes go on as before, working their way to the
sea-shore. So that the course of all streams is a downward one,
and the sea is a great reservoir into which the water of the land is
continually pouring.

“The brooks and rivers of a country are thus the natural drain.
by which the surplus rainfall, not required by the soil, or by
springs, is led back again into the sea. When we consider the
great amount of rain, and the enormous number of brooks in the
higher part of the country, it seems, at first, hardly possible for all
these streams to reach the sea without overflowing the lower
grounds. But this does not take place, for when two streams unite:
in one, they do not require a channel twice as broad as either of

their single water courses. On the contrary, such an union gives.

96 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

rise to a stream which is not so broad as either of the two from
which it flows. But it becomes swifter and deeper.

“Let us return to the illustrations of the roadway and rain.
Starting from the foot of the slope, you found the streamlets of
rain getting smaller and smaller, and when you came to the top
there were none at all. If, however, you were to descend the road on
the other side of the ridge, you would probably meet with other
streamlets coursing down hill in the opposite direction. At the
summit the rain seems to divide, part flowing off to one side, and
part to the other.

“Tn the same way, were you to ascend some river from the sea,
you would watch it becoming narrower as you traced it inland, and
branching more and more into tributary streams, and these again
subdividing into almost endless little brooks. But take any of the
branches which unite to form the main stream, and trace it upward.
You come in the end to the beginning of a little brook, and going
a little farther, you reach the summit, down the other side of
which all the streams are flowing to the opposite quarter. The
line which separates two sets of streams in this way is called the
watershed. In England, for example, one series of rivers flows
into the Atlantic, another into the North Sea. If you trace upon a
map a line separating all the upper streams of one side from those
of the other, that line will mark the water shed of the country.
But there is one important point where the illustration of the road
in rain quite fails. It is only when rain is falling, or immediately
after a heavy shower, that the rills are seen upon the road. When
the rain ceases the water begins to dry up, till in a short time, the
road becomes once more firm and dusty. But the brooks and
rivers do not cease to flow when the rain ceases to fall. In the
heat of summer, when perhaps there has been no rain for many

days together, the rivers still roll on, smaller usually than they

oe -

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 97

were in winter, but still with ample flow. What keeps them full?
If you remember what you have already been told about under-
ground water, you will answer that rivers are fed by springs as
well as by rains.

“Though the weather may be rainless, the springs continue to
give out their supplies of water, and these keep the rivers going.
But if great drought comes, many of the springs, particularly the
shallow ones, cease to flow, and the rivers fed by them shrink up
or get dry altogether. The great rivers of the globe, such as the
Mississippi, drain such vast territories, that any mere local rain or
drought makes no sensible difference in their mass of water.

“In some parts of the world, however, the rivers are larger in
summer and autumn than they are in winter and spring. The
Rhine, for instance, begins to rise as the heat of summer increases,
and to fall as the cold of winter comes on. This happens because
the river has its source among snowy mountains. Snow melts
rapidly in summer, and the water which streams from it finds its
way into the brooks and rivers, which are thereby greatly swollen.
In winter, on the other hand, the snow remains unmelted ; the
moisture which falls from the air upon the mountains is chiefly
snow ; and the cold is such as to freeze the brooks. Hence the
supplies of water at the source of these rivers are, in winter,
greatly diminished, and the rivers themselves become proportion-
ately smaller.” .

In conclusion of this chapter, and by way of complete demon-
stration of the wonderful effects of subsurface irrigation, we quote
from an article telling a story which, read by the average farmer
and gardener, cannot fail to prove convincing. These surely will
be glad to know that the way has been found to escape the calam-
ities to which producers have been hitherto subjected on account
of frosts, floods and droughts. Nor will it become necessary to

98 THE NEW AGRICUL'TURE.

argue the case in the newspapers and publish books to convince
them that to adopt our system is the way and the only way open to
reliance upon a full and perfect crop year in and year out.

Having in previous chapter made mention of the subterranean
river in lower California, where, in the midst of the desert is found
a valley of perpetual green abounding in rarest productions of the
fruits of the earth, we proceed to quote from the article referred to,
asit appeared in Harper’s Monthly for April, under head of “ Along
the Rio Grande.”

“It was.the wonderful fertility of the far-famed Mesilla which
led to its purchase from Mexico by the United States, under the
Gadsden treaty, moving the boundary about thirty miles south-
ward and making American citizens of the Mesilleros. La Mesilla
is a charming looking place with luxuriant gardens and noble
trees densely shading its streets. The United States land office for
the southern part of New Mexico is here, and the great excess in
the number of paid up mining claims over those of the northern
district at Santa Fe, speaks well for the prosperity of the mining
interest of the section.

“Contemplating the uncultivated soil, one wonders where the
Mesilla Valley got its fame for fertility, since it apparently consists
of barren sand, tufted with rank weeds. But an abundance of
sunshine and water, works wonders here, as is testified by the rich
tilled fields, and the many beautiful orchards and vineyards. The
profits of agriculture here are great. One of the leading citizens
of Mesilla, is said to have an annual income of something like ten
thousand dollars from eighteen acres of vineyard and orchard.
Several hundred acres of prairie land would hardly accomplish so
much. The mildness of the climate is shown by the existence of a
beautiful large fig tree in the patio of one of the Mesilla houses.

Considerable Mesilla wine is now taken east by the railway, and it

vee ae

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 99

is averred that in the hands of New York dealers, the Mesilla label
is not infrequently replaced by the legend “Fine Old Sherry”

“The onion is a famous product of the Mesilla Valley ; it grows
to an enormous size—larger than I have ever seen or heard of
elsewhere. Onions seven or eight inches in diameter are not
uncommon.

“The <Acequias madres, the “mother canals” of the irrigating
system, broad and shaded by fine trees, are a beautiful feature of
the scenery. Their water is of a tawny orange, and flows as rap-
idly as the river. It is genially warm; delightful for bathing,
despite the abundant earthy matter held in suspension. The fear
has been expressed that it would be hardly possible to irrigate the
Mesilla Valley much more extensively than at present, as the water
supply is scanty, and in some seasons the river runs dry alto-
gether ; but it is likely that a system of wells would make the
water supply ample enough for all demands.

“Tn Syria extensive vineyards are irrigated from large wells dug
for the purpose, and some day it may be found profitable to apply
the same idea to the Mesilla Valley. The water of the river under-
lies the whole valley bottom. A few feet below the ground at any
place water is always found in abundance. This accounts for the
magnificent trees in La Mesilla. Their roots strike down into the
ground water, so that in the driest of weather and fiercest of heats,
they are never athirst, but always proudly lift up their crowns of
deep emerald. Fruit trees, after a good start, never require irri-
gation. They grow very large here, and in the enormous peach
trees one would hardly recognize the short lived tree of the
North.”

CHAPTER III.

DESCRIPTION OF THE NEW SYSTEM—‘“ HOME ON THE HILLSIDE”—THE HOT
WATER METHOD.

Those of our readers who have followed us through the intro-
ductory chapter and especially in that section of it where the
methods of “The New Agriculture” have been described by visit-
ing farmers and agricultural editors, have not failed to get a suc-
cint idea of the new system, hence it is unnecessary for us to give
in this chapter more than a simple resume of the methods adopted
by us at our “Home on the Hillside.” .

The processes of “The New Agriculture” are so simple and
plain that the average intelligence can not only understand and
apply it, but having so conformed soils as to set the system in
operation, he may go to sleep and leave it to run itself, which it
will do, year in and year out, winter and summer alike, and so per-
fect will be found its work at all times as to result in the utmost
possibilities of production.

To conform soils under our system, the ordinary laborer has
only to move along the hillside with plow, pick and spade, sink-
ing trenches three, four or five feet wide, and as many feet deep ;
of sufficient depth, at least, to drop the waters below the frost lines,
guided by no level other than the water moving along the bottom

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 101

of the trench. Then cast in round stones to the depth of from
eighteen inches to two feet, and shingle perfectly with flat ones
when obtainable, and flat tile or timber where stones are not ac-
cessible, and in the absence of round stone, making use of tile so
conformed as to secure reservoirs. Then rake out the fine stone
from excavations for use in the construction of overflow trenches,
in which, if stone is not procurable, use tile, perforated or those
leaking at joints, or making use, if disposed, of other suitable ma-
terial.

On reaching level or bottom lands during construction, the
overflow trenches should be so constructed as to secure a continued
flow through them from each successive reservoir trench.

Let no reader doubt that, in regions where rains and dews de-
scend and snows fall, the waters, always in motion so that stagna-
tion in no case occurs, will not only find their way into the trenches
filtered and filtering as they flow, but will emerge in form of springs
or enter streams at their bottoms, with soils of the surface remain-
ing unwashed and steadily fertilized by the flow of waters through
them. When the waters come to the cold clay and clod of the sub-
soil the latter will be aerated, warmed, loosened and rendered soft,
porous and productive to the depth of the deepest trenching, and
every acre thus treated will be increased in value and that perma-
nently to a degree vastly lucrative.

Let us suppose that a farmer has a hillside and that he has
adopted our system, in which case he goes to work as follows:

A ditch is opened on a water-level along the side hill or slope,
say a yard wide and from three to five feet deep. At the bottom
of this ditch is loosely placed cobble and blocky stones for a foot
or two, then flat stones are laid over these, then a quantity of
smaller stones; cover these over with weeds, briars, bramble, fine
brush, straw, cornstalks or any available material, to prevent the

102 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

fine earth from falling among and filling the crevices between the
stones. A heavy coating of manure may follow and then the ex-
cavated soil is to be spread over it, grading a terrace if desired.
Whatever course the trench may take, the surface of the hard-pan
at the lower side of the ditch or trench must never vary from a
water-level. A series of such ditches, one above the other, are
dug a rod or so apart and similarly filled, over as large a surface
as is to be improved, each forming an elongated reservoir which
will be filled by the water courses cut off, or by the melting snows
and early rains; and, if the subsoil is firm clay or hard-pan, it will
be retained and as the surface soil dries it will be absorbed by
capillary action and brought within reach of the roots of vege-
tation. See diagrams on opposite page.

In regions where the conditions are favorable, suffice it to say
that land fitted as above described, will with wonderful celerity and
great economy produce most surprising results.

If the reader will take the above brief description of our
methods and consider it carefully in connection with the cuts illus-
trating our system, he will find no difficulty in understanding the
principles of its construction. A few points only remain to be
stated to make it perfectly plain:

In soils where fine stone can be raked out, it should be done for
the purpose of constructing the connecting overflow trenches.
These overflow trenches should be in the subsoil, and filled with
fine stone to a depth of a foot at least, and shingled with flat
ones in the same manner as the reservoir trenches. All shingling
should be of sufficient depth to escape the plow or the deepest
spading.

The construction of overflow trenches, bearing the waters from
the reservoir at base of slope, will need to be as perfectly done as
possible. The finer the stone below the shingling, and the more

:
8
a
?

ois )
wii a, Toi ah I)

AA, Surface soil.

B. Trenches. Patented July 22d, 1884.
C. Subsoil.

D. Overflow trenches.
E. Outlet or drainage trench.

te als i. ‘ ie ip Z | eae

Wa
in A yy

DIAGRAMS OF NEW SYSTEM,

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 105

perfect the shingling, the more complete will filtration be found,
the more crystal the waters as they emerge into the stream and
the more complete will be the work of leaving solids behind as
food for plants. The head of the overflow trenthes at base of
slope should be at least twelve or eighteen inches above the
bottom of the reservoirs. In most cdses, when the flat or bottom
land of the valley is reached, the construction of overflow trenches
should have an oblique direction towards the stream, or lowest
point aimed at, in order to secure sufficient fall to keep the waters
freely moving. Two or three inches of fall to the rod will be am-
ple and where this is not obtainable, less will suffice.

On the west bank of the Genesee, at a point about twenty
miles from its source, is found our “Home on the Hillside,” with
its model five acres, where the author of this volume is engaged in
demonstrating what may be done by conformation of soils and
conservation of the waters. Nothing has been, or will be, left un-
done to make our model so far perfect as to develope the entire
possibilities of production, hence calculations of cost, based upon
our own experiment, will be found greatly at fault. An equal area
put under conditions ensuring an average yield annually of from
three to five fold of that hitherto realized under former systems,
would likely be cultivated by parties gardening for profit; in this
case the expense would be only from one-fourth to one-half of the
amount laid out on our model.

The location of our home, could not well be improved, looking
out as it does toward the East at the sun in its rising. <A town of
about four thousand population hes in the valley below, through
which runs the far famed Genesee River for a distance of about
forty miles above the Portage. In confluence with the river at
this point, several tributaries unite, forming dells of rare beauty
and attraction. All about the town rise up lofty hills on which

106 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

are seen comfortable dwellings with cultivated fields surrounding.
A few only of the summits remain forest crowned. No town with-
in our knowledge of like population, boasts a larger number of
elegant dwellings. In looking out from our observatory, the view
is one far reaching, both up and down the valley, and it is seldom
surpassed.

Not completely is our home a model, nor do we propose to pre-
sent it as such, and yet, having planted here the garden whose
green in the season has no parallel, altitude and latitude considered
outside of isothermal influences, we assume that the accompany-
ing engraving of it will be of interest to our readers. Were the
hillside of gentler slope, the effect would, in the eyes of some peo-
ple, be a more pleasing one, and yet, such has been the effect of
spade, pick, hoe and rake, as to make gradation so uniform and
gentle in decline, as to produce a most pleasing effect. So tall and
symmetric are the trees crowning the summit, and so lustrous the
green of the garden, whether in bud, blossom or fruitage, such is
the scene presented as to delight all who visit us. Here in mid-
summer when the season proves one of ordinary fruition, will
doubtless be discovered a greater wealth of production than on
any equal space, not under glass, in America.

Above and to the west of the house, covering an area of less
than two acres, trenching, fitting and planting to trees,bushes and
vines is complete. The trenches above do not quite flank the rear
of the lawn to the east of the house, embracing about the sixteenth
of an acre. The lawn is planted with trees, chiefly the sugar ma-
ple, grown to impressive proportions. The surface of the lawn is
one of the gentlest incline and were it not for injury to roots of
the trees trenching would be forthwith pushed to the south and
éast, as already done to the north and west of the house, so that
the green of the grass at all seasons of the year might evidence

=

eer ae

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 107

the magic inspiration coming of conserved waters at spring water
temperature. Let nobody conclude however that we propose to
let our lawn remain in its present condition. Despite possible
damage to our trees from cutting off a portion of their roots, we
propose to trench this lawn and make connection with thenetwork
of trenches and drains to the north and west of the house, thus
surrounding the earth with hidden waters, warmer in winter and
cooler in summer than the atmosphere.

The question will doubtless be asked, can homes everywhere be
thus environed? Our answer is, yes, beyond doubt, especially
those located on hill and mountain sides, slopes and inclines; and
that too, regardless of subsoil. That this can be more economically
and readily done where firm clay or hard-pan subsoils are found,
than on those where these conditions do not exist, is true, but we
repeat our declaration that it can be done on other lands by the
use of substitutes, doing no more than facing the bottom of the
trench to the depth of two or three inches with clay, cement or flat
tile, thus permitting the trench to fill with water during rains. If
reserve is an object it can be accomplished by facing the lower
wall of the trench with like material within two feet of the surface,
and by arranging an inclined plane of kindred material, thus hold-
ing the waters in uniform currents of overflow from trench to
trench. Whatever the character of subsoil existing in lawns, door-
yards, gardens and grounds surrounding the dwelling, systems of
reservoirs, planes and inclines can be so arranged as to prove auto-
matic, and the waters kept moving in continuous flow, feeding and
watering grasses, plants and trees at deepest root, always in abun-
dance, and never in surfeit.

Certain gross misrepresentations have been made and reports
set in circulation that we had made use of springs or other
natural and artificial sources of supply to secure results reached

108 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

under our system of subsurface, subterranean or underground
irrigation. All of these have not enough of foundation to be dig-
nified by contradiction. There is not one man in America of ordin-
ary intelligence who is not capable of understanding, after reading
the preceding pages of this volume, that a system which gathers in
all of the waters coming of rains, dews and melting snows, beget-
ting perpetual irrigation during every month in the year, needs no
artificial sources of supply, and we will not insult our readers by
entering upon a discussion of so absurd a supposition that after
saving all waters falling from the clouds upon a given watershed,
more is needed for the growth of plants. Under old methods and
conditions fully nine-tenths of the water of rains, and nearly all
waters of melting snows, have been wasted in floods, hurried off by
the insensate use of tile, or absurd systems of drainage; and when
it comes to snow waters, these nearly all reach the streams along
frozen grounds and are lost. Under our system all are saved, such
portions used as needed, and the remainder passes off in purity to
streams in the valleys. |

Up to this point, discussion has been confined to the uses and
influences of the waters as they fall from the clouds, and find their
way into trenches at spring water temperature.

Now, however, we will treat of that feature of our system where-
in a steady stream of cold water, drawn from a trench or reservoir
above, is passed through a coiled pipe or boiler, and then emerg-
ing, is dropped into the trench, the stones heated and by surface
protection. the winter months are, to a great extent, made those of
production. Let the following serve as an illustration.

“A curious experiment has lately been made at Acqui, Italy, by
the proprietor of some baths there. The gentleman has at his dis-
posal an inexhaustible supply of hot water from a natural spring,
the temperature being 167 degrees Fahrenheit. The surplus not

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 109

required for the baths has been diverted so as to flow through
pipes to a garden on the outskirts of the town. Here the warm
liquid flows beneath a number of forcing frames containing melons,
tomatoes, asparagus and other garden produce. The result is
that a supply of these delicacies is ready for market at a very early
period of the year, when, therefore, they fetch high prices.”

The significant feature of this method is the fact that evapora-
tion of the waters at this high temperature is graduated and kept
up night and day by heating of the stones in trenches constructed
on substantially the same principles as those sunk under our sys-
tem, hence the results realized. The great drawback hitherto, to
the adoption of methods in this country, akin to those of Europe,
viz. that of bottom heat, has been the difficulty and expense attend-
ing keeping up fires night and day, securing the uniformity of
temperature required for success. The case in which the barber
in Italy quoted above makes use of the waters of hot springs to
turn winter into summer, is by no means an isolated one, since in
many cases throughout Europe, this is being done, and with grati-
fying success. The finest of pineapples and other tropical fruits
are grown in England by bottom heat. There is no good reason
why the expensive, and in many instances unsatisfactory methods
of glass and green-house should not give way in our own country,
and that Europe should have the monopoly of growing the hardier
varieties of vegetables and fruits in midwinter, when by surface
protection of cambric dipped in oil, and by the addition of glass
the fruits of the tropics may be readily grown in this country.

Not unlikely our book may fall into the hands of readers un-
aware of the fact, that natural gas as fuel is being used in thou-
sands of households in certain sections of our country. The cold
winter through which we have passed has not been nearly so
rigorous with ourself and neighbors on account of this wonderful

110 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

agency. Not only Wellsville but Friendship, Cuba, Bolivar, Rich-

burg, Allentown, Genesee and others of our Allegany county towns
in the state of New York are being supplied with it, but Pitts- —

burgh and numberless other cities and towns of Pennsylvania,
- Ohio and West Virginia, have been, and are being, made recipients
of its blessings. No fuel compares with it, nor is any provision of
the Creator of greater benificence. Discovery of its existence, to a
ereater or less extent, is being made in all parts of our country,
and so soon as the inhabitants of colder and more inhospitable
regions find out that they have only to dip down with the drill,
and bring up from the cold clods of earth a fire which burns night
and day, comforting many of the inhabitants of earth, there will
be less digging for gold, and more for golden opportunities.

Let nobody wait, however, for gas developement in order to ap-
ply our system as a substitute for the greenhouse. Coal and
wood are abundant in most portions of our country, and these can
be used for heating water with which to warm the stone in the

trenches.

CHAPTER IV.

PRACTICAL RESULTS OF THE NEW SYSTEM.

Mr. Stewart in his practical work prints the following notes on
the growth of crops more especially those of grasses :

“What are the ultimate possibilities of growth in any crop is
unknown, butit would seem as though they depended greatly upon
the supply of water absorbed, sufficient nutriment, of course, being
-provided. Rye grass upon irrigated fields, richly fertilized, has
erown at the rate of one inch per day, and repeated cuttings have
been made at intervals of fourteen days, during a season of
months. Crops of grass on irrigated fields of a total weight of
more than eighty tons per acre have been reported by trustworthy
English farmers. Irrigated grass fields in Italy support easily
two head of fattening cattle per acre, every year, and have long
done so. In hundreds of localities in European countries are irri-
gated meadows, which have borne grass without any sign of
deterioration within the memory of the inhabitants, or the knowl-
edge of readers of local histories, although the crop has been cut
and removed every year during this indefinite period. Whether
or not these immense crops could be further increased by more
skillful management is not neccessary to inquire. These products

are so far beyond the dreams of an American farmer, that they

112 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

may be well considered fabulous. But there is no reason to doubt
the facts. On the contrary, they should be used as a stimulus
for us to adopt, wherever practicable, the methods by which these
crops are produced.”

The methods above referred to are those of surface irrigation,
which, when compared with those of subsurface are, in results, as
fractions to units.

We have as before stated, grown three perfect crops of timothy
in a season under conditions not nearly as favorable as those se-
cured under our system as at present existing. This can be done
not only by the farmers of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Mary-
land, the Virginias and Carolinas, but in New York, New England
and the more northern states generally, and quite as well in
regions still farther north, where snows fall deeply, and remain
upon the ground during the entire winter. These are facts, and
as such should result in insuring adoption of our system wherever
American thrift, intelligence and enterprise prompt to action.

In the cultivation of the vine, there opens a field so wide as to
make its growth a source of wealth not easy to estimate. Along
mountains and hillsides, where grapes are grown, there is almost
invariably found pools of water, deep hidden in chambers of stone.

From these the waters should be dropped, below the frost line,
where, warm in winter and cool in summer, moving from trench
to trench, the health of the vine, hence its wealth of production, is
promoted. Mr. Stewart opens the ninth chapter of his book as
follows:

“Tt is doubtful whether there is an orchard or vineyard in the
United States, except in California, Utah or Colorado, subjected to
systematic irrigation. At the same time it is doubtful if there is
any country in the world in which irrigation could be more profit-

ably applied to fruit culture than here. The experience of orchard-

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. as 3"

ists proves that drouth is accompanied by destructive attacks of
insects. How far these depredations might be prevented by irri-
gation cannot be predicated, but it is beyond doubt that the vigor
of growth that would result from a sufficient supply of moisture to
the roots would greatly mitigate the effects of these attacks. The
apple trees which never have an off year are those grown near
bodies of water. A California vineyardest who irrigated his vines,
immediately raised his product to eight tons of grapes per acre,
and greatly improved the quality. The newly planted orange
groves of Florida are frequently destroyed by drouth, and methods
of irrigation are eagerly sought to render their culture more safe
and certain. But if it were necessary to enforce the advantages of
the irrigation of orchards, abundant evidence could be gathered
in the south of France, Italy and other countries of southern Eu-
rope, where the olive, orange, lime, almond, fig, apple and other
orchard trees, as well as the vineyards, are systematically brought
under irrigation. As to the vine, it is a question, so far, which has
not been thoroughly investigated, whether or not irrigation might
be made the means of vanquishing the destructive phylloxera.”
Possibly our readers may weary with our much quoting from a
single author. If other testimony than that of Mr. Stewart were
required, the field from which to gather is a wide one, but Mr.
Stewart has gleaned facts from all sources and we find in his book
the history of the experience of individuals and peoples covering
many centuries, hence the invaluable character of his conclusions.
Among American authors, few, if any, are more popular than E.
P. Roe, who writes with a versatility of information and talent
upon almost every subject, and upon none with greater acceptance
than upon those of agriculture and horticulture. Before us, as we
write, lies an elegant volume entitled “Success with Small Fruits.”

This is an expensive work, and all the more a pity since a book

114 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

containing so much of knowledge and combining so many attrac-
tions, should be within reach of all classes. My. Roe’s book is one
of three hundred pages, six only of which are devoted to the sub-
ject of irrigation, and brief as is the chapter treating of it, the
author makes apology for devoting even so much space to consid-
eration of a matter ere long to be recognized as one of paramount
importance. At the opening of the chapter on irrigation he says:

“This is a topic on which a book might be written.”

If Mr. Roe will look into our system, perhaps he will be in-
clined to write another book. Sincerely do we wish he would do so,
since there is a recognized charm about his writings making the
dullest subject one of interest.

“ The question, as we shall consider it,” says Mr. Roe, “isa practical
one. In California and other sections, the land must be irrigated;
here, and where the rainfall is more equally distributed through-
out the year, we can water if we find the practice remunerative.”

Mr. Roe quotes Mr. W. D. Philbrick as saying:

“The amount of water required will depend largely on. the rain-
falk, velocity of the wind, atmospheric humidity, soil, etc. A loose,
sandy soil will require much more water than a retentive clay. In
general, however, it may be assumed that, in the warm growing
months of May, June, July, August and September, most vegeta-
tion requires an inch in depth over the entire surface of the land
every five days. This is, of course, only an average. This quan-
tity, estimated as needed by our gardens, would be equivalent to
six inches per month of rainfall. If we compare this amount with
the actual rainfall, we shall arrive at an idea of what is to be sup.
plied artificially. The rainfall at Boston for the past six years
1873-1878, for the five growing months named, varied from a max-
imum of 103 inches in August, 1872, to a minimum of 0.65 inch, in

June, 1875. During these six years there was not a single season

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 145

when we did not suffer more or less from drought during some
portion of the summer. Twenty-one of the thirty months in ques-
tion had less rainfall than six inches per month, and the average
of these twenty-one months was about 3.02 inches per month, or
only about half of what was needed. Some of the protracted sea-
sons of drought were almost entirely rainless for six weeks, during
which the weather was excessively hot and windy, and vegetation
suffered extremely in consequence.”

But why multiply witnesses touching the necessity of saving,
instead of wasting the waters? In our colder climates of the
North, the waters of rains, dews and melting snows should all be
halted, housed, husbanded and held back so far as may be, getting
all possible advantages from them. As we write, there comes to
hand a letter from Hon. John Swinburne of Albany, N. Y., which
will find its place on the pages of our book, alongside of another
from the pen of Hon. C. R. Early of Pennsylvania. Both these
gentlemen are representative men, eminent in public, private and
professional life. Both agree that the future of the waters is the
one of the world. The one would gather them in, purify and use
them to make an end of fungus, deadliest enemy of vegetable and
animal life ; the other shows how this can be done, and vividly
portrays the advantages to come of the achievement.

Let no reader conclude that, from the frequent mention made
along these pages of firm subsoils, that these are the only ones
where our system will apply. It can be applied on all soils to
great advantage. Two out of three among correspondents writ-
ing us have asked whether our system can be made to apply to
level lands. Our answer is, it will apply everywhere. The rela-
tive advantages of its application are those of economy, and the
lands to which it is most readily adapted will be found the most
profitable.

116 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

Not in the North, where demonstration of its great utility has
been first made, is it to perform its greatest wonders, but in the
South, the land of cotton and corn, will be seen its greatest
triumphs. Corn as a crop and for ensilage, and sorghum and
beets for sugar, can be grown to an extent and with a measure of
success hitherto unparalleled. Orange groves can be doubled and
trebled in yield, and not merely the English grasses, but all varie-
ties of fruits can be grown to a degree of perfection hitherto unat-
tained. And then too, the orchard.

Who shall estimate the wealth to come to North, South, East and
West from a system causing trees to grow, though planted amid
droughts? Nor only so, but a system under which the old fruit
tree becomes young and vigorous, making new roots, dropping its
scurvy bark, its parasitic mosses, and doubling, trebling, quadrup-
ling, and not unfrequently quintupling its yield of fruit.

How about potatoes? Let us answer this question by stating
results as regards a single row planted in the spring of 1883. We
had planted on lands near by for an early crop, when nearly a
fortnight later finding space for a row immediately below one of
our completed trenches, devoted it to the Early Rose variety. The
first planted potatoes appeared above the ground five or six days
in advance of this test row. By the first of June, the latter show-
ed much larger and finer growth of vines than the former, and the
potatoes of both matured about the same time, the 25th of July.
All were perfectly ripe, the earliest planted, however, were dwarfed
by blight, and more or less eaten by wire worms, their average size
being about that of a hen’s egg. The vines of our test row lived
their full life, and died a natural death, showing a crop of maryel-
ous size, beauty and perfection. Suffice it to say that not a single
potatoe was found rotted in our test row, nor was there the mark

of the “tooth” of a wire worm found, The potatoes averaged the

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 117

size of a goose egg, and a few specimens were as fine as the very
finest we have ever seen. The yield from this one row was nearly
or quite three times as much as from any grown that season on
our own grounds or on those of our neighbors of equal area. In
nearly or quite every hill outside of the test row, was found from
one to three or four rotten potatoes, and these, as usual, were the
largest ones.

Why this very great difference? nearly or quite every reader
will naturally enquire. Here is our answer: No uncomposted
manure was mixed with the soil, and consequently no seeds of
fungus were sown. On lands above the trench, manures were
spread between rows of raspberries, while still farther up our
manures had been corded for composting. The snows of winter
and rains of early spring had sent their waters in flow adown
the incline, and when our first trench was reached, these were
dropped into its depths and the trench filling and overflowing,
the waters passed through the sponge of our single row, feeding
the tubers with “broth, soup or porridge,” and hence there was
perfection in growth and fruition. This accounts for the fact, at-
tested by Dr. C. R. Earley, in his chapter on fungi, that nowhere
on our grounds is that deadly enemy of vegetable and animal
life to be found.

Perhaps the point has not yet been reached to propound the
question ere long to be everywhere asked: Will it pay to drink
water and grow fruits uncontaminated with stagnation and other
sources of infection and contagion? In other words will it pay to
grow fruits and vegetables to sell, which, when eaten by yourself and
family, are liable to engender disease and produce death, when by
the simplest of means, through adoption of methods discovered and
fully demonstrated, those of far greater perfection and with larger

profits, can be grown free from infection, and perfect in all ways.

118 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

How about vineyards? Can more grapes be grown under sys-

tems of subsurface irrigation than by ordinary methods in coun-
tries of rainfall? That surface irrigation has been found a neces-
sity in arid regions, is well understood; and there also, have the
finest grapes of the world been grown. Up to this time, however,
no vineyard, so far as we are aware, has been planted under
circumstances, and cultivated under conditions conforming to the
utmost developement of the vine and product. The terrace is
constructed and when the rainfall is abundant the waters, des-
cending the incline, are checked in degree by the level of the ter-
race, but when this becomes dry and baked the water of brief
showers moves off in rapid flow, and, if the shower is a hard one,
the terraces in groups come little short of presenting an ap-
pearance of successive cascades. In rainless regions, where pro-
vision is made for irrigation by mechanical means, and in those
of an abundant rainfall, so numerous have been the cases of
failure to realize a crop as to have had a discouraging effect.

In no regard has Mr. Stewart’s book more profoundly im-
pressed us, than his frank confession throughout the work of
the impossibility of so applying water to the surface, as to in-
sure profitable results. Nothing could be more convincing of
the superiority of our system than this confession.

After devoting a large amount of space to prove that winter
irrigation of meadows and pastures has proven not only suc-
cessful but profitable in climates of Southern Europe, and de-
monstrating the fact that in all portions of our own country
where the ground freezes only to the depth of a few inches or
not at all, irrigation in the winter months would have wonder-
ful effect in continuing the growth of grasses at their roots,
Mr. Stewart hands over to the hopeless desolation of winter the
regions in which dwell millions of our most intelligent, enterpris-

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 119

ing and thrifty people by saying that “in the Northern States
and Canada, winter irrigation is impracticable.”

In turn, we do not hesitate to declare, that if a series of trenches
along inclines was constructed from three to five feet deep, at any
and all points in the States of New England, New York, New Jer-
sey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Ilinois, Iowa, Wis-
consin, Minnesota and throughout the Canadas, Nova Scotia and
New Brunswick, dropping the waters of autumn rains so deeply
down as to hold them during winter at.spring water temperature,
they would be found to melt the snows at bottom and hold the
trenches nearly or quite full of pure spring water during every day
of winter.

In no particular do we propose to leave demonstration incomplete.
The following article from the Chicago Journal tells the story:

« When the hair on the heads of the young and rising generation
shall have been whitened with age; when their descendants of the,
second generation shall be toddling around their great arm-chairs
or begging to be taken on their knees and told some stories of the,
to them, mysterious past, the grandparents will, no doubt, on many
such occasions recall the winter from which we are just emerging’
but which has clung so tenaciously to the lap of spring, and which
still seems so unwilling to leave us, and speak of it as the terrible
winter of 1884-85, when the thermometer for fully one-third of the
whole season remained below zero, and when, during the entire
months of January and February, the mercury rose to the freezing
points or above on only fifteen occasions; when snow-storms were
of almost daily occurrence, and when the regular spring-time of
the year had run considerable of its course before the great moun-
tains of snow, which had almost hidden the earth, had disappeared
from view. It can not even now be gainsaid that the past winter
was apretty tart one. Setting in as it did about the middle of De-

120 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

cember, it has continued with the full force of its rigor till the end
of March, and its whole course has been marked with the fewness
and long distance apart of its intervals of mildness. 1ts record for
severity cannot be surpassed by that of many seasons in the pres-
ent century.

“The coldest day of the year, taking it all together, was Febru-
ary 10, when the thermometer stood at 16 degrees below zero for
almost the entire twenty-four hours, though at other times it sank
for a short time as low as 30 degrees below.

“ Below will be found a record of the dates on which the ther-
mometer was below zero between 8 a. m. and 1 p. m.:

“December 17, 2 degrees; 18,12; 19,7. January 2, 4 degrees; Fa,
5; 14,10; 19,17; 20, 8; 21, 6; 22, 16; 26, 7; 28, 15. February 10,
16 degrees; 11, 13; 12, 3; 13, 10; 15, 10; 16, 13; 17, 7; teh
1; 20,9. March 20, 2 degrees.

“The dates in January and February when the thermometer rose
above freezing were:

“January 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 31, and February 2, 3, 4, 24, 25, 26, 27
and 28.”

Unless other winters of greater severity remain in store for the
present and future generations, we have no hesitation in declaring
that our system is good for irrigation from December to April of
any year likely to come while there remains alive a single child
now born, and we believe at any parallel of latitude between Mason
and Dixon’s lines, and Hudson’s Bay. Certain is it, that Southern
Alaska can safely count on having been released from subjection
to the dominions of the Frost King, since it has been discovered
that this hitherto little understood portion of our country possesses
a climate producing crops vastly superior to those of the more

northerly countries of Europe and Asia, and that grasses can be

—

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 121

made to greenly grow all winter beneath the snows of this most
inhospitable of our territorial possessions.

The article quoted from the Chicago Journal, will, we are sure,
convince every reader that the past one has been a winter through-
out the North and East, justifying us in saying that so far as Alle-
gany County, N. Y. goes, that farmers using our system may defy
the Frost King.

It is three years since the Hon, Warner Miller, so ably and emi-
nently representing New York in the United States Senate, re-
marked:

“Tf you can realize the results claimed under your system, Mr.
Cole, and I incline to believe it, then our State is capable of main-
taining a population within its limits of an hundred millions, sup-
ported in comfort, from agriculture and horticulture alone,”

If this is possible in the State of New York, we ask our readers
to read the following copied from The Northwest, of March, 1884,
and estimate what our system would do when applied to the most
inhospitable, and hitherto deemed, from an agricultural point of
view, hopeless region embraced within the boundaries of the Ame-
rican Union :

“Alaska is a broad peninsula situated at the northwestern ex-
tremity of the continent, washed on the south by the mild waters
of the Pacific and on the north by those of the frozen Arctic.
Upon its frozen and deeply indented shore line, towering and rug-
ged headlands enclose quiet and picturesque coves and harbors,
within many of which the united naval fleets of the world might
float, secure from the storm-tossed billows of the encompassing
oceans. Extending back from its coast is a broad zone of fertile
lands, characterized by wide-reaching plateaus and magnificent
valleys, richly clothed with native grasses, and watered by deep-

flowing, majestic rivers.

122 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

“Within its interior the Rocky Mountains attain their greatest
altitude north of Colorado, Mt. St. Elias, near its southern boun-
dary, towering to the height of 17,000 feet. The mountain regions
are distinguished by immense forests of pine, fir, cedar and hem-
lock, sometimes extending in an unbroken growth for many miles
upon the lower portions of the range, and broad low-lying basins,
(ancient lake beds), shadowed by naked, rocky cones and snow-
clad peaks. The climate of Alaska is not so intemperate as its
northerly situation would indicate, the Kurho-Siva or Japanese
current, an ocean stratum of heated waters, flowing from the South
Pacific, exerting upon it a climatic influence, analogous to that of
the Gulf Stream upon the British Isles. Moist, warm winds blow
across the Alaskan sea-coast regions, and the Aleutian Islands,
situated near, in the Behring Strait, lending to them a delightful
summer climate, and rendering them fruitful in the extreme. The
fiftieth isothermal, which leaves the eastern coast of Asia near
Pekin, strikes the continent of North America near the 50th paral-
lel of north latitude, then trending rapidly to the south, passes
near the region of the great lakes, and leaves the eastern coast of
the continent, near the city of New York,

“Thus we find the climate of the lower regions of Alaska very
similar to that of Wisconsin, Michigan, and the New England
States. The records of the Signal Office established at Sitka for
five years, show the mean temperature of the year to be the same
in Alaska as in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and the productive
power of the soil is certainly equal to that of any portion of the
northeastern part of the United States.”

That this is no picture of fancy, we have occasion to know as a
few hours further sail of the steamer which, a year ago, bore us
to Victoria the capital of British Columbia, situated on Van
Couver’s Island and lying in the same latitude as northern New

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 123

Foundland, would have borne us into Alaskan waters. Here at
Victoria fruit trees had dropped their blossoms, and apples, pears,
plums and other fruits were developing. No spot of earth was green-
er nor one blander and more summer like in atmosphere. Keep-
ing no diary, as nearly as we can fix the date from memory, we left
Victoria the last of April, and reaching our Allegany County home
on the sixth of May, found our family and neighbors just begin-
ning work in their gardens. While our own little plat was a fort-
night ahead, even this was fully three weeks behind what we had
found the gardens of Victoria to be ten days before. The calcula-
tion is therefore a safe one, that the average March of Victoria
is the May of Allegany, and that the springs of Southern Alaska
average as early as those of Western New York.

On the 13th day of April, within a week after the departure of
the snows, the soil of our garden being soft and porous, its surface
having been warmed by the sun, we began garden making by put-
ting in peas, onions, lettuce, beets, etc. Though all around and
about, the earth was frozen to the depth of from two to four feet
upon that portion fitted under our system not a particle of frost
was discernable. Having begun garden making on the 13th of
April, a week later visiting New York and casting our eye out of
the car window going and coming, in no spot did we see the com-
mencement of seeding. In fact, we were assured by Alfred Hen-
derson, son of Mr. Peter Henderson, seedsman, of New York City,
that work in the open grounds of New Jersey had not begun, and
that in shaded spots all over the northern portions of that State,
frost remained in the ground.

Such, nevertheless, was the condition of the soilin our garden
at the period of first seeding, that germination immediately fol-
lowed, and our peas, sowed on the 13th, were out of the ground on
the morning of April 28th ; onions were sprouted, and other seed-

124 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

ing had resulted in germination. Our rhubarb, or pie plant which
had shot up into the snows before their departure was large enough
for use, and the promise, made to the Jerseymen present on the
occasion of our address before the Farmers’ Club of the American
Institute had been made good, the present season finding us ahead
of New Jersey in planting our garden. When we say that Alle-
gany County, N. Y., is usually a fortnight, and not infrequently
three weeks behind New Jersey in the opening of the spring, it
will not be questioned that water in trenches at spring water tem-
perature produces wonderful results. That the producing season
will be lengthened from forty to'sixty days on lands fitted under
our system, may be therefore set down as a fact.

The virtues of “ The New Agriculture,” was most severely tested
on the morning of April 28th. The wind was in the southeast,
and the mercury at 10 A. M., stood at 50° above zero, and
reached 65° at noon; the day was one of spring balm. It began
raining about 3 P. M., the wind south, and the shower was one
more of May than April. Shifting suddenly into the north,
Boreas put on the lion in earnest and a violent snow storm en-
sued. The night was one of severe coldness and when we awoke
at 4 A. M. on the 29th, we made up our mind that if there was
virtue in cold water, this was the time to test it. Repairing to
our garden, the frigid condition of the ground all around, out-
side of our two acres, was about as hopeless as in dead of win-
ter. Beneath our feet, however, the soil yielded, and upon mak-
ing examination we found no frost. The “noses” of our peas,
sticking out of the ground, had a look much more nearly blue
than green. Only the day before, meeting friends in Elmira,
we had boasted of our pie plant, challenging comparison with
any grown in open grounds either in New York or New Jersey.

These, however, to our discomfiture, next morning were found

STRAWBERRY’ BOUQUET.

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 125

frozen to the consistency of an icicle, breaking like glass on
bending. Observing however that the ground was not frozen, we
concluded that the root was not killed, and, by way of experiment,
we subjected the frozen stalks and leaves to a cold bath. Repair-
ing to a pile of forest leaves, we bore several bushels to our plants,
and covering them deeply, poured upon each hill, four pails of
water, drawn from the hydrant near by. The saturation was com-
plete. The sun rose coldly, and shone out in a frigid way all day,
and yet, had we.not protected them by the wetted leaves from the
effects of its rays, there would probably have been an end of pies for
a fortnight thereafter. Once or twice during the day, we ventured
to take a look at our frozen plants, and each time had more and
more hope of saving them. Removing the leaves on the 30th, we
found our pie plant uninjured. Precisely one year before, we ate
rhubarb pie at a hotel in Victoria, British Columbia, grown in the
open ground, beneath the balmy breezes of the Japan current. A
little upwards of a week later we reached our Allegany home, but
ate no rhubarb pie till after the middle of May.

Our five hills of rhubarb or pie plant were four years ago (1881)
transplanted, and in resetting, were planted along the line of one
of our leads or overflow trenches. Not till last fall, however, were
they so connected with the reservoirs, as to keep a steady
stream of water running beneath them, and since September last,
the flow has not ceased. And so it was, that on the departure of
the snows about April 10th, our pie plant had shot up into its
snowy covering, getting the start of any in our State by a week or
or ten days. It is not only in this, but in numberless other ways
we have demonstrated the fact that a stream of spring water run-
ning beneath will give inspiration to the growth of plants in win-
ter Itisin this regard that our system differs, and in fact is

distinct from all methods hitherto proposed and in some instances

126 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

put in operation through means of perforated tile, begetting what
has been denominated sub-irrigation.

Tile has been laid to considerable extent in California, Nevada,
Colorado and New Mexico, and the resulting irrigation has been
found phenomenally successful, leaving that of the surface meth-
ods completely in the shade. There has been a patent allowed on
the tile, but not upon the system, yet the ordinary drain tile an-
swers every purpose, leaking sufficiently at joints to diffuse the
waters. To lay a network of this tiling at sufficient depth to
escape the effects of frost in winter, more especially in regions
where the freezing reaches a depth of several feet would be a most
expensive and unpromising undertaking at best, and when to the
great expense of this mode of preparing lands to receive the
water, is added that of making provision for water supply depend-
ent upon springs, streams, artesian wells, windmills, current wheels,
and the thousand and one other devices necessary to such a system,
not one man in a thousand can be found to give the thing a
moment's attention especially if he farms in rainfall | sections.
We desire here to give the wonderful history of the old apple tree
that stood and now stands renewed in life upon our hillside. This
tree, the only fruit bearing one on our original plot, was up-
wards of thirty years old, and before trenching began was
so unthrifty, covered with moss and in all ways so unpromis-
ing as to incline us to cut it down as a cumberer of the ground.
Nor was the tree alone undesirable. The fruit, a golden russet,
grew no larger than what is known as the lady apple, nor nearly
as large as we have for the last two years grown strawberries in
certain instances. The fruit was so tough as to be left in the cel-
lar until all other apples were gone, and not unfrequently thrown
away in the end. Not to exceed a bushel anda half had been

gathered from the tree in any one season previous to 1883. In the

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 127

month of October, 1882, a deep and model trench was sunk imme-
diately above this June russet apple tree. The spring succeeding,
the wealth of blossoms on this tree was surprising. The blossoms
were of a size attracting attention of even the children, being
nearly twice the size of the ordinary apple blossom. The fruit
developed rapidly, and by the first of August the apples had
reached a growth larger than at any time before when the fruit
was harvested. Such was the weight of the fruit as to necessitate
the propping of nearly every limb.. When the apples ripened, com-
plete transformation was discovered. Little, if any russet coating
was to be seen, the fruit having dropped its color and coating, and
some of the better specimens would have passed for greenings.

When Mr. J. F. Langworthy visited us, we presented him with
specimens of plums of the size of an ordinary hen’s egg, picked in
his presence from a tree which, before our system was adopted, had
never given them larger than a small pullet’s egg. Specimens of
these plums were also sent the same year, (1883), to Hon. R. E.
Fenton, ex-Governor of our State, and exhibited in New York to
Hon H. J. Jewett, President of the N. Y. Lake Erie and Western
Railroad Company, and to Alfred Henderson, son of Mr. Peter
Henderson, and were pronounced by all to be the finest specimens
they had ever seen.

While Deacon B. F. Langworthy was looking over our grounds,
we plucked heads of timothy of second cutting, eight inches in
length, fully seeded, and subsequently cut others, a third crop avera-
ging sixinches. As near as we can now recollect, the first of these
cuttings was about the middle of June, the second the last of July,
and the third about the middle of September. In the first cutting
the heads averaged nine inches, and in some instances reached ten,
and in one, at least, eleven inches in length and of most surprising

weight. Specimens of the Kittatinny blackberry were also pre-

128 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

sented to Deacon Langworthy of such marvellous size and beauty,
as to excite wonder. We also showed Mr. Langworthy four rows of
the Philadelphia red raspberry, in which the bushes were so heavily
laden as to make it impossible to stake them sufficiently to prevent
the bushes from being prostrated by the wind. As near as we
could calculate, the yield would have equalled five hundred bush-
els to the acre. This, however, is mere guess work, since to pick
the berries as fast as they ripened was impossible, and more than
half of the crop perished.

That hillside lands having clay or hard-pan subsoils valued at
fifty dollars per acre, and scarcely paying at that, will have their
soils deepened and rendered correspondingly productive, and at
an expense not exceeding fifty dollars per acre in trenching, be-
come permanently improved, paying splendidly on from two to
five hundred dollars per acre, we have no doubt. Although differ-
ent views may exist as to the increase in value of farm lands by
adoption of our system, when it comes to the matter of gardening
and fruit farming. our own experience is conclusive.

It has only been four years since the first stroke of work was
done on our model five acres. We have now about a quarter of an
acre of strawberries, plants three years old in August of the pres-
ent year (1885); not far from an eighth of an acre two years old;
another eighth, eighteen months old, and a quarter of an acre will
be a year old the last of September, 1885. Our first quarter of an
acre, three years old the present season, will be found only good
for the half of a full crop, from the fact of having imperfectly done
our work at the beginning. Our currants, raspberries and black-
berries are just fairly coming into bearing, also our quince, pear
and plum trees. When all are in full bearing, (which we cannot
count upon short of five years yet), to put the income from our five

acres at five hundred dollars and upward per acre is perfectly safe,

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 129

marketing what fresh fruits and vegetables we can at or near
home, and evaporating and preserving the remainder. It is
equally as safe to calculate that, were a like five acres situated
near any of our great northern cities, the profits would be corres-
pondingly increased. It is no uncommon thing, as we note by the
newspapers, for strawberries to sell in the New York markets dur-
ing the holidays, which can be done under our hot water system,
for several dollars per quart. One acre of strawberries, at the rate
we have grown them, would bring a sum we leave to our readers
to calculate.

Before us lies a letter received some time since from Mr. F. G.
Jones, of Keuka, Putnam County, Florida, who writes:

“Tf there could be found out a way to retain the water here for
future use to all plants, Florida would become one of the richest
fruit growing states in the Union. We havea rain nearly every
day all summer, but it sinks below the surface almost immediately,
and as the soil is sandy will not retain moisture like northern soils.
I want to set some strawberries this fall. They do well here, and
are gathered from January to July, and bring from twenty-five
cents to one dollar and twenty-five per quart.”

From all portions of the South as well as from States like New
Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, and notably from states and
territories embraced in what has been denominated the Great
American desert, letters have been coming for months, asking all
sorts of questions touching our system. The burden of these is
always the same, “the droughts, the droughts, how shall we escape
the droughts.” But for the ordinary farmer, one who is cultivat-
ing from fifty to an hundred, and thus on to thousands of acres,
the question again is, will it pay? To this we answer, if any far-
mer doubts it, let him make experiment on a single acre of meadow
land. Let him try an acre of potatoes, beans, peas or corn on

130 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

trenched lands, and compare results, year in and year out, and if
it is not found to pay immeasurably better than any farming he
has ever done, our five acres are growing lies.

Not a day passes but there comes to our place the farmer, the
fruit grower, the gardener, the greenhouse man, each in turn look-
ing over our grounds, and are filled with amazement at results, and
yet they still ask, will it pay? All agree that it will pay us to ex-
pend five hundred dollars in fitting an acre to perfection, and yet
question whether it will pay other people, costing no more than
from fifty to an hundred dollars an acre according to conditions of
soil and original lay of the land. We went to work four years ago
on one of the most unpromising spots possible to imagine, and did
next to nothing with the team, plow, scraper, or anything else in-
deed but the pick, spade, hoe, potatoe digger and rake; our hard
clay and gravelly hillside abounded in stone, with little of surface
soil, and we were at an expense twice as great as that to which the
horticulturist would be ordinarily subjected.

When it comes to agriculture, the same amount of work could
be done in most instances at from a third to a fifth of the cost, fit-
ting lands in a way to grow two, and probably three perfect crops
of grass of from three to four tons each annually to the acre, from
five hundred to a thousand bushels of potatoes; from an hundred
to an hundred and twenty-five bushels of oats; an hundred bushels
of shelled corn on an average, and other crops in proportion.

A perpetual green of grasses can be realized in regions of
the North where snows fall deeply, and lie on the ground during
the winter, since the water in the trenches constructed under
our system are dropped beneath the frost line, and such is
their effect upon soils, as to prevent freezing, and the hardier
varieties of plants are made to grow greenly beneath the snows.

The regions in which this can be most economically, readily and

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 131

perfectly done, are those of hills, valleys and undulations having
firm clay or hardpan subsoils, where an abundance of stone,
round flat and fine, are found in the soil. This class of lands are,
in fact, the most valuable for purposes of agriculture and horti-
culture in the world. Upon and along them, will, within a few
years, be found the loveliest houses, the richest peoples, the finest
farms, and gardens, and in their neighborhood and vicinity, the
grandest cities of the world.

We have found no difficulty in convincing every man who has
examined our methods of gathering in and flowing on and out of the
waters, that these can be controlled in subsurface flow, yet there
are few who have yet realized the fact, that, when there is a general
adoption of our system the springs of the primeval forest are to
not only reappear, but that hundreds and thousands of others will
develope, forming rivulets and rivers, growing lakes, the latter alive
with trout and other varieties of fish, presenting a scene akin to
transformation of the earth’s surface.

Fearing that we might occasionally mislead people to adopt our
system if we published estimates based on the actual cost of
trenching to us, we have counted as an investment all moneys ex-
pended, not merely for fitting of lands, but for manuring, making,
harvesting and marketing products, as well for plants and trees
set upon our grounds. Three acres of our plot, or thereabout, are
being prepared for strawberries. On this portion all stone, big
and little are taken out and placed in trenches. To do this, as it
appears to us, pays better than to leave the work imperfectly done.
Few people, perhaps, will be found to agree with us, however fav-
orably lands to be fitted may be located in proximity to profitable
markets.

We note that the question has been asked:

132 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

Do our trenches ensure this marvellous growth and perfection
of fruitage, or is it not rather the fifteen inches of fine tilth upon a
hard pan subsoil which we have formed, that holds the rainfall
producing the extraordinary results as exhibited on our hillside?

That fifteen inches of fine tilth will produce a marvel of growth
we well know, for years ago we tried the experiment by dipping as
deep down as possible with spade and fork, securing fifteen, pos-
sibly twenty inches of fine tilth, growing the Triomphe de Gaud
strawberry and other fruits to marvellous size, beauty and perfec-
tion. It cost us more to secure that fifteen or twenty inches of
fine tilth on one-sixteenth of an acre, than it is now costing to secure
an equally productive one five feet deep on a full acre by trenching.

A few weeks since, among invitations received, asking us to dis-
course on systems of irrigation and drainage came one from Mr.
Newel Cheney, Secretary of the Western New York Agricultural
and Horticultural Association, for an address at Cuba, Allegany
County, during the annual meeting of said association on the 11th
and 12th of June. Coupled with this invitation came also a pamph-
let containing report of proceedings and addresses at last year’s
annual meeting of the association held at Randolph, Cattaraugus
County, March 13th, and 14th, 1884. Among addresses on that
occasion none was read with greater relish than that by Prof J. T.
Edwards, D. D., of Randolph, N. Y., on the Conewango Valley,
which consists of a dead level of “about forty thousand acres of
oozy, unproductive swamp lands.” In the opening of his address,
Professor Edwards asks how these swamps can be converted into
beautiful farms, waving with timothy and clover. From first to
last, the Doctor gives us a compend of good things. That Doctor
Edwards gave becoming directions as regarded straightening the
bed of the creek, and so deepening it at one point as to set the
waters in rapid flow along the valley beyond, is evident. So far as

eee

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 133

the Doctor goes, he makes no mistake, but stops short at the very
spot where he should have gone ahead. Pointing to Europe, he
says :

“ Holland, for instance, is one of the most prosperous countries
in the world, a land where banks never fail, where pauperism is
unknown, and bankruptcy unheard of. It is held against the
hourly protest of the sea. The houses rest upon piles driven into
the soft earth, yet its drainage is so perfect, that its productive-
ness is wonderful. The dykes cost more than sixty millions of
dollars. It is the best example of plucky farming on the planet.”

To cover the case the Doctor should have added that, Hollanders
have found out the way and put it in practice, how to drain and
irrigate, irrigate and drain, not starving by fits and stuffing by
starts, but feeding and watering the vegetable kingdom, always
abundantly and never in surfeit, never attempting to grow crops
in the way some people do pigs, with a streak of fat and a streak
of lean, but so arranging their dykes and ditches as to keep the
waters always moving through their soils.

Let us suggest that should the State of New York continue in
its determination not to extend aid to undertakings such as re-
claiming the swamp lands of the Conewango Valley, and a stock
company will organize and purchase the entire forty thousand
acres and do precisely what Doctor Edwards proposes, not stop-
ping there, but sinking trenches and cross drains for overflow in a
way to do what the Hollanders have done, and though it were to
become necessary to manufacture tile, conforming them to the
work in hand, thirty dollars an acre at least can he made, or in the
ageregate. one million, two hundred thousand dollars.

The Doctor tells us that three kinds of land are found in the
swamps, one composed of deep muck, another of fine silt reaching
an unknown depth, and a third composed of a mixture of the two.

134 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

There are probably very few stones, if any, found in the soil, and
recourse to tile would become necessary. The rains, dews and
waters coming of melting snows should be dropped at the least
four feet deep, with overflow drains or tile and cappings about
eighteen inches beneath the surface. Such perforation of the tile
should be made as to most evenly and generally diffuse the waters,
and if allis done in a common sense way, so pure will these be
found, so uniform the temperature, that dwellers in the Cone-
wango Valley will every year see a green Christmas, and instead of
growing frogs, toads, lizards and the like, will be able to bring
out lakes crystal clear all along the track of their waters, alive
with bass, perch and pickerel, and not unlikely the mountain trout
of California, or possibly those of the brooks of Allegany, Catter-
augus and Chautauqua, of an half century ago.

rr

CHAPTER V.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE NEW AGRICULTURE UPON THE HEALTH OF MAN AND
DOMESTIC ANIMALS—-COMMUNICATION FROM THE HON. JOHN SWINBURNE—

THE BANE OF FUNGUS, BY PROF. C. R. EARLEY.

It is the last of June (1885) and all over the country come reports
of drought, nor any wonder. The tile manufacturers and their
patrons must by some means find out that this hurrying off and
drying up of the waters, is a most serious matter, and one which,
persevered in, will result in disasters greater, first or last, than
has been as yet realized in any civilized land. New York City,
with her vast population is fearful of an impending water famine.
Doctors Edson and Taylor recommend the purchase of a tract of
land half a mile wide on each bank of the Croton River to
provide against contamination of its waters. This recommendation
should be heeded. The entire water shed of the Croton ought to
be purchased, trenched and planted to trees; made a park, and
filled with babbling brooks and crystal lakes and stocked with
trout. That the water supply would, under such conditions, be
found at all times abundant for a city as large as London, New
York and Paris we are inclined to believe. ;

This brings us to the introduction of a witness whose reputation
is such as to need no endorsement from us, standing as he does in

136 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

the front rank of American physicians and surgeons—the Hon.
John Swinburne, late Mayor of the city of Albany, at one time
Health Officer of the Port of New York, and now Member of Con-
gress elect from the Albany district.
Axpany, May 7th, 1885.

Hon. A. N. Cole:

Dear Sir:--After quite thorough examination and consideration of
your invention, or system styled by you “The New Agriculture,” I

have become deeply interested in the matter, and beg leave by letter —

to express to you the impressions I have formed in reference to it.

Careful thought about the system impels me to the conclusion
that as a plan for the storage and preservation of waters for irrig-
tion and purposes of general use, it demands and merits far more at-
tention at the hands of farmers, gardeners and the public generally
than has as yet been given to it.

In a country like ours—in the eastern, southern and central
portions fast filling up with large cities and villages and thickly
populated neighborhoods—the question of the most available
means of obtaining a proper and sufficient supply of water for
mechanical manufacturing and household purposes, and for pro-
tection against fires is calling to its consideration the earnest atten-
tion and careful study of many of our ablest scientists and most
practical thinkers; while to agriculturists, manufacturers and mill
owners generally, in these sections, the very perceptible decrease in
the volume of our rivers, creeks and other irrigating streams, upon
the sufficiency of the supply of water from which they have been
compelled heretofore (some in part and others wholly), to depend
for success in their various avocations, has been to many of them
the cause of great diminution of business and business profits, and
to others a subject of deepest anxiety. The reduction of our forests,

it is said, (and very properly too), has resulted in a consequent re-

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 137

duction of our rivers and streams, which were once freely naviga-
ble from their mouths nearly to their sources, until they are now
only kept open for commerce in many parts by the application of
great labor and large expenditures of money almost continually.
And as have failed these larger streams, so have also their smaller
tributaries (from which they all in fact derive their supplies), be-
come lessened in volume, until at length farms which were once
properly and abundantly watered are now comparatively without
supply, and streams which once furnished sufficient water-power
for the running of mills and factories, now scarcely afford power
sufficient to propel the churns of the farmers occupying their
banks. The depreciation in the value of lands in many parts of
the country for agricultural purposes, and in the supply of crops
' therefrom, and from the same cause, has become equally percepti-
ble. Yet, the supply of water from the clouds—from rains and
snows—has not, so far as we know, in any way decreased;—but
the forests are not here to husband them, and these waters are
permitted to soak into the ground, or run to waste from the sur-
face almost as soon as they strike the earth.

The problem heretofore has been how best to secure and hus-
band these supplies, by artificial means, so as to most effectually
_ preserve them for the vast demands of our wonderfully increasing
population, for family and business purposes, and especially so as
to make them more useful in the cultivation of the soil.

Many able and ingenious thinking men have for a long time
given this question their attention; and many plans have been
suggested—some of greater and some of less merit—but all accom-
panied with an apparent intricacy of detail and weight of expense
in their application, which has prevented the general or consider-
able adoption of either.

But you, Mr. Cole, seem at last to have discovered a scheme,

138 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

plain and practical in itself, and evidently of but moderate expense
in its adaptation to the uses and necessities of a very large propor-
tion of the people who are now suffering severely from the evils to
which I have above called attention. You style your system “The

>

New Agriculture,” and from its probable effect upon agricultural
districts in which it may be hereafter adopted, as indicated by the
experiments you have already made, the name would not seem to be
in any way misapplied. If the results of its use in general should
be an increase in crops and vegetation, to but half the extent fore-
shadowed or promised by those experiments, (and I can see no
sufficient reason why your claims in this respect may not be fully
verified by practical application of your plan) you have developed
and now offer to the country and the race a new system for hus-
banding the falling waters and a new plan for their use which will
not only establish a new era in agriculture, but which may be so
used as to afford the needed supply of good, healthful and pure
water for the other ordinary uses of life to very many sections of
the earth, where the inhabitants are now suffering disadvantages
and deprivations from its want. |

Your plan or invention is exceedingly simple in detail, and the
greatest wonder to any one who shall see or read of it will be,
that it had not been thought of, developed and adopted long be-
fore. It bears the impress of reason and sound sense upon its
first presentation to the mind and more mature reflection upon its
merits only results in more strongly developing these characteris-
tics in it. The scientist and the plow-boy alike can each with
equal promptness and facility perceive its scheme and merits at a
glance, and the person who proposes to use it on his farm or gar-
den, or in connection with his shop, dwelling-house, mill or fac-
tory will not require the assistance of the scientific and mathemati-
cal knowledge of the civil engineer or architect to enable him to

STRAWBERRY, NATURAL SIZE.

Oe

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 139

put it in successful operation, the brain of an astute accountant to
estimate its cost, or the eye or mind of the learned student of
nature to discover its results. Combining in itself a plan for the
accomplishment of these objects highly essential to the comfort,
convenience and business interests of the people,—storage of water,
irrigation and drainage,—it will be seen at once by even the ordi-
nary mind upon most casual inspection, to be practicable and
feasible for either purpose, and it must be equally evident that
great advantages must accrue to the user of the system either for
agricultural purposes, the storage of water for other general uses,
or as a means of drainage simply.

Scarcely a township exists in our country, in which there are
not many farms upon which your admirable system could be ap-
plied to great advantage and profit. Large portions of territory
in agricultural districts are now entirely useless, or at least com-
paratively unproductive, by reason of insufficient irrigation ; and
these through the appliance of your “New Agriculture,” could be
made vastly more productive ; while the present productive por-
tions would be increased in productive power through the same
instrumentality. To the grape and other fruit growers, it seems
to me, it affords especially inducements for use, which will speedily
bring it into imperative demand with the large majority of this
important business class. Through it thousands of agriculturists
in every state may easily and with little expense make their bar-
ren wastes to smile with productiveness, and the better portions of
their farms to double in value by reason of increase in crops.

But the advantages to be derived from the use of your plan in
the storage of water for other than agricultural purposes are
equally apparent, and must eventually bring it into active demand
and use in localities where the supply of water is now insufficient

for the requirements of cities and villages ; and by its application

140 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

many such corporations will be enabled to furnish their citizens
with good, cool and pure water, in sufficient quantities, and at
far less expense than they can by any other plan or system
now known. Of course, whether it can be so utilized as to furnish
very large cities with sufficient supply is a problem hereafter to be
demonstrated ; but in our own state, (and without doubt in every
other state), there are hundreds of smaller cities and thickly pop-
ulated villages and hamlets, whose inhabitants are now suffering
great inconvenience, and incurring risks of sickness and death
from malarial and epidemic diseases, from insufficient supplies of
healthful and pure waters—whose surroundings are such that, by
the reasonable application of your simple system for collection
and storage of water they could each, at much less cost than in
any other way, be furnished with a permanent and sufficient quan-
tity of the best of water for all the purposes for which it may be
required by them. Then too, the hills or mountains surrounding
or adjoining these places,—often now utterly unproductive, and
sometimes even unsightly in appearance,—can by this same plan
be transformed into productive and ornate terraced gardens, far
excelling in products and profit the ordinary agricultural lands of
the neighborhood and rivaling in beauty the most famous of the
ornamental gardens of the old world,—presenting at all times “a
thing of beauty” to the eye, season by season affording more prof-
itable remuneration to their owners from the crops and fruits and
vegetables which shall spring from and adorn their slopes ; and at
the same time and always affording to the inhabitants of the popu-
lous places beneath their shades a bountiful supply of Heaven’s
best and only beverage for man.

I am confident that your system will grow in popularity with its
use ; and eventually a grateful people, thankful for the blessings
your invention has brought to their hands, will rank you as a ben-

Se

en

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 141

efactor of the human race, who has not only succeeded in making
two blades of grass grow where one was wont to appear ; but who
has also taught them by simple method, and at cheapest cost, the
way to secure for themselves a sufficiency of one of the most im-
portant of God’s gifts to man, and beast, and nature.

This letter requires no answer—it is written to testify my appre-
ciation of the merits of the invention of an old friend, and he is
at liberty to use it as he may deem proper.

With sentiments of respect I am, as ever, yours truly,

JOHN SWINBURNE.

The case of water poisoning, at Plymouth, Pennsylvania, should
operate as a warning that all over our land water works have been
and are being constructed, in the sources and supplies of which
are found the germs of disease and death. Whatever the source
of water supply filtration is imperatively necessary, except where
springs or spring brooks discharge their waters so directly into
reservoirs as to prevent infection, pollution, or even the existence
of roil. Can waters admixing with those of the surface be render-
ed pure and healthful, is the paramount question. This brings us
to the introduction of an article by Professor De Smedt, District
Chemist, of Washington, D. C., as published under date of June
26th, the subject being the water of the Potomac river.

“Ts perfect filtration and aeration possible in a volume of water
sufficient to supply large cities? This is a question for the consid-
eration of engineering science; the chemist can determine only the
results of the scheme should it prove to be practical.

“Water, in the order of its purity, may be divided into three
classes: First, rain water, which is the most impure; second, river
water; and third, spring and deep well water, which are the purest.
The purity of the spring water is owing to the fact that it has been

filtered and aerated through sandy soil, which is indisputably the

142 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

most perfect purifier of water containing organic impurities; this
is demonstrated by natural facts. Spring water, generally so pure
and limpid, proceeds from surface waters polluted with vegetable
and animal impurities, but becomes purified during its passage
through the earth. This evidence furnished by springs, is confirm-
ed by practical results of the irrigation of sewcrage instituted in
England and France. Finally, the proof is made conclusive by
analysis and scientific experiments that perfect artificial filtration
can produce water almost as pure as spring water.

“Water, more or less polluted, having passed through a deep
filter composed of sand, containing a small percentage of argillous
matter, the insoluble particles are stopped at the surface and the
more minute particles are retained deeper in the body of the filter.
This is the first result produced,—it is a simple mechanical filtra-
tion. The water being cleansed of the insoluble matter, descends
deeper; each particle of sand is drenched with a thin film of water;
thus divided, the water offers to the confined air in the earth or
filter an enormous surface of action. Now commences the second
effect of perfect filtration and aeration, which is the combustion of
the organic matter in solution in the water. It isa general saying
that fire purifies everything, and indeed there is no organic matter,
so impure or so unhealthy, which fire, with the aid of the oxygen
of the air, will not transform into carbonic acid, water and nitro-
gen. In the interior of this filter a purification likewise takes
place, not violent and visible like that caused by fire, but slow and
without any perceptible evidence; nevertheless it is a combustion
which reduces all organic impurities to carbonic acid, water and
nitrogen. It is even a more perfect combustion than that caused
by fire, producing oxydation of the nitrogen and the formation of
nitric acid, a result which fire cannot produce.

“Tn conclusion, I will say that the filtration and aeration of all

—-—

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 143

river waters would be beneficial, but as to its practicability, I beg
leave to refer the subject to the consideration of those whose prov-
ince it is to determine such matters.”

The following extract from the New York Tribune refers to the
recent epidemic at Plymouth, Penn.:

“The result of the investigation of the causes of the epidemic at
Plymouth, Penn., made by Dr. Cyrus Edson and Dr. James B.
Taylor, of the Board of Health, assisted by the chemist of the
Board, Dr. Edward W. Martin, will be reported to the Board as
soon as the analysis of water taken from the Susquehanna River
where it flows past the town from a mountain stream, from wells,
and from mines in the vicinity, are completed. The investigating
physicians went to Plymouth last Wednesday and returned on
Saturday. Dr. Edson yesterday told a Tribune reporter what
they saw and what conclusions they had arrived at. He said:

“The fever prevailing at Plymouth is one of the most interest-
ing epidemics that we have ever had in this country. The great
majority of the cases have been caused by one case of typhoid
fever. That case has inoculated between 700 and 1,000 cases
almost simultaneously—all within the period between March 26
and Aprill. No doubt the infection was spread by the water,
though other causes assisted. The town was just ripe for it. The
streets were filthy, and the place altogether in bad condition.
The systems of the people were in a condition that made them easy
victims to the disease. They had been drinking water polluted
with sewage. On March 26 a new supply of water was received
from a mountain stream which had been polluted by the dejections
of atyphoid fever patient, who was sick in a house near the
stream. They were thrown on the snow within a few feet of this
water course. The snow melted and flowed into the stream, the
water of which, being released by the melting of the ice that had

144 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

confined it, soon filled up the reservoirs, which until then were
almost empty. The water passing through the ice and hardly

exposed to the air reached the reservoirs a little over one-eighth

of amile distant. The great outburst of the typhoid fever oc-
curred between April 12 and April 18. The time of incubation of
typhoid fever is generally from ten to twenty days. We looked
into the milk supply carefully. A few cases were due to that, but
many who had their own cows had the fever. The epidemic is now
dying out. The water is all right now and was before, but it was
infected by accident. The river water, although that was hardly
contaminated, was pumped into the mines for several weeks prior

to March 26.
“The result of the investigation only shows the necessity of

keeping a water supply pure and free from contamination. The
wells in this city are all worse than any in that town, where they
are frequently polluted by adjacent filth. Ihave found people
using water from wells dug in this city. I had to arrest John
Gelston, a large mineral-water manufacturer, a few weeks ago for
using well water in making his beverages. He was convicted
in the Special Sessions and fined $25. I discovered that he was
using well water by having his mineral waters analyzed. A manu-
facturer like him can save from $2,500 to $3,000 in Croton water
taxes by using well water. Our recent investigation at the Croton
water-shed shows that there is no reason for apprehension on ac-
count of the pollution of the water at present, but the population
near the river bank is increasing, and after a while there will be
danger unless the city purchases the land on both banks for half a
mile back, or takes some other measures to prevent contamination.
It would be cheaper to buy the land now than to wait until the
danger is imminent and the land dearer.”

Not only at Plymouth but in other towns and cities without

see

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 145

number, the streams run dry, or nearly so, not only in the heat of
summer but in the winter months also, and everywhere “there is
death in the pot.” Nor is the craze to make money by manufac-
turing tile, having no other purpose than to hurry off the waters
as fast as possible, in any degree greater, than that of the farmer
who seizes upon it, paying his money for a curse rather than a
blessing, and digging trenches regardless alike of expense and
philosophy, begetting water famines as surely to come in time as
death and the undertaker. .

There is no reason why the river at Plymouth should have been
dry in March, nor, indeed, during any month of any year. All the
springs, brooks, rivulets and rivers of our land can be made,
should be made, those of perpetual flow. Their waters should be
pure and undefiled, bringing life, joy, health and happiness to the
people, instead of being defiled by decay and bearing death to
animal and vegetable creations.

Should the doctors continue on with the work they have under-
taken, which they will surely do, they will succeed in curing nearly
everybody hitherto sick, and preventing disease in the future.
They have but to convince mankind that pure water is the source
of health, and its opposite an equal fountain from which flows dis-
ease and death, and the world will not be long finding out
that passing the waters through soils purifies them completely.

Among all who came to look over our grounds during the sea-
sons of 1883 and ’84, no one made so careful an examination into
the principle of our system, as the Hon. Charles R. Earley, who has
a divided residence between Philadelphia and his model hillside
home at Ridgway, Elk County, Pennsylvania. We say model home,
since such it cannot fail to become, should the Doctor carry out his
present intentions of making application of our system to his
place, demonstrating the utmost of its possibilities. To do this,

146 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

would call for the use of tile, clay or cement, since, unfortunately
in the light of economy, Dr. Earley is not as well situated as those
who can with greater economy and facility avail themselves of the
advantages of our discoveries, as he does not possess what is,
in due time to be recognized as the greatest of good fortunes, a
retentive subsoil coupled with an abundance of stone. Notwith-
standing this the Doctor was one of the first among friends who
entered heartily into sympathy with us, carefully examining our
methods. A man of rare intuition he seemed to discover the whole
thing at a glance, pronounced us on the right track and predicted
that our work was one sure to result in making an end of the run-
ning of the waters in riot over soils; that the latter could and ulti-
mately would be so conformed as to pass the waters of rains, dews
and snows through them, and that waters of streams, pools, ponds
and lakes would be by this means filtered and made pure, and rel-
atively an end be made of the seeds of fungus now producing de-
cay and death. Doctor Earley, was, in fact, the first man whom we
met who agreed with us as regarded this fertile and fundamental
cause, from which, come the ills to which all flesh is heir. |
Puiwapvetpui, Pa., March 28th, 1885.

Hon. A. N. Cole, Wellsville, N. Y.

Dear Sir :—Your letter enclosing circular, was forwarded to me
here from my home at Ridgway, Pa. I see in the circular that I
am expected to write a chapter on fungi, for your forthcoming vol-
ume, devoted to the promotion of your new system of agriculture
and horticulture.

This demand comes upon me like an electric shock, as I fear that
the time will be too short to do justice to so important a subject.
My time is so fully taken up with a diversity of interests, that I
hardly know how to gain the time required to treat a subject of
such prime importance, since it is one that will not bear hasty

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 147

attention. The life, health and happiness of the human family
depends greatly upon a full and correct understanding of the part
which fungi occupies in the various diseases with which mankind is
burdened. We might say that to this one cause may be traced a
greater part of the diseases known to medicine. The food we eat,
the water we drink, and the air we breathe are all to a greater or
less extent impregnated with poisonous fungoid atoms.

To bring this chapter consistently within the scope and tenor of
your volume, it will be necessary for me to go into the subject in
some order and system, and to that end I will divide the matter
into the following heads :

Fungi—its action on Man.

Fungi—its action on Stock Animals.

Fungi—its action on Vegetation.

Fungi—its action on Man.—Now in treating the subject under
this head, I wish it understood that I do not propose to go into a
technical analysis or treatise on the genera, forms, phases and no-
menclature of fungi, but rather to speak of it in a general way, and
of such as exert a baneful influence.

In order to investigate its action on man, it is but natural that I
should examine more especially as to the vehicles that carry the
deleterious cause to the circulation and tissues. It may be by in-
halation, but itis certainly more frequently carried into the system
by means of food and drink. That fungal spores are constantly
afloat in the air, is certain, and apart from my own investigations,
I could cite a number of reliable authorities.

The experiments of Dr. Cunningham, conducted in India, have
been convincing on this point........... *« Spores and other vege-

table cells are constantly present in the atmospheric dust, and

*From microscopic Examinations of Air, from the 9th Annual Report of the Sanitary Com-
mission. Calcutta, 1872.

148 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

usually occur in considerable numbers ; the majority of them are
living and capable of growth and development.”

“Recently a case occurred at the Botanic Gardens at Edin-
burgh, which was somewhat novel. The assistant to the Botanical
professor was preparing for demonstration some dried specimens
of a large puff-ball, filled with the dustlike spores, which he acci-
dentally inhaled, and was for sometime confined to his room under
medical attendance from the irritation they caused.” *

This seemingly is an endorsement that the air we breathe is at all
times more or less charged with fungal material, which under certain
conditions is capable of development to such an extent as to
cause local irritation, and as I well know, from personal experience
‘and investigation, will at times produce blood poisoning with its
train of concomitant evils.

Commencing the practice of medicine at the age of twenty-two,
I devoted my best energies to that profession, during a period of
about forty years. In April, 1846, I left my native state, New
York, and settled in the wilds of upper Pennsylvania, where the
nearest physician was forty miles away. I was thus aloné in my
struggle with those enemies of man,—death and disease. To my
surprise I found, that there was hardly a man, woman or child in
that whole region in perfect health. On the mountains and _ hill-
sides, in the valleys, and in the towns, I found that nearly every-
one was in some way diseased.

This was to my mind an anomalous condition of affairs, and be-
ing of an investigating turn of mind, I sought in every instance,
where I was called upon to attend the sick, to trace its cause. I
said to myself, here is my work, which must call forth my full
energies. Here begins the work of the doctor, which never has,

can or will end ; to examine into the remote and latent cause of

*Fungi. M. C. Cooke, M. A., L. L. D.

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 149

disease. It is not only the duty of the physician to help nature in
the cure of disease, but it is also part of his work to seek out and
remove the primary cause. He must examine the dwelling inside
and out, the cellar beneath, the food the family eat ; the water they
drink and the air they breathe. In fact itis preeminently his duty
to prevent as well as cure disease.

It is requisite in investigating for a first cause, that the physic-
ian should examine closely into the modes and ways and living of
the people immediately surrounding the patient. One great cause
of disease of the people with whom I was brought in contact, was
the ill-advised custom of storing their winter supply of vegetables
and provisions in the cellars of their houses. Itis a fact demon-
strated beyond the possibility of a doubt, that such a thing as per-
fectly healthy fruit or vegetable is rarely to be found. The unde-
tected incipient potatoe rot has frequently done its work of death
by the production of blood poison. It is almost impossible to find
an unblemished apple, pear, peach, plum, cherry or berry. They
all have spots or blemish of some kind, and wherever you find fer-
mentation and decay, you will also find fungi.

The fungi as germs of disease are always present both in the air
and food. Go to a market, tell the fruit dealer that you want a
bushel of apples without speck or blemish, and that for that bush-
el you will give him the price of a barrel. His answer to you will
be:

“T could not do that sir, for the price of four barrels, and I
doubt if I could do it at all.”

This is not only the case with fruit, but with all vegetables and
cereals.

Now in view of all this, is it not patent that we are constantly
taking the germs of disease? Most assuredly it is. Our circula-
tion and tissues are full of disease-bearing germs, only awaiting

150 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

full development and opportunity to do their fell work. Why,
when I think of it in all its details, I am only surprised there is not
more sickness and death. Surprised that there should be any ap-
parently well people anywhere. Most people eat their food with-
out a thought as to whether it is pure and healthy, or that diseased
food can not do otherwise than produce diseased and poisonous
blood. Go into the gardens of our towns, and those out in the
country, and examine the growing vegetables. How many of
them will you find in a healthy condition? I think you will fail to
find one single plant that is perfect. Either the roots, stalk, leaf
or fruit will be found affected in some way. Take the water we
drink. It will not take long, nor will you need the aid of a power-
ful microscope, to convince you of the presence of fungi, or germs
of some kind.

Fungi—its action on stock animals.

As man is only a higher type of animal, it is but natural, that
that which affects him, will also affect the lower animals; the only
difference being that of degree. That which would probably be
very virulent in man, would be of a milder type in the other. Then
too the type of its manifestation might be different, but the same
first cause will be always present. Poisoned blood and tissues
produced by poisoned food, water and air. But there is another
feature that is generally overlooked. There is not so much care
used in selecting their food and water as is the case with man. If
the bran or corn meal happens to be a little musty, sour or wormy,
it is not thrown away. No; it is fed to the stock. They will not
notice it. If the sides of the water trough are green with slime,
it is not thoroughly cleansed. They will drink. Cattle are not
fastidious. If the hay isa little musty, itis not discarded. The
stock have not very discriminating eyes, they will eat it. If the air
of the stables reek with ammoniacal gas and have little or no ventil-

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. ok

ation, it matters not. The animals do not notice it, or if they do,
they can not remonstrate. But here let me ask, are the people not
being surely punished? I think the reply to this would be unan-
imously affirmative were we able to follow the effect that the ma-
nures from these animals have on the food cereals brought to fru-
ition through its use. Not only the human family is suffering from
this terrible condition and neglect of our soil, thus producing
fungi, but our stock animals are suffering in an equally bad way.
The grasses that they feed from in our pastures, and the hay made
from same and stored for winter use, if examined under a micro-
scope, will be found to be extensively covered with fungi. This
bears various titles, such as smut, rust, or mildew, or other names
applied in different localities. Corn, in many sections, is sowed for
fodder, and this, upon examination, will be found to be in the same
condition. In this connection I would refer to the recent develop-
ments in Texas, where cattle were suffering with what a number of
authorities pronounced contagious pleuro-pneumonia; but upon
investigation, were found to be in a diseased condition, from eating
of corn that was extensively smutted. Oats with their rust, wheat
and rye with their ergot and other diseases, all these different pro-
ductions are alike affected.

Our writers on the subject of stock, refer frequently to (so-called)
contagious pleuro-pneumonia. Cows kept for their milk for sup-
plying our large cities and towns, are nearly all fed with this
mass of poison, and kept in badly ventilated stables, shut up
and excluded from the air. Congress and our legislatures pass
laws and appoint commissioners to examine into and destroy all
stock affected, to prevent the spread of the contagion. They
never for one moment think of examining the farms and stables,
and the feed of the animal. In my investigations in the vicinity
of Philadelphia, into “contagious pleuro pneumonia” (so-called,)

152 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

I found diseased mucous membrane, the air passages thickened,
congestion of the lining membranes, all more or less congested and
covered with slime and fungi, so much so indeed, that the smaller
tubes of the bronchials were collapsed, thus preventing free pas-
sage of air, consequently making it impossible to fully inflate the
lungs. Not only were the bronchials affected, but I also found the
throat and mouth extensively covered with slime and fungi. On
examining into the character of the food which had been fed I
found that, in many cases, it consisted of malt dust, full of fungi.
Garbage in some cases was fed, and many different kinds of food
supposed to produce milk rapidly. The grass and hay in almost
every case, I found to contain mould or fungi in some form.

Is there such a disease as “Contagious Pleuro-Pneumonia ?”

I clip the following from the morning papers of Philadelphia, of
Saturday, June 6th, 1885.

[From the Record. }

“Much excitement has been occasioned among the farmers in the
vicinity of Pavonia on the northern outskirts of Camden by the
appearance of the pleuro-pneumonia in the herd of cattle on the
farm of M. Feenfer. Drs. Miller and Dyer of the State Board of
Health have investigated the outbreak and believe that the rigid
quarantine which they have established will prevent the spread of
the disease. The herd of nine cows was purchased last February
at the West Philadelphia stock yards. Two of the infected ani-
mals have been killed and the remainder inoculated.”

[From the Times. ]

«A general examination is being made of herds of cattle in
Camden and Gloucester Counties by Drs. W. B. E. Miller and C. K.
Dyer, of the New Jersey State Board of Health. On the farm of
M. Feenfer, at Pavonia, near the Camden Water Works, a herd of
fine cattle is said to be infected with pleuro-pneumonia. The dis-

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 153

ease was brought to the farm by three or four cows which were
purchased by Mr. Feenfer at the West Philadelphia stock yard in
February last. Great care will be taken by the authorities to pre-
vent the spread of the disease and the herd has been quarantined.”

Having had some experience in investigatiug the causes of dis-
eases in both man and beast pronounced as “contagious” by many,
which to my mind were caused by bad food, bad air and bad drink,
“Tat once went to Camden, N. J., where we procured a conveyance
and were taken to the “farm” referred to above, near Pavonia, a
distance of about three miles from the City Hall, Camden. There
are about fifty dwellings scattered about this place. On our way
there we met the two veterinary surgeons or members of the State
Board of Health, Drs. Miller and Dyer returning from the “Feen-
fer farm” where they had been visiting the sick cows. On our
arrival at Michael Feenfer’s place about 10 o’clock A. M., we found
Mr. Feenfer the “farmer” referred to was away with his milk
wagon selling the milk from the cows not yet dead or dying, and
would not return before 11.30, so we were introduced to his son, a
young man about 17 years old, who very kindly showed us all the
surroundings of the place.

The “farm” referred to consisted of about four town lots on
which were erected, one dwelling house, and outhouses, one cow
stable, one cow shed, a hogpen and a hen-house, situated about one-
half mile from the Delaware River on rather low ground.

We found the stable about sixteen by twenty-four feet, with
eight stalls on each side, three feet wide. The door opened out
into the cow shed which was about the same size as the stable and
open on one side. The stable was low and had loose boards placed
overhead where hay was kept for feed. There was also a window
that opened out into the yard, which window and door were the
only means of ventilation provided.

154 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

Just in front of this window and door was a cesspool about
fifteen feet in diameter that took up the drainage and filth from
the cow stable, hogpen and hen-house, as well as the drainage
from the dwelling and all the outhouses. This cesspool was full
of the very worst of filth. The liquid was as black as tar and they
had recently filled it with swamp and bog sods, with long swamp
weeds and grass, as they said “to keep the cows from miring.” In
the stable was found but one cow, the rest of the stalls were full
of all sorts of trash and fitth. The shed was in like condition, only
worse. We opened up our inquiries as follows:

“How many cows have you?”

“We had thirteen.”

“How many have you now?”.

« Six and this sick one.”

* What became of the others ?”

«Four died, one we sold and one we gave away.”

“Where are the six?”

“Tn the pasture.”

* How did your cows get sick ?”

“We bought one cow from the West Philadelphia stock yard
about two months ago and in about a week after we bought her

she had a calf, and in about two days after she had her calf, she
took sick and died. The cow doctors said she caught the disease
in the stock yard.”

“ Did the calf get sick and die?”

“No, the calf was healthy.”

“What did you do with the calf?”

“We sold the calf to the butchers.”

“Were there any cows sick in the stock yard when you bought
this one ?”

“ Not as we can learn.”

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“Had there been any sick before or has there been any sick
there since ?”

“No, not as we can learn.”

“How many acres of land have you in your farm ?”

“We have no land only these lots. We rent pasture.”

“ How many acres do you rent?”

“We rent about three acres for pasture and pay sixty-five dollars
for it.”

We now looked at the sick cow. The young man opened her
mouth, and upon looking in we found the mucous membrane of the
throat and nostrils much congested and somewhat inflamed with
but little dreuling or slabbering. She had no cough or difficulty
in breathing. She did not get up.

We then went to see the cows in the pasture. This pasture
bordered upon a swamp next to the river and was about twenty to
thirty feet wide and bounded on the other side by a deep swale
which was again bounded by a swamp over half a mile long. This
strip of land was divided in the middle by an embankment or dike
which kept out the tide from the marsh land.

Therefore there was but this strip of land about fifteen feet wide
and a little over a half mile long that could be utilized for pasture.
But no grass was to be seen, save a few roots here and there. and
these nearly covered by the droppings from the cows. They have
no other water to drink except that from the swamp which was
nearly as black as ink. These six cows were put out there after
the others died and were kept there night and day. They were
placed there by order of the members of the State Board of Health
as above (the Feenfers called them the “cow-doctors”) and quar-
antined. They are fed with malt grains, etc., as hereafter ex-
plained, drink the swamp water and breathe the swamp air.

On returning to the stable we found Mr. Michael Feenfer the

158 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

“farmer,” had reached home. He was a very pleasant German and
showed us the feed which they called “malt grains and other stuff.”
There was a large hogshead standing under the before described
cow-shed, just in front of the door of the stable which was about
two-thirds full of malt grains and other material, so sour and
stinking that one could not look into it without getting sick. On
asking the old man “if the cows liked that kind of food,” he said,
“sometimes they acted as if they did not and it made them cough
sometimes.

We inquired as to how much milk they got from the cows, and
he said they got one hundred and twenty quarts from the thirteen,
but now they got about sixty-five from the six. We asked, “how
much do you get from the sick cow at a milking?” He said “about
a pint, and that they fed to the hogs.

“How many hogs have you ?”

“We have but five now, two died last fall.”

“What was the matter of the hogs that died ?”

“They got sick just like the cows, the five are pretty well now.”

Now let us look at this matter clearly, in the light of reason and
science and what do we find? Brutes suffering. Human igno-
rance. Legalized cruelty to dumb animals. Woful want of in-
telligent investigation, wilful disregard of the very first principles
of hygiene.

It hardly seems possible that any one with the slightest degree of
intelligence could make any mistake as to where the primary cause
of all this sickness laid. Here was a depression or hole made in
the ground that caught all the surface drainage for say two hun-
dred feet around it. All the wash-water from the houses drained
into it, all the filth from the stable and pig-pen drained into it,
every rain washed through the hen-house into it. There was ab-
solutely no exit for the water. There it was, dammed up, with all

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 159

the excrement and vegetable matter that could be imagined, slowly
putrifying and throwing off noxious gasses and vapors. The cows
were confined in stables that had no means of ventilation save the
door, and one window, opening out upon this pool of filth.

The food they got came from this hogshead of malt grains and
other garbage in a high state of fermentation. This reeking mass
of stuff was given to support life and make milk. The smell ata
distance of ten feet was enough to turn any stomach.

This is a graphic but true pen picture of the home life of these cows.
Now the cows are sick and ailing. They must be taken out to pas-
ture. Mark the keen sarcasm, unintentional it is true,—these ani-
_mals gain one thing by the change,—sunlight. They must eat of
the rank marsh grass.and drink of the fetid marsh water. I no-
ticed fish in the sluices; but in this marsh water there are none.
It’s pretty bad water that a catfish won’t swim in.

Now taking the character of their food, the air and water into
consideration, is it any wonder that these cattle should have dis-
eases of the throat and lungs? It is a wonder that they have any
healthy organs at all, and I doubt if they have.

Mark the ignorant way in which the State Inspector does his
work. Did he do as we did? Did he look for a cause upon the
premises? No, he contented himself by asking the nearly as ig-
norant “ farmer,”—“ What made your cows sick ?” and upon receiy-
ing the reply caught at the pretext,—Ah! that is it, you got them
from the stock yard. Yes, yes, she brought the infection with her.

Upon looking up the matter it is impossible to find that any of
the stock at the stock yard was sick with this disease either before
or after this cow was purchased. Now, is it likely that the so-
called infection was brought from the stock yard? Is it not a
hundred times more likely that the bad air, bad water, and bad
feed at the farm induced this disease ?

160 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

The gases that rise from decaying manure are exceedingly poi-
sonous. The urine from stables of stock contains much more
putrescent matter than manure does, and is therefore more dan-
gerous.

Now, as in the case just mentioned, where there is a hollow in
the stable-yard, which hollow is not drained, it becomes the recep-
tacle for all the waste that is around the place. The drainage
from the house, pigpens, and stables drain into it. There is no
outlet and it must remain there, only to find an exit in evaporation.
The animal and vegetable matter settles down in it, fermentation
begins and is hastened by the heat of the sun. Now when evap-
orating, the particles of humidity rise from the bottom of this pile
of corruption, thus producing a current which carries with it the
products of putrefaction. These products are sometimes parasitic
in their nature. They float in the air, settle on the surface of the
water, and sift into the food. When taken into the lungs by in-
spiration, they find resting places in the membranes, where with
an even temperature of sufficient height to bring them to active
life disease results. The same thing occurs when taken into the
stomach in food and drink. In the first instance they cause dis-
eases of the mouth, throat and lungs, in the latter, their effects are
noted in derangement of the stomach and bowels.

Should we be asked whether there is any way of avoiding this
condition of affairs, we unhesitatingly would point you out the
real reason for all the trouble, and at the same time suggest the
cure. First comes, fermentation, then decomposition, the produc-
tion of fungi in all its forms, and of course this must be followed
by disease.

Now to my mind Nature intended that the ground should have
air to breathe and water to drink, just the same as animals. It
needs these, not so much for supplying nutriment to vegetation, as

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 161

it does to carry on the great work of assimilation and purification.
Is it not true that all decomposition and filth is converted into in-
nocuous material in nature’s laboratory? And if so, is it not di-
rectly caused by fermentation and oxidation? Itis burnt and cal-
cined into purity. The earth being loose and porous, the air forces
its way into the crevices, and the water passes through it from
above, each, especially the air, supplying fuel to carry on the work
of purification.

We will suppose that the water comes to a strata that is imper-
vious to its onward course. What happens? Simply this,—it
dams up slowly, inch by inch, forcing out the air as it goes. All
motion and circulation is stopped. Fermentation and decomposi-
tion soon begin. The earth is drowned out—suffocated,—dead for
want of air. How is this? Water is good for the ground? Yes,
but not in this way, the water must be moving constantly. There
must be a current of air and water and not too much or too little
of the latter.

This very much desired result can very readily be obtained by
seeking a water level and proper drainage and full control of the
water so that air can follow and leaven through the earth; so also,
that God’s most blessed earth reviver—rain and the dews—may cir-
culate through it, so that the old water may not for an instant
rest and start fermentation, always on and away, so that there
may be plenty of oxygen coming down into its pores, seeking and
burning out all filth and corruption. To sum up concisely:

Use Cole’s system of capillary irrigation as patented by him.
Thus you get clear of all filth and corruption that is found in these
miserable cesspools,—they never form.

You filter all water wherever it strikes the soil from the clouds
and other places and localities. You convert even whatis so much
contaminated with organic matter and other impurities into pure

162 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

water and hold it back in time of over supply, heavy rainfalls and
melting snows, for the use of the soil and vegetation as the wants
of each may require.

Should this system be adopted by farmers and dairy-men such
diseases as the so-called “ contagious pleuro-pneumonia” and other
fatal diseases among stock will be wholly unknown, only adding
ventilation and stopping the feeding of garbage and decayed and
fermented foods and fungi.

On many of the smaller farms grass or hay is raised and stored
away without careful treatment. Fresh manure is frequently
hauled from city stables, and spread over land to ferment and rot.
Upon examination, the class of lands thus treated, are found coy-
ered with fungi in the shape of devils-bread, puff-ball, toadstools
and others of different names. Bone dust and other fertilizers are
also used. Then come the wet spells, and the dry spells, and the
hot spells, which together keep up a continual fermentation in the
soil about the roots of crops and grasses. We find in many sec-
tions of the country, places where they raise stock, particularly
hogs. These animals are turned into the orchards in the fall or
late summer, and permitted to eat of the fallen fruit. They are
therefore allowed to eat freely of rotten and fungi-covered food,
and, again, are fed upon slops, swill and all manners of filth. As
a consequence, we hear from many parts of the country of hog
cholera. In all these cases our lawmakers, authorities, and socie-
ties for the prevention of cruelty to animals, have never been
known to open their mouths against this worst of all cruelties to
the dumb animals. Their food is fed them only to their destruc-
tion. That which should nourish poisons. Bad food, bad water,
and bad air alike, contribute to their destruction. While poisoned
food is not only chargeable to fungi, there is also the decaying ve-

getables in our cellars and surroundings, constantly contamina-

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 163

ting and poisoning the air with its foulness which we are obliged
to breathe. Thus we have malaria as it is called. This without doubt
comes from decaying vegetable matter, whether it be from sewers,
streets, swamps, or from our own vegetable stores, laid away for
winter use. The custom of spreading fresh manure over our lands
to rot and ferment, throwing off noxious gasses, is another fruitful
cause of malaria.

Fungi—its action on vegetation.

While I have divided the subject into three heads for the better
handling of it, yet are they so closely allied in their effects one
upon the other, as to admit of really very little difference. Under
this last head, we come to a field exceedingly vast, and one over
which, at the best, can take but a cursory glance. Even had I the
time to devote to it, I fear it to be too great in extent to go into it
in detail. That it is a field abounding in speculation, yet fraught
with vast importance no one can deny. Itis of so much import-
ance as to cause me to hesitate at beginning, as to whether I had
. not better put it first in order, instead of last, Under this will be
found the fountain head of all the trouble.

The dry rot has destroyed, without doubt, many thousands of
dollars worth of valuable timber. We know that in turning the
soil, we frequently find a stringy, gummy mass of fungi, that runs
its tentacle like arms in every direction like those of the cuttle fish.
This it has been proved interferes sadly with the growth of plants,
grasses and trees. Almost all of the cereals and grasses suffer
from fungi in some shape. Rust, smut, mildew and caries are
nearly always present.

Now is there any remedy? Is there any way to prevent this
constant promotion, production, and spread of disease bearing
fungi?

- Youmay remember, in the last of June, 1883, while I was in

164 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

Wellsville, that I was invited in company with the Hon. T. L. Min-
ier, Hon. S. L. Taber, Hon. John H. Selkreg and others, to dine
with you at vour home on the hillside. At your table, we were
much astonished to see the most delicious fresh peas just picked
from the vines, and the finest strawberries that all acknowledged
ever having seen. The question was asked:

“Where do you get such fine peas?” Your answer was: “they
were picked from my own garden.”

“Where do you get such berries?”

“They are also picked from my own garden.”

“Come now, Mr. Cole, that will never do,” I said, “I was raised
in Allegany County. This is too early in the season for either
peas or strawberries. Besides, Allegany never produced such peas
and berries as these.”

Your reply was, that this was the fruit of your system of under-
ground irrigation. You then explained to us your system of
sinking troughs in the ground, and taking up the water as it fell,
and holding it back, to supply moisture to vegetation as it was
required. This was entirely a new feature to us all, and after
dinner, we repaired to your garden,a lot on the hillside, where
you explained to us your system in detail. The more I examined,
the more I was astonished to find every bush, twig, stalk, tree and
fruit perfectly clean and healthy. No rust or fungi of any kind
whatsoever was to be found. You showed us a stream of water
coming from the trenches, a continuous, bright and sparkling
brook, and yet, it was a dry time ; quite a drouth. But in spite
of all this, we found a stream of water coming from your hillside
constantly, with no spring to feed it, only coming from the stored
up rains and dews that fell, caught up and garnered by these
troughs, furnishing a constant vapor to the roots of your vegeta-
bles and plants, keeping them in uniform condition of moisture ;

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 165

never too wet, never too dry. This system made a very deep im-
pression upon me, and upon returning home and thinking the mat-
ter over, you will remember I wrote you a letter, suggesting that
by the use of natural gas (which must take the place of coal and
wood for heating purposes) to heat the water in the Fall and
Spring, and running steam pipes through the troughs, (or dropping
the warm water into them) to keep the water warm, you might raise
all kinds of produce, and as it were, do away with winter. You
could do, as I found while in Europe was done there, produce the
finest pineapples by use of this warm water system, thus doing
away with expensive hot houses. In this letter I also suggested,
that, where you wished to raise ‘tropical fruits, you could throw a
canvass over the space, to keep off the winds and snows. All this
was in the most part a joke, as applied to Allegany, but upon re-
ceiving your reply, I was astounded to read that you had already
obtained a patent covering these points.

On the second day of July last, I was again in Wellsville. In pass-
ing through the streets, I noticed on the corner baskets of straw-
berries; some were small, diseased looking berries, but alongside
of them were luscious ones, nearly as large as peaches. Said I:

“How much are your strawberries ?”

“ These are sold at thirteen cents ; and these at twenty-five a
quart,” was the answer made by the vender.

“But why should there be such a difference in price?” I
inquired.

“Why! these are Cole’s berries.”

“Cole’s berries! What do you mean by Cole’s berries? ”

“Why ! they are raised here in town, by Mr. Cole.”

“Who is Mr. Cole?”

“ What! don’t you know A. N. Cole?”

“Oh! yes ; he has been termed the father of the Republican

166 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

party. So he raised these berries here in town. Well, 1 do know
A. N. Cole, and I think he has succeeded in raising better straw-
berries than children, for let me tell you, that his Republican
children have given us Democrats a mighty sight of trouble.”

“Yes, sir; that is so. He generally succeeds with anything he
undertakes.”

“ How many of those berries does it take to make a quart”

« About twenty to thirty ; I suppose an average of twenty-five
would cover it.”

“Why! you had better sell them for a cent apiece.”

“Well, they sell at that as fast as hghtning. They don’t stay on
hand long.”

Of course I knew whose berries they were, as soon as I saw
them. It was only a whim of mine to interview the grocery-
man.

The next day a party of us were visiting your grounds, and you
may well remember the liberties taken by me at that time. I then
had with me a powerful glass, and I was determined to investigate
matters thoroughly. [examined the roots, leaves, stalks and ber-
ries of your strawberry vines. I dissected and investigated them
in every imaginable way, as also the pea vines, cauliflower, cabbage,
and in fact all vegetables and vegetation within your grounds ;
and as I told you at that time, I did not find a single exception,
wherein a plant was not perfectly clean and healthy. No fungi to
be found anywhere. Root, stalk, leaf, twig and fruit all in perfect
health, and absolutely free from fungus or parasites. Strawber-
ries larger than plums ; and everything in like proportion. Even
the timothy and other grasses seemed brighter, fresher and more
luxuriant.

Of course, I enquired into the expense per acre of such a system,
which I cannot pretend to give from memory; I will leave that to

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 167

you. But allow me to say, that if all lands were, in place of under-
draining and subsoiling, treated as you do yours; deep trenches
broad and wide, filled with stones, and covered with soil as yours
are; fertilized with a compost as you prepare it; having it fully
assimilated before using—I say, if all this could be done, then,
and not till then, can we do away with this creation, cultivation
and dissemination of poisonous fungi, which, as has been shown,
is working such sad disaster and death to the whole animal and
vegetable world.

A few pages back I asked the question, whether the people were
not being punished for the bad treatment their stock was receiv-
ing. Now let us see if they are not. We spread out over our fields
the manure coming from these animals. If they happen to have
any disease, their excrement is sure to have more or less germs in
it of the same disease. The manure lies upon the ground, and is
subjected to the action of the wet and heat, and the chemical influ-
ence is imparted to the soil. Now the soil is too wet, now to dry;
there is no happy medium. At one time it is a mass of mud, at
others it is baked like a brick. There is no golden mean. At all
events, there is a constant state of fermentation going on. If the
materials employed could be completely rotted, there would prob-
ably not be so much harm done; but where you have vegetable
matter only partly rotted, you are positively sure to produce fungi.
This again fastens on the grasses and other products, which are in
turn, fed to man and stock. Can any sane man for an instant
doubt, that this continuous production and consumption of fungi, is
not bound to produce the most disastrous results. Must this dis-
ease producing system go on forever in the same channel? Must
no one raise the voice of warning, and call attention to it? Must
no one point with pregnant finger to the signs of its fell work?
Are not the facts spread out that “he who runs may read?” Oh!

168 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

farmers and truckers, if you will not be warned for humanity’s
sake, take heed and notice the conversation had between myself
and the groceryman. The price of the healthy berries was twice
that of the poor ones. If the good of mankind will not move you
to pity anda change of method, let your pockets plead with you.
Try the experiment, as tried at the “Home on the Hillside,” and
see if your wallets will not be considerably distended, and the lives
and health of yourselves and families preserved and lengthened.
Yours Truly, C. R. Eanrtey.

Such cities as Philadelphia, Pa., Syracuse, Elmira, and Bingham-
ton, in N. Y., Paterson, N. J., Wilmington, Del., and others we might
mention are situated on what are called river bottoms, and yet, so
far above high water mark, as to make drainage into rivers not
only easy, but perfect. Whether, for the systems of sewerage al-
ready arranged, our methods could be substituted we cannot at
present decide, but have no doubt of its practicability. That the
municipal authorities of towns and cities thus located, could be in-
duced to make the change, is doubtful. In all portions of Europe,
beneath the dwellings in cities, towns and villages, on the grounds
of kings and nobility, and those of the peasant and the pauper,
the damps and decays generative of disease, bringing death be-
fore its time, are found. The same is relatively true of the older
cities of our own country. But younger cities and towns are in-
creasing in population, and new ones continually developing. and
with these at least, an effort should be made to obtain a pure water
supply. The fact is distressing and astonishing that such cities
as St. Paul, Detroit and thousands of others, developed and devel-
oping in different portions of our country, should have no provi-
sion made for conserving the rains and snows falling upon the
roofs of dwellings, barns, stables and other structures, or running
off from the lawns, gardens and grounds of the people.

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 169

Keeping watch of the measures proposed and methods being
adopted to purify the waters, and add sufficiently to the supply of
Croton to furnish the City of New York with at least five times the
present amount of good drinking water, we knew to a mathematical
certainty that it could be accomplished if the water that falls annu-
ally in the form of rains, dews and snows was preserved. We
also knew full well that the possibilities of our system were not
reached when, nearly two years ago, the Hon. Warner Miller, hay-
ing looked somewhat into this question of saving, purifying and
utilizing these waters remarked as follows:

“T confess to being unprepared for your claims, Mr. Cole, and yet,
if what you anticipate can be only partially realized, the State of
New York alone, is capable of sustaining a population of one hun-
dred millions.” >

The Senator alluded more particularly to Herkimer County and
the Mohawk River, great, if: not the greatest among counties, and
erand among the grandest of our rivers, now moving turbidly on,
its waters as unlike those of an hundred years ago as clay is unlike
crystal. What is true of the Mohawk, is equally true as applied
to nearly all the rivers of the older settled portions of our country.
The waters of these are filled with roil for a large portion of the
year, and are always polluted; our springs are dried up, and when
not wholly so, their waters mix and mingle with drains in which
death and decay widespread and prevailing, are borne by rains
into the streams supplying towns and cities with water for cooking
and drinking purposes.

We have known for years, that, unless means are provided for
fitting and rendering the waters of these rivers and their tribut-
aries pure, fungus, deadliest enemy of vegetable and animal life,
would go on with its work of decimation and death, and not only
the fish would die out and disappear, but disease everywhere

170 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

would increase, and our people, more especially those dwelling in
large towns and cities, would not live out half the days allotted to
man. Equally well had we become satisfied that the stagnation of
the waters could be provided against and by passing them through
soils, they could be purified and rendered crystal clear and cool;
kept from freezing in winter and held sufficiently cool‘in summer,
to be more grateful and healthful than ice water.

CHAPTER VI.

RECLAIMING THE GREAT AMERICAN DESERT.

Months ago an article appeared in the Scientific American from
the pen of Professor John Le Conte, on the subject of the arid
regions of our country, commonly called the Great American
desert. Not possessing a file of the paper and having preserved
only a mere scrap of this article, we are unable to quote more than
the following:

“A vast treeless region, stretching away from the eastern base
of the Rocky Mountains and the great plains, plateaus and basins
lying west of the same range, and constituting the arid region,
embracing more than one third of the entire area within the terri-
torial boundaries of the American Union.”

After giving a description of this vast desert, Professor Le Conte
proceeds to show such conditions existing as to make the lands of
this region only productive by means of irrigation, and gives it as
his opinion that, were every spring, rill, rivulet and lake of this
entire region made available, not more than three per cent of the
desert could be reclaimed. We had solved at the time this article
came under our eye the problem of the conservation of the waters,
and were not,in any degree, disheartened on account of this
gloomy picture, but rather greatly encouraged by the fact that the
Professor re-enforced our previous knowledge by his account of
the great water preserves of this section—the ices and snows lying

172 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

upon the summits of the mountains or within the great basins,
during most of the summer period of each year. Often had our
mind dwelt upon the wastes of war, and after finding out the way
of the waters, we frequently reverted to the fact that, if the money
spent during the last half century in the support of armies and
navies, and the prosecution of wars, had been diverted to construct-
ing a canal along the northern incline of the African Continent,
dropping the waters coming of the melting of snows on the Mount-
ains of the Moon down upon the Sahara, this great desert of Africa
might have been made to blossom as the rose.

In our earliest childhood we noted that the spring smoked in mid-
winter, and that evaporation went on amid frosts. We had dug
earth worms for fishing in the neighborhood of springs when the
ground was still frozen only a few feet away, and all through life
we had kept our eye on the grass green growing as the snows of
winter melted about the spring. Dakota’s great wheat fields, with
their deep laid foundations of frost, had not escaped attention, and
the warm suns of March and April shining upon these fields and
bringing early germination and steady growth until harvest time,
told the story of the waters beneath at spring water temperature.
Nor had the conditions along the Alps and Appenines escaped our
attention, where, underlying in pockets of soil, the water coming of
melting snows, furnished not only moisture for the vine, but inspir-
ation to its growth. Authentic information had been received of
such an increase of production and improvement in flavor of the
fruit of the vine, as to convince us that the same simple methods
might be made use of to transform the arid regions of our own
country into those of boundless fertility and wealth.

That our great desert is a treeless region, or one nearly so, is
true, nor can it ever be otherwise until the time shall come for
hushanding the waters, and making use of them in a way to pre-

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. Lis

vent penetration of the frost to the depth to which they descend
under existing conditions. That the reserve coming of melting
ices and snows would prove efficient for this purpose if halted,
held back and permitted to find their way into the valleys through
the soils of this vast region, rather than over and along them as
hitherto, there is no doubt in our mind. Deep trenching would
doubtless become necessary, since to drop the waters below the
frost line it would perhaps become imperative to sink the trenches
to a depth of five or six feet. That this work will be done at a
comparatively early day we have but little doubt. A few acres
deep trenched upon the treeless mountain sides of Montana, Da-
kota or Wyoming, would tell the story. In this way, and this only,
can forest and fruit trees be grown and the prairies, plains, valleys
and mountain sides be clothed with that wilderness of wealth found
primeval in the Atlantic regions, and indispensable to permanent
prosperity.

But here comes in the question, who shall begin the work, or,
once begun, by whom or by what means shall it be pushed forward ?
That the United States Government, cooperated with and aided
by great railroad companies, to which grants have been made of
lands so extensive as to appear to the ordinary observer acts of
prodigality, should enter at once upon the work of reclaiming the
desert, is so evident as to scarcely call for argument. In Mr.
Stewart’s book, page 166, from which we again quote, is found the
following:

“Trrigation of land is an art that has existed for many centuries
previous to any authentic written history. The traditions of the
Chinese people are very ancient, and irrigation is mentioned in
their earliest history, as extensively practiced. In Egypt, Syria,
and the ancient kingdoms of Eastern Asia, agriculture depended

almost wholly upon irrigation, and still so depends in these coun-

174 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

tries, where the people have survived the political changes of
thousands of years.

“The irrigation of gardens, vineyards. and fields, is frequently
referred to in the Scriptures; one of the earliest books speaks of
it, and one of the prophets refers to ‘furrows of the plantation.’
And so agriculture has continued to the present day, the necessi-
ties of the majority of cultivators of the soil in the Eastern Hemis-
phere, and the natural opportunities possessed by them, continu-
ing to render the system vital to their existence. When the Span-
iards occupied the new found continent, they introduced their sys-
tem of irrigation wherever the dryness of the climate demanded it.

“In Chili, Peru, Central America and Mexico, the canals and
ditches made by the early Spanish settlers remain, and many are
still in use. The systems adopted in California, Texas, New Mex-
ico and Colorado are mainly copied from the ancient models. It
is hardly necessary to say that these models are not of the best
construction, nor at all satisfactory to the engineer of the present
day, but they are cheap and easy of construction. The settlement
of the drier regions of our territory, adds another instance to those
of past history of the reclamation of the deserts by irrigation. It
will be of interest to glance over what has already been done in
this way, before considering possibilities of the future. The actual
history of irrigation in the United States begins with the construc-
tion of the Pacific railroads. In the course of a few years, a great
impetus was given to the settlement of lands adjacent to the rivers,
and which could be brought under irrigation, and several exten-
sive works were constructed.”

Here follows an enumeration of many canals of great length,
cost and capacity, and their endless adjuncts, by which thousands
of acres have been, in the aggregate, reclaimed, and from having

been an utter waste made more productive than an equal area in

GROUP OF PEAS, NATURAL SIZE.

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 175

regions of rainfall. What is more marvelous is the fact, that what
has been accomplished in this direction has been done by individ-
ual and corporate enterprise. That companies constructing these
works have made money is true in a majority of instances, and
happy should everybody be on account of it. The corporations
and individuals who have had the fortitude to act as pioneers, have
been the greatest of benefactors. Even Brigham Young and his
polygamous church of Latter Day Saints, have not proven an un-
mitigated scourge. Great good has come out of a Nazareth,
which, in certain of its aspects, presents the features of the Sodom
and Gomorrah of the present age. Merest beginning has however
been made.

Our “New Agriculture” dates not only a new era in irrigation,
but is sure to date one equally new in government policies. The
old saw “Uncle Sam is rich enough to give us all a farm,” is in all
probability soon to be verified in a way, which scarcely one in a
million of the American people have yet dreamed. While kings
and nobles of the Old World are quite generally looking to war as
a means of employment for their pauper classes, and the lazaroni
seem equally inclined to prefer the chances of death on battle
fields and in camps, to lives of toil without sufficient remuneration
to make life worth the living, an opportunity presents itself to our
government and people to do that which will give employment and
bring to the present and future generations more of real wealth
than all the mines of the earth contain.

The unthinking citizen and the conscienceless demagogue alike,
have been clamoring of late for acts of practical confiscation of
the lands granted to companies to aid in construction of lines of
railway across the continent. We do not hesitate to say that for-
feiture of some of the grants should be made. This is never-
theless the exception to that rule of law and logic which for-

176 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

bids government from so far disregarding its own deliberate
act, as to hold individuals and corporations to arbitrary com-
pliance with the letter of acts under which grants have been
made. The railroad company, dependent upon the sale of its lands
and disposition of its stocks and bonds, is hardly dealt by when
government, from having been its patron and promoter, turns
about and becomes a bear to destroy its credit and bring upon its
ward distress and disaster akin to ruin.

That our government can make millions of dollars for the people,
by entering upon a system of reclamation covering the more hope-
ful portions of its desert lands, is so manifest, as to make argument
to prove it unnecessary. No longer ago than 1873, under an act of
Congress, approved March 3rd of that year, a commission was
organized to examine the great valleys of: California, with refer-
ence to construction of a system of irrigation. The report of this
commission will be found in the yearly volume of the Department
of Agriculture for 1874. Commenting on this report Mr. Stewart
remarks :

“The conclusions reached may be seriously questioned in many
points, but on the whole are, as might have been expected, favor-
able, both to the profitableness and feasibility of irrigation works,
and to the interference of the national and state governments,
and their control over the distribution of the water.”

Commenting further, Mr. Stewart proceeds to say :

“ By no other authority could the conflicting interests of miners,
agriculturists and owners of lands to be injured or benefited by
the enterprise, be properly reconciled. In Europe, the supreme
control is exercised by, and the ownership of the water vested in,
the State. The French government in 1669, by special law, re-
served the ownership of all rivers and streams, and grants conces-
sions to irrigating companies under certain restrictions. In Italy,

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. a Ar

the State has always exercised this ownership, and in Venice the
springs and even the rainfall, so far as it can be stored in res-
ervoirs, have been held to be public property. In India, the
springs and rainfall are accumulated in reservoirs controlled by
the government, and the river systems are also owned by it. Not
only this, but the details of the distribution of the water are also
directed by government officials. This is made necessary, however,
by the utter incapacity of the ignorant inhabitants to manage any-
thing for themselves that calls for more than a very low degree
of intelligence. Lest, however, it might be urged that govern-.
ment ownership and supervision is likely to lead to failure, the
actual results attained in India may be very properly here cited.
During recent years, the British government has spent about sev-
enty millions of dollars, in irrigating works, and others are in
progress of construction which will require half as much more to
complete them. In almost every instance, the investment has
been profitable, and in some cases enormously so, both in the way
of water rent, and in service to the cultivators of the soil. The
total annual revenue to the government from the works is more
than five millions of dollars, or seven and three-fourths per cent on
the cost.”

And so it is that national, state and municipal governments of
our own country are brought face to face with a system of irriga-
tion so easy of realization, as to only require the application of
laws everywhere governing in nature, giving them an opportunity
to work out for themselves results at once universal, all pervading
and endless in cycles of beneficence. While Great Britain is engaged
in India not only in the construction of reservoirs for the storage of
the waters of springs and streams, but for gathering in the rains
and dews for purposes of irrigation, spending millions annually in
creation of works for that purpose, and other millions in keeping

178 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

them in repair, our own country, possessing a domain of vaster ex-
tent than that of any nation of the world and of incomparably
ereater value, has only to enter upon her own possessions, and by
trenching her mountain sides beget reservoirs as enduring as the
foundations of earth. Let no one doubt that the alkaline deposits
in the Great Desert lands will be removed from the soil by this
running of the waters through them, leaving only such proportions
of alkali as is required for the best developement of plant growth.
But whence will come the money with which to do this work is
the question. Our answer is, let such policies be pursued by
governments, state and national, as will encourage and foster in-
dustries. Let the world find out that intoxicating liquors used as
a beverage are a curse, and provide for the suppression of their sale
as such. This will save thousands of millions of money and count-
less numbers of lives annually. Let our schools and churches, Sun-
day schools and educational institutions and agencies generally,
frown upon, discourage, and ultimately prohibit the production and
use of tobacco, a greater curse, if possible, than rum. Let no party
as such, attempt these reforms, but let the work be done by men
and women everywhere, irrespective of party or sect. Last, not
least, let pure water be everywhere sought, and let the waters be
nowhere wasted, but made to do their perfect work everywhere.

CHAPTER VII.

THE EXPENSE OF THE NEW SYSTEM.

“Tt costs five hundred dollars to fita single acre under Cole’s
system,” exclaims an occasional critic. “ What farmer can afford
such an outlay ?”

“Not one in a thousand, probably not one in ten thousand,” is
our own answer.

Never have we suggested such cost for farm lands. So far as
we are personally concerned, we have nearly finished work on five
acres, having in view the utmost possibilities of production in hor-
ticulture. No plat of land equaling our five acres can be found
on the face of the earth. Were it within an hour’s run by rail of
any of our larger cities, this plat would be worth more money
than any equal area not under glass in the world. It would be
worth more than any greenhouse, costing from ten to twenty times
as much. In the mere fitting of this land, the cost has not
exceeded $1,500. Here are the figures, moneys expended for all
purposes, sober facts that do not lie:

Expenses for 1882, not exceeding $300; for 1883, about $500; for
1884, not exceeding $800. This has been my investment up to
April 1st, 1885. I have this season expended about $700 up to this
this date August 13, 1885. Thus twenty-three hundred dollars
has fitted my land, planted it to trees and plants, cared for and har-
vested and marketed all products, paid for manures etc., and during that
period has returned at least $500 in excess of expenses.

180 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

Over and agai have we endeavored to undeceive the public in
regard to this matter of cost, but in vain. Barely one agricultural
paper in the land has sought to aid us in this; all others, so far as
we are aware, have striven to increase the extent of the false esti-
mate. The Husbandman, however, published at Elmira, N. Y., has
not only treated us fairly, but generously. As this great paper is
an organ of the Grange, and the medium through which the famed
farmers of the Chemung Valley make themselves heard, its voice is
potential.

Mr. James McCann, President, and Mr. George W. Hoffman, ex-
President of the Farmers’ Club of Elmira, together with Mr. W.
A. Armstrong, the latter having no superior among agricultural
editors of our State, have reputations quite as great as those pos-
sessed by most of the eminent men of the agricultural press.
These have carefully examined “The New Agriculture,” and
will vouch for the fact that we have never advised expend-
ing more than from thirty to fifty dollars an acre on farm lands ;
yet we propose to fit fifty acres at a cost not to exceed one hun-
dred and fifty dollars per acre. Thus fitted, our lands for agricul-
tural and horticultural purposes combined, will doubtless return
good profits on an outlay of from three to five hundred dollars
per acre for the full fifty acres.

My five acres will return when in full bearing, at least five hun-

dred dollars to an acre in home markets. The remaining forty-
five acres in farm crops will without doubt average fifty, possibly
an hundred dollars an acre net annually. I leave the reader to
make, his own figures and decide whether it will pay. The con-
clusion thus far reached by myself, having tried “The New Agri-
culture,” is, that no business pays as well as farming and garden-
ing, under systems of subsurface, subterranean or underground-

. . s
irrigation.

PTW SA a A

Lai VRB

SINGLE TOMATO PLANT.

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 183

The following communications addressed respectively to us and
to the Editor of The Farm Journal, of Philadelphia, by a farmer
who has adopted our system, is evidence of the fact that one hun-
dred dollars per acre will cover the cost of fitting lands under “The
New Agriculture,” for horticultural purposes.

Marnssvre, Pa., Sept. 21, 1885.
Hon. A. N. Cole,

Dear Sir :—I find in the Farm Journal for September, edited by
Mr. W. Atkinson, of Philadelphia, the following mention :

“Mr. Cole’s new agriculture is not likely to be extensively imi-
tated. It cost him $500 an acre to make the stone ditches, and
yet, he has it patented.”

I am satisfied this criticism by Mr. A. is to be ascribed to his
want of knowledge upon the subject. If he can be undeceived, and
enlisted in favor of your system, he would prove a powerful ally.
I enclose a letter which I have written him, and if you approve it,
I will request its publication.

IT finished my little model farm a week ago, and have set a few
rows of strawberries, which are looking finely. It has been fitted
to the letter in obedience to your directions—first, well rotted ma-
nure plowed in; next well rotted manure and.leached ashes drag-
ged in; then two inches thick of fine washings from barnyard,
where it had lodged on upper portion of the garden. The mulch-
ing with leaves will be attended to at proper time, and any other
suggestions you may make will be gladly adopted.

Leading from the barn which is eighty feet long is an under-
drain which carries off quite an amount of water during rains.
The surface water from the side hill, and water from the eave-
troughs, together with that from the drain under the wall of the barn,
is gathered in to prevent washing through the barnyard. This addi-
tional supply is connected through an underdrain into the trenches.

184 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

I do not see why the longing for perfection which is presumed
to be natural to most minds, is not satisfied by your system, nor do
I see why you may not now say, “what more can I do in my vine-
yard, that has not been done in it?”

Yours Respectfully.
E. R. Marne.

In explanation of the above our ‘readers need hardly be told
that its author is one of several who began work under our sys-
tem. Mr. Maine has done his work in a way to ‘insure success.
His thoroughness in the matter of manuring, will secure returns
the ensuing year. Had he manured less at the outset, it would
have required a year or two longer to show the effects of the
system, but time has been gained and that is an important con-
sideration.

“The following communication was addressed by Mr. Maine to

the Editor of The Farm Journal :
Marnssvre, Pa., Sept., 21, 1885.
Mr. W. Atkinson,

Dear Sir :—Having seen the working model of Mr. Cole’s new
system of irrigation at Wellsville, Allegany County, N. Y., I was so
favorably impressed as to induce me to fit a small piece of land,
intending fully and fairly to test its merits. So far I can only
report upon the cost.

To fit an acre as I have done for horticulture, takes eighty rods
of trench, and sixteen rods for drain. I enclose diagram of one
acre, 8x 20 rods. First trench lengthwise one rod from side of
the plat ; the next, two rods below the first, making in all four
trenches twenty rods long, and two rods apart. The cross drains
are eight rods apart in the middle, and four rods from the ends.

The maximum cost for digging the trenches in any soil, 3} ft.
deep and 2 ft. wide is 75 cents per rod, and the cross drains 35
cents, making $65.60 per acre. (See diagram on following page.)

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 185

It will be safe to say that the entire cost of labor will be less
than one hundred dollars per acre. In this section the stone for
filling in are of no value, and the work of filling is comparatively
light.

As a farmer, and interested personally like yourself, I write
this more especially that The Farm Journal may not occupy a
false position inadvertently. If one half of what the system
appears to be is true, it is the biggest thing that was ever thought
of since the world was made. If land can be made to produce
all it is capable of doing by an equable supply of moisture and
the element of uncertainty removed in farming, the cost of pre-
paring the land would be small, compared to the benefits received.
Tf the cost is all, Mr. Oole’s system is an assured success and it
will win its way whether favored or opposed by the press.

TWENTY RODS.

>

First trench.

a

| Second trench. |
| Third trench. |
|
1

‘saou LHDIE

| Fourth trench, |

Cross drains. Cross drains.

In fairness, we should, it seems to me, withold an opinion,
while awaiting developments, and if there is anything likely to
interpose in favor of the farmer, in Heaven’s name let us not op-
pose it.

If you can consistently publish the statement herein made, it
would, I feel, tend to correct a prevalent error, and would be

esteemed a favor by your friend and well wisher,
E. R. Marne.

Though several doubters have not omitted to say that our system
is one calling for expenditures causing the average farmer, should

186 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

he adopt it, to start back in fear of bankruptcy, we have in no
instance controverted their statements, preferring to appeal to the
public through the medium of our book. We now say, once for
all, that the fitting of lands from year to year with the plow and
the spade, and their fertilization by methods hitherto in vogue, are
waste and extravagance by the side of those called for in “The
New Agriculture.”

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TRELLIS OF TOMATOES.

CHAPTER VIII.

1850—1885—“rHE HOME ON THE HILLSIDE” THEN AND Now.

Mr. William Pooler, one of our present neighbors, built in 1853
and resided in the house now known as “The Home on the Hill-
side.” He forwards us the following communication.

“T think it was about 1850, that I purchased the place on which
you now live. Wellsville was then in the woods, and the Erie
road had been built through from New York to Dunkirk. I had
been familiar with hardpan lands in Chenango and other counties
of the Southern Tier, and had done something of subsoiling in
more ways than one, and had become convinced that Allegany
hardpan had only to be properly treated, and it could be made
rich and productive. My hillside had been cleared for several
years being one of the earliest lots improved in what is now Wells-
ville, then the town of Scio.

“There was an old orchard on the place, and also a tree
which I shall never forget. It was not in the orchard but stood
by itself, a little to the northwest of the house, and was a Roxbury
russet; no more worthless fruit could have been anywhere found.
Yesterday (Sept. 22, 1885) I plucked from this tree two apples;
one the smallest I could find, the other of average size of those
with which the tree was so loaded as to bow its branches to the
ground upon which the lower limbs rested. I should judge there
were twenty-five bushels of apples on this tree two thirds grown.

190 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

These apples on the first of October in the years 1853, 54 and °55
did not average larger than crab apples at that time of year. They
were not so large at harvesting as the small one I picked yester-
day, nor were they quarter as large as most of the apples on the
tree at this time. The tree was then about ten years old, and was
covered with moss and in all respects of no value, and I threaten-
ed at the time to cut it down as a cumberer of the ground. I
should guess that the tree might possibly have borne two bushels
of apples in a bearing year, and we did not pretend to gather
them. The apples now on the tree are large, fine and fair; in fact,
they are the finest russets I ever saw.

“You showed me Early Rose potatoes grown this year, the like of
which I never saw anywhere. Some of these weighed from a pound
to a pound and a half apiece, and I should think one would weigh
two pounds. You assured me that you had grown them at the
rate of over one thousand bushels to the acre the present season,
and I have no reason to doubt it. As there is no fungus on your
grounds, there is no rot. The tomatoes all over the town are rot-
ting, but I did not observe any rotten ones on your place, and I
certainly never saw such splendid fruit, nor anything like as many
to the plant.

“JT gave you an account of my experiment with two acres of po-
tatoes in 1854, and here repeat it. The plot on which I planted is
a portion of the ground now embraced in your garden, on which
this year has been grown such crops as I never set eyes on before.
I fitted these two acres with greater care and painstaking than any
equal amount of ground in my life, mixing a portion of the sub-
soil with that of the surface, and covered it deep with well rotted
barnyard manure, making it very rich. A careful man and a good
farmer planted the two acres to potatoes on halves, and I realized
just thirty bushels for my half. This completely discouraged me

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 194

and though there was then no better house in Wellsville than the
one I had built upon the place, and the barn was nearly new, I
gave up and sold the property for what I could get. You told me
yesterday that you valued your two acres completed at $5,000 an
acre, and that it was paying well at that. As five thousand dollars
at six per cent. interest only gives $300, I do not wonder, since I
am sure you are getting two or three times that from an acre. I
have seen the strawberries and other fruits and vegetables as sold
in this market for the last three or four years and have eaten of
the fruit, and have never seen anything anywhere near as large,
beautiful and fine flavored.

“You yesterday showed me pods of peas, and I carried home
specimens with eight peas in a pod, of such marvelous size, as to
astonish me. The peas were of the dwarf variety, as shown by
the vines, and yet they were as large as Delaware grapes. You
assured me you grew five hundred bushels of pods to the acre of
these peas, and I believe you, since your Champions of England,
on vines higher than any man’s head, loaded with pods and still
covered with blossoms, presented such a sight as I never saw
before. Your squashes, beets, cabbage and cauliflower were all
very fine, and as for the squashes, I never saw anything in my life.
so astonishing. Though quinces are rarely grown in Allegany
County, I saw as fine ones as I ever came across anywhere.

“ Nothing so much surprised me as the change wrought in the
soil. The cold clay and hardpan had been turned into a soil, deep, .
soft and very rich, growing all forms of plants, bushes and trees
to perfection. You say your system wipes out the hardpan, and it
certainly does.

“This latter feature of your plan surprised me more than any
other, but perhaps I should except from this your spring brook,
and that stream of pure cold water, flowing out from the pipe in

192 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

the rear of the house, there being no springs on this part of the
place. Nobody can look down into your trenches where open, and
see the long stretches of spring water in them as I did, and not
discover that you save all the water which falls upon the hillside,
using what is needed for the growing crop and the remainder, by
far the greater portion, running off in purity. Though before my
visit of yesterday, I was convinced your system was a success, I
left your place prepared to say what I now do.

“Your discovery has no equal, nor do I believe anything will
hereafter be discovered so important to the health and prosperity

of the people.
Witu1am Pooter.

Mr. Pooler’s statement is one in accord with the testimony of
everyone who has looked over our place, and yet his evidence is
most convincing from the fact that he personally tried the experi-
ment of making farming an object on the land we now possess,
and though doing his utmost at a time when the demand for farm
products in home markets exceeded the supply, failed to make
farming a success, owing to the paucity and poverty of the pro-
ducing soil.

Let us now, in turn, post the books :

We have grown the present year Early Rose potatoes without
rot, larger, finer and better than any we have ever seen in our
entire life, at the rate, at least, of twelve hundred bushels to the acre.

We have grown strawberries of extraordinary size and flavor at
the rate of three to four hundred bushels per acre.

We have grown raspberries five hundred bushels per acre.

We have become convinced, from experiments made already,
that next year we will be enabled to grow blackberries exceeding
in quantity to the acre the growth of our raspberries.

We have grown a few clusters of grapes on newly set vines to

TOMATO, NATURAL SIZE.

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 195

such size, beauty and perfection, as to convince us that five pounds
of superior quality can be grown under our system where one can
be produced under established methods.

We have grown marrow fat peas to nearly or quite double the
size of the ordinary product at the rate of upwards of five hundred
bushels of pods to the acre ; we have also grown an equal number
of bushels to the acre of pods of McLean’s dwarf varieties and
have now growing, a drill of the Champions of England, loaded
with pods promising upwards of a thousand bushels per acre, at
least.

We have grown the ordinary blood beet to a length of three and
a half feet, and become convinced that these may be more than
doubled in length under the best conditions of our system.

We have brought out from our hillside a flowing well of crystal
waters of a degree of purity and temperature to grow brook
trout.

We are convinced, that what we have done in the growth of the
fruits of the earth can be done in all regions of hills, valleys and
undulations, and that too, at a cost in fitting farm lands, of no
more than fifty dollars per acre, and,in a majority of instances,
not exceeding thirty dollars.

We are convinced that models as perfect as our own can be pre-
pared at an expense of no more than two hundred dollars per acre,
and in a majority of instances they will cost no more than one
hundred dollars per acre.

Of the fruits pictured along the pages of our book, we will only
say that the quince, measuring twelve inches in circumference is
no more than three-fourths grown. We grew specimens in 1882 to
the circumference of fifteen inches, the size of a pint bowl. That
the specimen protographed would in a month longer have grown
to a circumference of fifteen inches, we are well convinced.

196 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

The largest specimen of the Lombard plum, a drawing of which
is given, is somewhat less than another stolen from the tree be-
fore fully ripe. None of the pictures of the plums come up to the
reality, since we were obliged to pluck them before fully ripe, to
save them from being stolen.

During a visit to our home by Mr. William C. Harris, on Sep-
tember 17, we plucked a head of early Paris cauliflower, which
had grown in twelve days to the circumference of thirty-one
inches. This was measured in the presence of Mrs. Harris.. At
same date, we dug one hill of Early Rose potatoes, the vines by no
means dead, but the tubers still growing, which were weighed by
Messrs W. C. Harris, and J. H. Selkreg, with results as follows:

The potatoes from this one hill weighed 163} pounds, upwards
of a peck tothe hill. Five of the potatoes measured the largest
way round as follows: 17, 174, 18,18, and 183 inches, and all
averaged nine inches in girth. The memorandum from which we
copy is in the handwriting of Senator Selkreg, and signed by him.
That the potatoes from this one hill would have weighed twenty
pounds, had they been left to their full growth, we have little
doubt.

We conclude this chapter by a statement, made as follows by
E. F. Stelle, an intelligent farmer, who has been the superintend-
ent during the last two seasons of our model five acres.

“To all whom it may concern.

“A year ago the 29th of June last, I called on Mr. Cole having in
view work on his place as a temporary expedient, not having the
least idea of continuing in his employment more than a week or
two at the utmost. I considered myself a good farmer, and felt
that I knew considerable about gardening. I had heard inciden-
tally of a new system of agriculture and horticulture of which Mr.
Cole was the discoverer. This he explained briefly, but at the

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 197

same time ina way which seemed rather to discourage than en-
courage me to look intoit. I saw clearly that the author of “The
New Agriculture” took every man who came to ask him questions,
as coming more from curiosity to see what he would say, than to
obtain information. The more Mr. Cole said, the deeper became
my interest in his conversation, since I saw ata glance the man
was talking of a subject on which he was well posted.

“Looking me over, he concluded I was hardly stout enough to
work in his trenches, but after some hesitation engaged me to
work for a few days setting strawberry plants. He gave direc-
tions that no plant should he set till every stone, big or little,
lying in reach of the roots was removed, giving as a reason, that
if the root struck a stone, it would be attacked by fungus, and
that the plant would languish, if not die, and would bear little or
no fruit. He pointed out plants having a sickly appearance, and
directed me to pull them up, dig down for the cause of unthrift,
and removing it, set a new and healthy one in its place.

“T soon found an abundance of work, since fully one-third of his
plants, set by careless or inexperienced laborers, gave evidence of
fungus at their roots. Security from fungus, seemed to me at
first a large part of Mr. Cole’s system.

“<«Give your plants plenty of water, removing obstructions, so
that the roots will not strike them,’ he said, ‘and there will be no
fungus, unless it is planted in the soil by decaying wood or un-
composted and fermenting manures, or by water-logged lands.’

“T saw at a glance that Mr. Cole’s system removed difficulties,
giving his plants an opportunity of eating and drinking all they
wanted, making their own selection. I had not been a month at
work before becoming more deeply interested in Mr. Cole’s me-
thods of cultivating the soil, than in anything I had ever worked
at. While I worked for wages, I worked also to get knowledge,

198 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

and though approaching three score years and ten, I have become
a deeply interested student of a system, bound, I am satisfied, to
become general throughout the land.

“Always taking a deep interest in orcharding, I have taken par-
ticular notice of the effect of Mr. Cole’s system on apple-trees.
I have seen an old tree made to cast off its dead bark, and drop its
mosses, the trunk and limbs to the end of every twig having a
bright and vigorous growth. The old apple tree standing alone on
the trenched portion of Mr. Cole’s farm has been with me an ob-
ject of continual interest. Mr. Cole has had this tree photograph-
ed, the picture being taken several days ago. Even then, the low-
er limbs had in some instances reached the ground, and were rest-
ing upon it. Other limbs are following suit, and it looks now as
though all of the lower limbs would rest upon the ground. I have
urged Mr. Cole to have the tree propped up, but he insists upon it
that none of the limbs having broken, none will. Mr. Cole tells
me the top of the tree has nearly doubled in spread since trench-
ing above it, and this I cannot doubt, as it has grown since I be-
gan working for him as I never saw any tree grow before. I have
rarely seen a tree so bright in the lustre of its bark throughout its
entire top, and to the end of every twig. The old and shaggy
bark on the body has been continually dropping off, moss . disap-
pearing, and the tree throughout has the appearance of youth, and
yet, according to Mr. Pooler, who knew it asa ten year old tree,
thirty years ago, it should have reached its prime. That it has
grown nearly as much in three years past, as in its entire life be-
fore, I am satisfied. The fruit on this tree, Mr. Pooler says, grew
no larger than a good sized thorn apple, when he owned the place,
and was an insignificant and worthless russet. The apple as seen
at present, shows so little of the russet coating, as to have the ap-
pearance of a greening, when seen at a little distance ; hence the

TREE.

E.
APPLE, NATURAL SIZE, AS GROWN IN 1885 ON OLD APPLE TRE

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 201

statements getting into the papers that Mr. Cole had turned a rus-
set apple into a greening, nor do I wonder at it since I must say
the apples resemble greenings. To describe this tree is impossi-
ble. I have never seen such a wonder, bearing such fine fruit,
tender and juicy, and of matchless flavor. I think there is nearly
twenty bushels of apples on the tree, were they gathered to-day,
and whether to place the estimate at thirty or forty at harvest time,
I am at a loss, since the fruit swells out so from day to day as to
bewilder me.

“ Still more remarkable is the effect upon another tree which I
will endeavor to describe. Mr. Cole took one of his men a few
days after his great show on the 7th of July, and going into his or-
chard, picked out two trees well loaded with fruit. One was young, .
eight years old. Mr. Cole tells me it was a Flemish beauty; the
other was an old tree. I should think it one of the oldest trees of
a very old orchard, there being no older orchard, as I am told, in
town. The ground was cultivated as a garden about the young
tree, while the old one stood in the sod of years. About both trees
_ trenches were dug and finished under Mr. Cole’s system. Overflows
were provided, and the ground broken and well manured. The apples
on the Flemish beauty were nearly half grown, and by the first of
September presented an appearance in marked contrast with those
on other early trees around it. The fruit grew rapidly, matured
early, and if finer fruit was ever produced, I never saw it. It is
the old tree, however, bearing a nameless apple, that presents at
this time a wonderful transformation. The apples were about the
size of thorn plums when the tree was trenched around. Mr. Cole
tells me that while the fruit growing on this tree is not the Lady
apple, he, three years ago, gave them to his grand-children as such.
He also tells me that an ounce was the average weight of the apple
three years ago. There are now apples growing on the tree of

202 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

three ounces weight, and the growth continues at a rapid rate.
Where they will stop nobody knows. That apples will be gather-
ed at harvest weighing five or six ounces, I believe. Their luster
is astonishing. In fact, I have never seen their equal. The fruit
developing to-day, is incomparably finer than any on the place.

“ Suffice it to say, that results thus far realized by Mr. Cole in
orcharding, justifies the following copied from the Husbandman at
the conclusion of his address before the Farmer’s Club at Elmira
a month ago.

“JT conclude my remarks by saying that from the very first I
have found the increase in size, beauty and perfection of fruits of
all kinds simply incredible. I am this season making experiments
on two apple trees, one set four years ago, two or three years old
when set, and the other a tree at least forty years old, selected from
others in our orchard, and judging from present appearance of
these trees, the farmer who allows five years to pass over his head
without trenching his orchard, should give up farming altogether.’’

“While on this subject I cannot omit saying that being a Jer-
seyman by birth and bringing up, I have from boyhood taken a
deep interest in everything connected with fruit raising and mar-
ket gardening. I have seen more manure used annually on one
acre in New Jersey than Mr. Cole has used on his whole five acres
during the last two seasons, and in no instance have I known more
than a quarter of a crop grown in New Jersey or in Western
Pennsylvania (where I now reside and own a small farm under a
good state of cultivation) when compared with crops grown by Mr.
Cole. From the first day of my superintendence of the “ Home on
the Hillside” I have made a study of fungoid growths, the seeds of
fungus, their attack upon roots, and effects generally upon plants,
and I am prepared to say that after reading works on agriculture
and horticulture for fifty years, the agricultural and_horticultur-

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 203

al journals of the country as they have come in my way, I confess
to have learned more since taking charge of Mr. Cole’s model five
acres than during all the former years of my life. I am convinced
that the seeds of fungus are engendered under many other condi-
tiohs than those described in the following extract from Bulletin
No. 2 of the New Series treating of pear blight at the State Exper-
imental Station at Geneva.

«<The disease is due to living germs. These germs can multiply
indefinitely in any damp spot where there is decomposing vegetable
matter. From such places they are raised into the air when dry or
carried up by moisture. From the air they lodge upon the trees,
and when the conditions are favorable pass into the tissues and
cause blight. The conditions referred to are in general (1) very ten-
der tissues, such as are found within the flowers and at the ends of
expanding shoots in spring, and (2) a moist atmosphere. No vari-
eties are entirely blight proof, but the disease spreads so slowly in
some that they receive little injury, especially when not making too
rapid growth. The reason why the blight, when seen in July and
later, does not pass directly from one limb to another, or from one
tree to another, is because in the first place the germs cannot escape,
being confined by the bark, or else escape in a viscid exudation
which holds them firmly together, and in the second place there
are very few places on the tree at this time of the year where the
surface tissues are sufficiently tender for them to find an entrance.’”

“Certainly the disease is due to living germs, nor is this all; for
in the air above, in the earth beneath, and in waters on and under
the earth are the seeds of death arising from decomposition and
from the stagnation of the waters, That these can everywhere be
kept in motion, regulated in their flow and kept at nearly uniform
temperature summer and winter, cannot be longer questioned, for
Mr. Cole has demonstrated the fact. He runs the rain water

204 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

through his ‘retorts, as he calls his trenches, and it is per-
fectly filtered, He has this season experimented on water drawn
from the main of the Wellsville waterworks, and that too in the
midst of a drought so severe as to dry up the springs feeding the
reservoir, causing the water remaining in it to stagnate, rendering
it unfit for use. He has purified this water completely.

“What Mr. Cole does by way of purifying the water . falling
from the clouds, I can perhaps best illustrate by the fact that a
year ago last fall, (the autumn before my employment by him), he
corded up for composting, thirty or forty wagon loads of manure
in a winrow about twelve rods long near the summit of his hill-
side. After I commenced work for him in the spring of last year,
when it rained the water would issue from this winrow of the
color of lye and running into the first trench below, this liquid
manure water would become perfectly filtered, and flow out as
pure as the purest spring water. This convinced me that a single
trench sunk below a barnyard would save the manure otherwise
lost by the wash of rains and melting snows; and that trenching
below stables, sties, hen-houses, and above, below, round and
about dwellings and outhouses, and dropping the waters deep
down, by overflow from trench to trench and by movement through
the surface soil, and percolation through the subsoil, the ground
would absorb all impurities. I have become satisfied that the
stagnant waters of swamps and ponds, and those from drains and
sewers can be dropped into trenches and filtered perfectly and
made as pure as the purest spring water. This demonstrates the
fact that by the use of Mr. Cole’s system an end would come to
pear blight, rot in potatoes, of tomatoes, and of rot and premature
decay of all kinds. This very season he has been digging Early
Rose potatoes of a size and beauty never equalled in the experi-

ence of any one who has seen them; the vines continued growing

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 205.

for weeks after all others were dead in fields round about, not
treated as Mr. Cole is treating his lands. His potatoes average
from three to five times the weight of those grown under old
methods, and that he has this season grown from ten to twelve
hundred bushels to an acre, is a fact, and I have not seen a rotten
potato on his place inside of his lines of trenching, while they are
found thick enough, on that portion not trenched.

«“ What is true of potatoes, is equally true of tomatoes. Where
very little manure has been applied directly to the soil, and the
waters have been run beneath the plants, impregnated with the
manure from the winrow above, not a rotten potato has this year
been found on any portion of the place except where chip manure
was used.

“T need not say any more on this point. If there is a person in
the world who doubts, they should come and see the squashes
growing now on this place. At this date, the last days of Septem-
ber, the largest of these squashes, a Chili specimen, measures fifty
by fifty-four inches around, and will weigh upwards of an hundred
pounds, and seems growing at a rate of three or four pounds per
day, and that it will reach and pass the size and weight of the fa-
mous specimen of the same variety seen a year or two ago at the
‘seed store of Mr. Peter Henderson in New York, is not unrea-
sonable. This of course depends upon the frost holding back.
That this squash would, under conditions of underground irriga-
tion, reach a weight of three hundred pounds in New Jersey, on
Long Island, Staten Island, or in Southern Pennsylvania, I have
no doubt. What it would do farther south must be left for exper-
iment. Should the Government conclude to establish an Experi-
mental Station at Washington, as has been suggested, it is not
improbable that specimens of the Chili squash will be grown

weighing from four to five hundred pounds.

206 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

“Most remarkable of all, however, are two specimens of the yel-
low cheese pumpkin. These vary but little in size, having already
grown to a girth of four feet and eight inches, and increasing at
the rate of an inch a day. At no time has the growth seemed more
rapid. The rapidity of growth increases flavor and tenderness of
all vegetables and fruits. The blood beet has this year been grown
to the length of three feet by Mr. Cole, and that a foot more will
be added this season, seems probable. That they can be grown to
a much greater length by preparing a soil deep enough, with water
beneath, I am quite sure.

“Mr. Cole, not having protected his quince trees from the depre-
dations of the borer, his quinces are not as large at this time of
year, so he tells me, as those grown by him five years ago in his
first test of his system. That he then grew specimens to the size
of a pint bowl, his family and neighbors bear witness. The speci-
men he has just had photographed measures at this time nine
inches in circumference, and as seen at Rider’s photograph gallery
in Wellsville, N. Y., exhibited in his glass case is mistaken for
wax-work. That this quince would have grown to a girth of from
one foot to one foot and three inches, had it been left to full de-
velopment, I am quite sure. KE. F. Svexre.

Wettsvityz, N. Y. Sept. 25, 1885.

“To all whom it may concern.

“This will certify that I met Mr. Stelle the fore part of the pre-
sent week, while looking over the-place I once owned and aban-
doned because I could not make a living upon it on account of
the poverty of the soil, and his statement having been submitted
to me, I declare it a fair and truthful one from beginning to end,
corresponding with observations made by myself set forth in my
own statement, made three days since.” Witt1am Poorer.

WELIsvILLE, Sept. 26, 1885.

CHAPTER IX.

MANURING UNDER THE NEW SYSTEM—-THE AMERICAN POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY—

A WELCOME FOR ALL AT THE “HOME ON THE HILLSIDE.”

As the success of our system has been mainly attributed, by
several doubters, to our methods of fertilizing, we desire to put on
record that our practice is simply that of slight top dressing, with
compost applied in the early spring; the land having been first
prepared as described in Chapter VII by Mr. Maine. We have no
hesitation in saying that not to exceed one-fourth of the quantity
of manure is necessary under the methods of the new as compared
with those of the old agriculture.

At the conclusion of an address made by us on Aug. 29, 1885,
before the Farmers Club of Elmira, the Hon. John H. Selkreg,
who had recently visited our hillside in company with Professor
Roberts of Cornell, was called upon for his views of “The New
Agriculture.” His response was reported in the Husbandman, of
Elmira, N. Y., as follows:

“T might. with a good deal of propriety, enter most earnest pro-
test against Mr. Cole’s coaching you to call on me for testimony
that is not needed. The position is by no means pleasant, because
T have not expected to add anything to what has been said, nor am
Tin a very high degree capable of judging questions with which
you, as farmers, are far more familiar.

“T came to your city on business which occupied time, so that

208 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

the train which I expected to take had gone before I was ready,
and I at once resolved to come here, because I desired to hear
about the New Agriculture, and to see friends, particularly Mr.
Cole, with whom I might claim slight relation, dating back to its
origin somewhere near Adam. Iam not a farmer by a long way,
yet I appreciate the wisdom in the adage that glorifies a man who
makes two blades of grass grow where but one grew before. I be-
lieve in improvement, and particularly in the most important in-
dustry of the land—agriculture. There is great need of every im-
provement, for farmers have too long clung to old methods.
There is neither use nor sense in farmers staying by the old me-
thods employed by their fathers a hundred years ago, for condi-
tions have changed, and there is, therefore, imperative necessity
that better means be employed—improved methods, every advance-
ment that will lead to larger returns, and increase of profits.
«This, it is true, may be regarded as theory. It is theory. Yet
it is good common sense. I know very little about practical farm-
ing, for my experience is confined mainly to a garden of about
forty feet square, and I am bound to say that I do not care for that
in the best way, as anybody who inspects the work would be sure
tosay. Ihad heard a great deal about the New Agriculture be-
fore curiosity was greatly excited, but at last I began to wonder,
—can these things be true as reported? Is it possible that Mr.
Cole is forcing earth to production far greater than under previ-
ous conditions? I visited his grounds, saw his trenches, examined
his work and its results; but all this was necessary before I could
believe that what appeared like extravagant claims were based in
truth. I found they were. I found that he had made most won-
derful improvement in land that in the outset was poor. I saw
him but a few days ago dig potatoes, nearly a peck from a single
hill. I saw on the 7th of July on his grounds strawberries mar-

QUINCE, NATURAL SIZE.

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 211

velous in size and delicious in flavor. Last Tuesday I picked pea-
pods of a dwarf variety, the pods five inches in length and each
containing eight large peas—the products of his improved land.
Now, when I find these evidences of improvement I must say there
is really something worth considering in the system by which the
gain is made. That the crops are improved may be determined
easily by comparison with similar products on other lands adjoin-
ing that which Mr. Cole has treated. Nothing of the kind can bé
found. No strawberries of large size, or even of ordinary size,
were possible on the unimproved grounds near Mr. Cole last July;
no potatoes of large yield, no peas of large growth. Mr. Cole’s
lands alone have these remarkable products. Then they are con-
vincing evidence of merit in his treatment, whatever that may be.

“T do not know that all his claims will be sustained,—that he
will realize all he expects. ButI do know that he has effected
wonderful improvement in his lands, and I believe that similar im-
provement, perhaps less in degree, may be made in the soils of
these uplands in all the hilly lands of Steuben, Allegany, Che-
mung, Tioga, Tompkins, and many other counties where conditions
are similar. It is something to be proud of, to take unproductive
apple trees and by treatment of the soil make them bear fruit of
fine character, and this is what Mr. Cole has done, the fruit being
far superior to that on other trees but a little way off; yet the
trees were formerly under the same conditions. So in tomato
plants. Will I seem to be extravagant in statement when I say
that a single vine on Mr. Cole’s improved land has thirty or forty
pounds of tomatoes ?”

Mr, Corr. From one to one and a half bushels.

Senator Sevkrec. No doubt; the yield is simply marvelous.
It is difficult to comprehend the change effected in all the pro-
ducts of that improved land. The lessons there spread out to

212 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

view are worthy of your careful consideration. They may not be
decisive of all matters suggested, nor even conclusive in any mat-
ter, except that the system employed tends to wonderful improve-
ment of products. There may be ways of cheapening the work.
All these matters are for your consideration.

W. A. Armsrrone. It is alleged that Mr. Cole has used a great
deal of manure on his grounds, and that the remarkable fruits of
which he speaks may be credited properly to that source. Now it
will be gratifying to gentlemen here to learn just how much ma-
nure has been used, in order that credit may be given where it be-
longs.

Mr. Cotz. In 1883 I used possibly sixty loads of manure on the
whole five acres under treatment—not more than sixty loads of
barnyard manure, composted with muck and all the forest leaves I
could get, with some lime and some ashes, all used on the surface.
That is the extent of the application, and no manure has been
applied since. Isay sixty loads, because I wish to exceed the
amount; I am sure that not more than that quantity was ap-
plied, but I have not the exact figures, and am, therefore, obliged
to fix an outside limit which is entirely safe. I believe this land,
after three years more, will want no more manure, for enough will
be obtained through the solids left by waters, which in draining
away, part with all substances, animalcule and everything else
that in its decay will furnish plant food. You will observe that
everything the water contains must stop in the soil and be held for
use, and there is enough in insect life, if it can be appropriated, to
nourish plants quite as effectually as moderate application of
manure. This very morning I gave one of my men fifty cents to
buy Paris green to kill potato beetles on the vines, without a doubt
that the beetles, when incorporated in the soil, will be worth more

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. aie}

than the money and the labor of destroying them in the fertilizing
influence they will have on the soil.

Three years ago, I prepared a bed for asparagus and put in chip
manure, a liberal supply, some of it pine chips, that remain there
still without going to decay as rapidly as I desired. Where that
chip manure is used, there is fungoid growth. A few tomato
vines planted along the border yield fruit that has rotted, the
trouble caused by chip manure. There is no other place on my
grounds where rot affects tomatoes, and in this spot the trouble is
clearly traceable to chip manure.

W. A. Armsrronc. The answer'to my question is not entirely
satisfactory, because with the sixty loads of manure there is all the
leaf mould that Mr. Cole could gather. Now, if we had a safe
estimate of that, the whole matter would be clear.

_ Mr. Corz. I can only say that I have gathered all the leaves
from forest and other places that I could conveniently get, but the
whole has not been much. I cannot state the exact amount.

G. W. Horrmay. The sixty loads of manure mean the compost
in which the leaves were incorporated ?

Mr. Cotz. Yes; and that is the limit. Sixty loads covers
everything.

G. W. Horrman. We have here a tobacco farmer, who knows
very well the amount required on good lands to secure a full
growth of tobacco—Mr. Chamberlain, whose experience is ex-
tended.

Grorce CHAMBERLAIN. I use twenty loads of manure to the acre
the first year ; after that about ten loads each year, provided I can
get so much.

G. W. Horrman. And a load is a cord and a half or more?

Gzorge CHAMBERLAIN. Two cords.

G. W. Horrmay. Then there are forty cords used on an acre, and

214 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

in the next year, if tobacco is continued, twenty cords—the
amount in either case much greater than Mr. Cole has used in the
three years. I visited his place July 7th, and saw most wonderful
growth of plants and fruits, particularly strawberries, while along-
side the lands he has treated every kind of plant growth was
stunted, He has certainly proved great possibilities in production
on lands that at the beginning were very poor.

Mr. Cotz. I wish to call again on Senator Selkreg, who has. ex-
amined my grounds lately. I want to ask him if he saw any
appearance of rot in tomatoes anywhere except on the few plants
bordering the asparagus bed where chip manure is used.

Senator Sevxrec. Not the slightest. Thatisa matter that I
observed particularly before any remarks were made about it. I
saw fruit rotted in that place, and searched carefully to see how
far the trouble prevailed. But there was no rot whatever any-
where except in that one place, where I was informed chip manure
had been used, and rot was traceable to that cause.”

We are convinced that well rotted barnyard manure, muck,
where obtainable, or ordinary loam, or soil of bottom lands ; soils
of the prairies of the West, of the swamps and morasses of the East
and the South, when mixed with forest leaves and composted with
lime, salt and ashes in equal proportions, will prove, as top dress-
ing, worth vastly more than the best of phosphates; and that what
has been denominated green manuring, the plowing in of clover,
buckwheat, rye-grass, etc. is of far greater value than the expens-
ive fertilizers of which ordinary use is made.

We think it of value to our readers to give in this, the concluding
chapter of our book, the following account of the proceedings ata
late meeting of The American Pomological Society. The subjects
discussed are of vital value to horticulturists and the information
given upon them cannot be foundelsewhere. The report was made

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 215

for the Press of Philadelphia, by that able journalist, Mr. Chas. A
Green, Editor of The Fruit Grower, published in Rochester, N. Y.,
and we deem the subject matter of it as correlative with our new
agriculture.

“The success of the twentieth annual meeting of the: American
Pomological Society recently held at Grand Rapids, Mich. was
largely owing to the efforts of President Marshall P. Wilder, one
of the best men ever engaged in the work; to acting President Pat-
rick Barry, Prof. W. J. Beal, Charles W. Garfield, E. H. Scott and
other prominent Michigan men.

“President Wilder in his address glanced at the thirty-seven
years in which the society had worked. Long may it live on prosper
ing, and to prosper while the earth bears fruit and man lives to cul-
tivate it. This society is performing an immense amount of la-
bor in correcting errors. There is a wonderful contrast between
the early condition of pomology and that of the present day. The
future work will be continuous, and of vital importance. Press on
the good work, and when you are gone others will rise to take.
your places.

“Mr. Angel reported that Michigan produces five million bush-
els of large fruits annually, and that the prospects for the future
are more promising. In the discussion of new fruits, the yellow
transparent apple was spoken of by Mr. Gideon as aboutas hardy as
the Oldenburg, which had suffered the past year, when the thermom-
eter fell to forty-nine degrees below zero. Theapple is of good qual-
ity and twelve days earlier than the Red Astrachan. Itbears young
and is of uniform size. It has a tendency to crack when over-ripe.
It originated near St. Petersburg, Russia. The Shannon apple,
which took the first premium at the World’s Exposition at New Or-
leans, is a seedling from Arkansas. It is profitable in the North
and West, is a large, showy fruit, but not of first quality. Mr. Gid-

216 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

eon considers the Oldenburg as hardy as any except the crabs. He
had found nothing but the crabs that would endure the past win-
ter, which was the most severe of any that they had experienced.

“Professor Bessey of Nebraska gave an illustrated lecture on In-
jurious Fungi. While most people look out upon the fields of
erass, vegetables and fruits, considering that these cover the ex-
tent of plant life, Professor Bessey tells us that there is another
race of plants often too small to be discovered by the naked eye,
one differing from another, and each having as remarkable pecu-
liarities, as the plants that are visible in ourfields. This great race
of plants, called Fungi, should be better understood by practical
men and women, as it has much to do with the health of plants,
trees and human beings. Forest trees four hundred feet in height
differ from the particles of moss that thrive upon their trunks no
more than one species of fungi differs from another in size. We
often hear the remark made that certain disorders are caused by
fungus growth. This would be something like stating that apples
belong to the vegetable kingdom. It would scarcely mean any-
thing, for there are as many kinds of fungus growth as of other
plants, and each one has its peculiarities. The puff ballis referred
to as one of the largest fungi. Fungi is divided into three classes
—parasite, saprophytes and parasite-saprophytes. The parasites
feed only upon living tissues, and the saprophytes feed only on
dead matter, while the parasite-saprophytes are more greedy, and
feed upon both living and dead matter, attacking more largely lan-
guishing tissues.

“William Saunders remarked that scientific men were for a long
time puzzled to know whether bacteria belonged to the animal or
vegetable kingdom. Professor Bessey treated them as plants. If
an apple was magnified as we magnify bacteria under our best

glasses, it would appear to be two and one-half miles in diameter.

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 217

The body of a man cut up into pieces, each of which was as small
as a bacteria, and each piece placed before the other, would create a
line of atoms of flesh one hundred and ninety million miles long, or
long enough to pass around the earth six and one-half thousand
times. This illustration will enable the reader to get an idea of
the minuteness of these small plants, which may be floating in the
air we breathe by the millions and yet not be observed. Bacteria
reproduce themselves with wonderful rapidity. They withdraw a
portion of the constituents of the vital part they attack, and there-
by cause an enfeebled condition and ultimate destruction. There
are many kinds of bacteria, each of which appears to have an im-
portant work in the economy of nature. It is wonderful to think
that the Almighty brings about remarkable results from such in-
finitisimal creations. When the bodies of animals, plants and fruits
have ceased to be of further use, it is desirable that they should be
transformed into a condition where they may be absorbed and used
in the construction of other forms. Bacteria seem to have been
created largely for this work. Thus they assist to transform fallen
logs into vegetable mould, and defunct animals and fruit into food
supplies for other organisms. No doors or windows are close
enough to keep out bacteria. Wherever the air can enter they
can enter also. =
“Professor Arthur, of the New Jersey Experimental Station, spoke
of his experiments with pear blight. While Professor Burrill has
previously claimed that pear blight was caused by bacteria, some
of our most practical men throughout the country, like President
Barry, of Rochester, N. Y., and others, have had serious doubts
whether blight might not be the result rather than the cause.
Professor Arthur’s experiments have cleared up all doubts on this
question. We know now the true cause of pear blight, and are in
a much better condition to fight it than ever before. It is difficult

218 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

to carry on warfare with an enemy that you know nothing of,
and of whose identity you are uncertain, but once have him cor-
nered as we now have the enemy of the pear, we shall no longer
fear him. Our space will not permit giving a full description of
Professor Arthur’s thorough investigation. Suffice it to say that it
was thoroughly convincing. He has found that bacteria can be con-
veyed to the pear only when the young wood is “exceedingly soft,
and never through old wood, or that which has become hardened,
except it be through the young and immature twigs. Thus the
bacteria may be conveyed to the older wood only through the bac-
teria that enters the tender wood. The bacteria enters the trees
in July, and hardly ever in August or later. The bark of the
branch attacked may be destroyed several weeks before the leaves
turn black, as the leaves are sustained by the wood of the branch.
Usually the leaves turn black suddenly during a hot day. This is
the first notice the orchardist has of disease, but really the damage
has been done weeks before. Bacteria do not enter the branches
by contact of diseased branches with healthy ones, neither are
they conveyed by the pruning knife. The bacteria gain entrance
to the trees through the young and tender wood, through the blos-
soms, or through the fruits in rains, or conveyed by the winds,
Also possibly by evaporation of moisture from the soil in which
they have been multiplied. Bacteria progress through the limbs
more rapidly in the warmest weather. They are not killed
by the cold, but are unable to make such fast progress during
winter. Those in the affected branches work slowly all winter, but
perish about the time the trees leave out in the spring. Germs for
inoculating bacteria were secured by cutting pieces of blighted
wood and placing them in water, or fluid produced by boiling corn
meal in water, or hay tea. Soon the liquid was filled with the
germs. A few of these inserted in the tender wood caused dis-

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 219

ease in a short time. The germs in a diseased tree escape to the
surface in a sticky substance ; they are washed free of the gum by
the rain, dropping to the ground, multiply in decaying substances
beneath the trees, or in wet places near by. Here they pass the win-
ter, and may live for several years. They are borne in the air when
dry by the wind, being so extremely minute that they may be thus
borne and carried great distances, coming in contact with the ten-
der twigs, or the centre of flowers, and finally into the tree, produc-
ing disease. Professor Arthur found that although he experi-
mented with many kinds of bacteria germs, only those found in
blighted pear trees caused blight.

“Professor Lazenby reports experiments showing that soil
mulched with straw is invariably lower in temperature than ground
unmulched, teaching that it was not desirable to mulch strawber-
ries where late spring frosts were prevalent, as strawberries mulch-
ed would be injured more by the frost thanthoseunmulched. The
only method by which mulching would be valuable in preventing
damage by late spring frosts is by keeping the mulch above the
plants and not permit the blossoms to be exposed until the danger
of frost is past.

“Mr. Pierce of Ohio said that there were thousands who did not
know the delights of growing the finest flowers and fruits. Enlist
your wife and children in your work, says Charles W. Garfield.

“Mr. Lyon considered that brevity is always desirable for names
of new fruits. The name of the originator or introducer would
rarely be found inappropriate, or the name of the place where the
variety originated, and either will generally possess the advantage
of requiring but a single word. While the wish to add a charac-
teristic word, designed to convey an impression of superiority,
causes the name to be cumbersome, it does not aid in distinguish-

ing the variety.

220 THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

“ Professor Lazenby gave the result of experiments with the ef-
fects of pollen on the strawberry. He showed that in some sea-
sons pistillate strawberries are influenced by the pollen of the varieties
applied. A. J. Fuller concurred in this opinion, and the question
was nearly decided to the satisfaction of all present, that it was
possible to affect the flavor, size and form of the strawberry by the
application of pollen to the pistillate varieties. Yet it was not
claimed that the effect would be noticeable to the casual observer
in all cases, or might not be of sufficient importance to be adopted
by the market grower. Mr. Lazenby found that the Crescent
strawberry, growing alone under a glass, would produce no berries
when not fertilized.

“Professor A. J. Cook, of Michigan, delivered an illustrated lec-
ture on Economic Etomology. It is known that the damage
done by insects last year was two millions of dollars, and the un-
known damage was probably as much more. The number of
species of destructive insects is increasing every year, and the war-
ing against them has become more important. Many of these in-
sects are formidable for the reason that they have no bird foes in
this country. An insect changes its taste and habits, often leaving
one plant and attacking another. A few years ago California was
free from injurious insects, but now it is thoroughly infested. In-
sects have foes that often suppress their depredations. A know-
ledge of these foes is absolutely necessary to the farmer and fruit
grower, also a knowledge of the habits and life of insects. Im-
ported insects are far more injurious than our native ones. They
seem to take a new lease of life in this country, and are more fero-
cious and persistent in their efforts.

“One half pound of London purple to a barrel of water, or a
spoonful of Paris green to a barrel of water, is recommended for
spraying trees at the time when the blossoms are about to fall, to

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. JAY

destroy the canker worm, codling moth and numerous other in-
sects that are liable to do injury. This application could be made
at an expense of from three to five cents per tree, and should be
applied whether there is canker worm in the orchard or not. The
canker worm is becoming far more prevalent each year throughout
the country. As the codling moth should be treated to the poison
even in the absence of the canker worm, it will be seen that there
is no excuse for permitting the canker worm to defoliate the trees.”

As we referred in a former chapter to the statement of Professor
Roberts to us that clover roots had been traced to a depth of
eighteen feet, the following communication sent by him to Mr.
Chas. A. Green, Editor of that admirable monthly, The Fruit
Grower, will be of interest ;

AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENT, CORNELL UNIVERSITY.
Iruaca, N. Y., July 30, 1885.
Mr. Charles A. Green:

Dear Sir :—The Tribune of July 14, containing an article on
“The New Agriculture” is received. In it you say that Myr. Cole
says that “ Professor Roberts of Ithaca has told him that he has
traced red clover roots to a depth of eighteen feet that were
growing in a bed of gravel overlaying water.” Mr. Cole must
have misunderstood me, as it was corn roots not clover roots that I
was speaking of to him when I visited his place the week before
you were there. I have a clover root preserved in our museum
two feet nine inches long, which was taken from the borders of a
nearby cellar. The roots of this plant, which was one year old,
were nearly traced to the depth of the cellar—four feet—but they
were so delicate that it was impossible to preserve their entire
length.

At the Iowa Agricultural College the railroad company under-
mined a portion of the corn field in August, 1873, to get gravel

222, THE NEW AGRICULTURE.

with which to ballast their road. Here I took great delight in
studying corn roots. They were large enough to preserve at a
depth of eight, but where the ground began to be moist from the
water beneath, by careful digging they could be traced from two
to four feet farther, where they reached perennial water.

As to the “ New Agriculture ” with pick and shovel, I most care-
fully examined the land treated by Mr. Cole, and also that adjoin-
ing which was not treated, and I expect in the near future to give some
facts and my conclusions to the public.

Very respectfully yours,
I. P. Rozerts.

We are growing old and anxious lest we die and see not in the
flesh the fruits of our life-work—a half century spent in pursuit of
the waters.

We want to see the tile manufacturers so conforming their wares
as to conserve instead of wasting the waters. ;

We want to see the inventor at work giving the farmer a trench-
ing machine which will do more subsoiling in a day than an hun-
dred of the best plowmen can do now ina month with the most
efficient implements, and doing it in a way which, once done, will
not need to be done again.

We want to see an end of unfermented and uncomposted manures,
and an end also of most of the phosphates with which the earth
has been hitherto cursed.

We want to see farmers do their own fertilizing, avoiding seeds
of fungus and fouling of lands by sowing inoculations of noxous
plants and weeds.

In this latter connection it has occurred to us that the transpor-
tation from West to East of alkaline deposits, might be found pro-
fitable to both sections. The transit is made easy by means of our
railroad system, so gridironing the country as to make interchange

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. oS

and admixture of soils less expensive than the use of phosphates
The wonderful salt discoveries of the Wyoming Valley, making the
use of brine and refuse salt for manure so inexpensive as to place
them within reach of every farmer and gardener, is second only in
importance to the discovery and development of petroleum and
natural gas. These latter are already transported long distances
through pipes, and we see no reason why alkaline and saline li-
quids may not be equally diffused by gravitation and made to
reach all portions of our country.

In conclusion permit us to repeat our belief that an universal
system of trenching will be adopted at an early day. We have
proven that it is practical and profitable. We believe also that be-
yond in value of all present methods of fertilization, is that feature
of “The New Agriculture ” which extracts the solids from the wa-
ters furnishing food and inspiration to plant growth and fruition.

After reading these pages, indulgent reader, you fail to be con-
vinced of the incalculable value of our system, or do not fully com-
prehend its details, we cordially invite you to come and see for
yourself. The latchstring of our “Home on the Hillside” is hung
on the outside of the door. A. N. COLE.

Wettsvitiz, Attecany Co., N. Y.

The New Agriculture.

BUSINESS ANNOUNCEMENT.

A General Agent having been appointed for the United
States of America, in the person of Theodore L. Minier, of
Elmira, N. Y., all parties desiring information touching
matters relating to business in connection with The New
Agriculture, will address their communications to the Gen-
eral Agent.

State, Territorial, County and District Agencies will from
time to time be created, and liberal commissions allowed to
agents. Applications for agencies will be made to the Gen-

eral Agent, at Elmira, N. Y.

A Journal of Aquaculture.

ON WEDNESDAY, JANUARY, 6th, 1886,

A weekly journal will be issued under the title of

THE GENESEE VALLEY FREE PRESS AND NEW AGRICULTURE,

from the office of the ‘‘ Daily Free Press,” at Wellsville, Allegany Co., N. Y.

Tho Editorial Department of the paper will be patriotic rather than partisan, In
upholding the Union and the Constitution it will know no North, no South, no East,
no West.

Fully one-half of the paper will be devoted to Agriculture and Horticulture gen-
erally, and ‘‘ The New Agriculture” in particular. I propose to edit the paper, and
hold myself obligated to answer all questions that my correspondents may ask.

The paper will be a handsome quarto, and issued to subscribers at $2.09 per an-

num in advance.
A. N. COLE,

Wellsville, Allegany County, N. Y.

The American Angler,

THE FISHERMAN’S PAPER—THE ONLY ONE IN AMERICA.

THE AMERICAN ANGLER is published every Saturday, and each number con-
tains essays on Fish, Fishing and Fish Culture, Notes and Queries relative to fishing
and fish life, and practical illustrations of the methods and tackle used in angling.
Drawings of seventy-five representative fish of America have already appeared in THE
ANGLER, which is the only paper published in America devoted solely to Fish,
Fishing and Fish Culture. Mr. Seth Green, the veteran Fish Culturist of America,
has editorial charge of the Fish Culture Department of the paper.

SUPsSTIPWON PEM AMM WI ys. oc). ele hin ssc aarsies oe erence tin ices BO
Steve Cay TAR ae Sa teh Us SERB eb bt) COREE MO acids Sencar Hae 10

Back numbers of the paper can be had on application at 10 cents each, except
those issued between the dates of October 15, 1881, and June 30, 1882, for which a
charge of 25 cents each will be made. Specimen copies will be sent on application.

Address

THE AMERICAN ANGLER,
Offices: 252 Broadway, New York.

THE FISHES OF THE EAST ATLANTIC COAST,

THAT ARE

CAUGHT WITH HOOK AND LINE,

INCLUDING THE

FISHES of the EAST COAST of FLORIDA.

By Louis 0. Yan Doren and Samuel C. Clarke.

This is a practical text book on the salt water fishes that are found on the Atlan-
tic coast from Northern Maine to the Gulf of Mexico. No other work now in print
covers this field, and none has been published on this subject for the last quarter
of acentury. Messrs. Van Doren and Clarke give the scientific and popular de-
scriptions, habits, habitat, WHEN, WHERE and How to catch them, of forty-two
fishes that are caught with hook and line along the eastern coast of America. The
illustrations are numerous and are photo-likenesses of the fish represented. , They
consist of the following :

THE STRIPED Bass.

THE BLUEFISH.

THE WEAKFISH.

THE SHEEPSHEAD.

THE KINGFISH.

THE BonITO.

THE BLACK DRUM.

THE SPANISH MACKEREL.
THE MENHADEN.

THE LAFAYETTE, OR_SPOT.
THE SHAD.

THE TARPUM.

THE CHANNEL BAss.

THE HoGFIsH,

CuLotH, I6mo.

PRICE, Post
Address

THE BLACKFISH.

THE FLOUNDER.

THE SEA Bass.

THE BERGALL.

THE ToMCOD.

THE CODFISH.

THE HADDOCE.

THE SALT WATER TROUT.
THE RED GROUPER.

THE POMPANO.

THE MANGROVE SNAPPER.
THE Lapy FIsuH.

THE SALT WATER Cat FIsH.
THE WHITE, OR SILVER MULLE?.

-PAID, $1.50

THE AMERICAN ANGLER,

252 Broadway, New York.

PORTRAITS of FISHES.

At the request of many of our readers, we have struck off on fine gray tinted
Bristol board, 7x11 inches each, a few copies of the following named fishes. They
are sixty in number; twenty-three are engravings of those killed in fresh water,
and thirty-seven in salt water. These fish portraits have been printed with much
care, and will be of interest and service to those who wish to preserve them either
framed or in a portfolio. We will mail them, postage paid, at the following
prices.

The Fresh Water Series, (23 in number), for $2.00.
The Salt Water Series, (837 in number), for $3.50.
The entire series, (60 in number), for $5.00.
Single copies, ten cents.

THE FRESH WATER SERIES.

The Small-Mouthed Black Bass. The Mascalonge.
The Large-Mouthed Black Bass. The Yellow Perch.
The Brook Trout. The Whitefish.

The Grayling. The Fresh Water Striped Bass.
The California Mountain Trout. The White Perch.
The California Salmon. The Bisby Trout.
The Pike Perch. The Shad.

The Land-Locked Salmon. The Lake Herring.
The Sea Salmon. The Bream.

The Pike. The Strawberry Bass
The Lake Lawyer. The Rock Bass.

The Salmon Trout.
THE SALT WATER SERIES.

The Striped Bass. The Menhaden

The Blue Fish. The Codfish.

The Sheepshead. The Tarpum.

The Channel Bass. The Mangrove Snapper.
The Pompano. The Haddock.

The Red Grouper. The Butterfish.

The Lady Fish. The Smelt.

The Spanish Mackerel. The Black Drum

The Salt Water Trout, Florida. The Squid.

The Weakfish. The Codling.

The Bonito. The Unicorn Fish.

The Kingfish. The Moon Fish.

The Sea Bass. The Spotted Turbot.
The Red Snapper. The Northern Seulpin.
The Blackfish. The Bergall.

The Porgy. The Flounder.

The Pilot Fish. The Salt Water Catfish, Gaff-topsail.
The Lafayette. or Spot. The White Mullet.

The Hogfish.

A handsome Portfolio, in half Russia, with bevelled edges, and stamped in gilt
“Fish Portraits,” made especially to hold a set of fishes, will be mailed, postage
paid, on receipt of $1.25.

Address, AMERICAN ANGLER,
. 252 Broadway, New York.

THE ANGLER’S SCORE BOOK

AND

Fishing Register.

On the opp*site page is given a full page illustration (exact size) of this handy
score book. It coniainsasufticient number of pages for aseason’s record, and will
be tound indispensable to the angler who feels sufficient interest in his pastime to
derive pleasure and profit from his past achievements.

Itis bound in heavy paper, price 10 cents, and in limp cloth and gold, 25 cents.
Pocket size,

AMERICAN ANGLER,
252 Broadway, New York.

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TEXT PAPERS FOR ANGLERS.

The six volumes, handsomely bound in cloth (after July 1, 1885,
seven vol.), of THz AMERICAN ANGLER, are now ready for delivery.
Price $3.00 each. The demand for the unbound numbers of Volume
I. has so largely decreased our supply of them, that we are compelled
to increase the price of copies to 25 cents each. New subscribers, how-
ever, who commence their subscriptions with the first issue of the
paper, October 1, 1881, will be supplied at the regular rate of $3.00 a

year.
To assist our readers, who are daily ordering back numbers, in the

selection of those containing special treatises of practical value to
anglers, we give below a few of the dates and a partial list of subjects
contained in Volumes IJ, HI and IV. They will be sent, postage

paid, on receipt of ten cents for each copy.

What is a Pike? What is a Pickerel? Illustrated. December 16,
1882.

A Sole Leather Bait Box. Illustrated, December 23, ’82.

Striking and Playing a Fish. December 30, 82.

The White Perch. Illustrated. December 30, ’82.

A Treatise on the Mascalonge—Where, When and How to Catch
Them. Illustrated. Con-ained in the issues of January 6, 13, 20, 27,
83.
A Treatise on the Black Bass—Habitat, Modes of Capture, etc. Ilus-
trated. In issues of February 3, 10, 17, 24, ’83.

The Strawberry Bass. Iltustrated. February 17, ’83.

A ‘Treatise on the Pike —Habitat, tackle used, etc. Tlustrated. In
issues of March 3, 10, 17, 24, ’83.

The Reel—Its place on the Kod. March 24, April 14, June 16, ’83.

The Atlantic Salmon, Scientific and Popular Description—Habitat
and capture. Illustrated. March 31, °83.

Minnows as Bait. Tllustrated April 7, 14, 21, 83.

Catching Flounders. Tlustrated. April 7, ’83.

The Trout of Maine Waters. April 14, 21, 28, May 5, ’83.

The Trout Streams of the United States and How to Reach Them.
April 14, ’83.

A Serviceable Vishing Boat—How:to Build it. Illustrated, April
21, ’83.

Making a Split Bamboo—Amatenr Work. April 28, ’83.

Varnish for Rods. May 5, 83. ;

A Treatise on the Brook Trout—Habits, Habitat and Capture. II-
lustrated May 12, 19, 26, June 2, ’83.

The Colorado Mountain Trout. May 12, *83.

A New Minnow Pail: Illustrated. May 12, 1883.

The Striped Bass—Rock Fish —Description, Modes of Capture, ete.
Illustrated. May 26, June 2, ’83.

Any of the above papers pgs ig a on receipt of ten cents,

Address THE AMERICAN ANGLER,
252 Broadway, New York,
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