One great trouble with us in learning is that we are too apt to keep in mind our successes and forget the failures. This is the great fault of theoretical farming. If by a combination of favorable conditions success is obtained, it is given out as a fact--no exception being given or allowed for the very favorable conditions under which the method was tried. Such things may rightly be compared to the many specifics given to cure the various ills of life. A remedy is tried which, under favorable conditions, effects a cure, and forthwith the cure is given out as a specific. Others, with the same complaint but under different conditions, try the same remedy and fail to receive the least benefit. No mention is made of these failures, and, of course, others are induced to give the remedy a trial. For this reason it is always interesting to hear of failures as well as successes, provided the real cause can be stated. MILLER CO., MO. N. J. SHEPHERD. CISTERNS ON THE FARM. There is hardly any one thing on a well-regulated farm so much needed as a cistern near the kitchen door, so the farmer's wife will have to go but a little distance for water, and no man knows how much is used in a farmer's kitchen, unless he carries it for his wife for six months or a year, and if he has to carry it a hundred yards or so from the spring, he will wonder what in the world his wife does with so much water. The cistern should be a large one and hold not less than 200 barrels, and well built, that is, walled up with brick and scientifically plastered. All of the pipes from the roof should lead into one hopper, and one pipe leading from the bottom of the hopper (under ground is the best) into the cistern. In the bottom of the hopper should be fitted a piece of woven wire, which can be readily taken out and put in again; the meshes of the wire should not be larger than one-eighth of an inch. This piece of woven wire should never be in its place except when water is running into the cistern, when it will serve as a strainer to keep leaves or trash of any kind from running into the cistern. A waste-water pipe should be attached to the down pipe (all of the down pipes should lead into one) which leads into the hopper, to waste all the water that comes from the roof until the water is perfectly clear and free from leaves or trash of any kind; then the waste-water pipe should be taken off and a pipe of proper length slipped onto the down pipe conducting the water, pure and clean, into the hopper. But before letting the water into the hopper, the piece of woven wire should be put in its place in the bottom of the hopper, and after the rain is over it should be taken out and hung up in a dry place until wanted again, and the waste-water pipe put on. If the piece of woven wire is left in the hopper the meshes will get filled up, and the hopper will fill with leaves and trash of all kinds and run over, and no water get into the cistern--and if it