What did I find on the farm?

   / What did I find on the farm? #52  
Jstpssng said:
What amazes me is how those old dug wells are shaped; small at the top, but they often get wider as they go down. I have to wonder how many cave ins there were as they were being dug and rocked up.
Click to expand...
When you had dug a well, good technique was to start reinforcing as you went down. That means that you build up the well walls and then start digging. The weight of the walls will push the walls down as you dig, so you have to stop occasionally and build the well walls higher. Then you go back to digging, the walls drop, and you repeat the process. E.g. This video (sorry, but the owner doesn't allow it to display elsewhere;
I think it is worth heading over to YouTube for this one.
Watch the brickwork and you can see how they use the bricks in compression to maximize the strength.

The no old bold pilot rule applies. You can dig a well without reinforcement, but you aren't likely to build many wells. Some wood lined wells were lined as the well was dug, but the wells didn't last very long unless the owners had access to rot resistant wood, like cypress.

Lots of YouTube videos these days, and the more common method now is to use reinforced concrete rings (sewer pipe) and hand dig from the inside, or use an excavator and drop the pipes into the excavated mush, which only works for shallow wells. E.g.

I think it is almost one of those magic moments. You start with a patch of earth and you end up with a water well.

All the best,

Peter
 
   / What did I find on the farm? #53  
I was walking one of the fence rows and came across this, a plow share from a walking plow, late 1800s. One bottom, that's a lot of ground to cover. Kind of glad I live when I do. There are also parts and pcs in the sheds that I had no idea what they were for. I do now. We have a hand dug well on the property, as well as the hand pump still outside, and the hand pump that used to be in the kitchen. Hard life. The pumps were made by Baker Mfg Evansville Wi, same Company that still makes pumps for county state and federal parks. I visited a federal wildlife area miles into the mountains near Choteau Mt., and sure enough there was a Baker pump.
 

Attachments

  • 12.jpg
    12.jpg
    594.8 KB · Views: 42
  • 13.jpg
    13.jpg
    167 KB · Views: 43
  • 14.jpg
    14.jpg
    1 MB · Views: 44
   / What did I find on the farm?
  • Thread Starter
#54  
Took a walk with my wife last night. Talking about where we are planning to put some livestock. As we were walking down to an area that I did some cutting, I saw glass. The heavy rains had cleaned one side of the bottle so I dug it out with the toe of my boot, expecting to find a broken liquor bottle. Ended up with this. No chips or cracks. It’s a C.I. Hood sarsaparilla bottle. According to internet resources, it is at least 100 years old. Which begs the question, where did it come from? While building the orchard, we found multiple bags of trash from the 1960’s. Nothing this old. Before we had any land cleared, I was walking thru the woods and found two rectangle shaped holes in the ground, next to each other. No bricks kr rocks so I figured either a very old house or barn site. Once the land was cleared, I couldn’t find it again. Never got a chance to run a metal detector over it. I guess the land has lots of secrets.
IMG_1387.jpg



It was in such good shape that I thought it was modern production in an old style.
Here are some examples of the bottles from that company.
IMG_1386.png
 
   / What did I find on the farm? #56  
WoodChuckDad said:
Took a walk with my wife last night. Talking about where we are planning to put some livestock. As we were walking down to an area that I did some cutting, I saw glass. The heavy rains had cleaned one side of the bottle so I dug it out with the toe of my boot, expecting to find a broken liquor bottle. Ended up with this. No chips or cracks. It’s a C.I. Hood sarsaparilla bottle. According to internet resources, it is at least 100 years old. Which begs the question, where did it come from? While building the orchard, we found multiple bags of trash from the 1960’s. Nothing this old. Before we had any land cleared, I was walking thru the woods and found two rectangle shaped holes in the ground, next to each other. No bricks kr rocks so I figured either a very old house or barn site. Once the land was cleared, I couldn’t find it again. Never got a chance to run a metal detector over it. I guess the land has lots of secrets.
View attachment 856919


It was in such good shape that I thought it was modern production in an old style.
Here are some examples of the bottles from that company.
View attachment 856920
Click to expand...
Great find and nice presentation. It's really nice when you start digging and expect to find it broken,But it's all in one piece after all these years!
 
   / What did I find on the farm? #57  
Amazing what one can find on their land
 
   / What did I find on the farm? #59  
   / What did I find on the farm? #60  
We found a lot of blue glass beer bottles next to my uncles house in MA.
Unfortunately they were all the rejects from a small glass bottle maker.
Still sorry I didn't keep a few.
There was a maple house there too, the stone vat was still mostly in one piece, but the rest was gone.
I still have an early 1900's pocket knife I found in his field and cleaned up a bit.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
 

Footer Links 1

Top