266 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
[July, 
A Kansas Corn House. 
We are indebted to W. S. Wadsworth, of Frank¬ 
lin Co., Kansas, for sketches and a description of 
one of those large com houses now quite frequently 
found in the great corn-growing West. Figure 1 
shows a side view of the crib, with the end or front 
in side section. The crib is 112 feet long, by 28 
the ridge-pole, as may be seen in fig. 1, a portion of 
the roof being omitted for the purpose of showing it. 
This belt may be shortened at any time when the 
rear of the house becomes filled. A simple sliding 
“ shoot ” is used at the further end of the belt, for 
the purpose of turning the corn to one side or the 
other of the house, thus making the distribution of 
the grain an easy matter. Figure 8 shows a cross 
the ventilation. The double water-tank is capable 
of holding some seven pails of water, and this 
mass of water changes in temperature quite slowly, 
so that after a little experience, the lamps may be 
so regulated, that the fluctuations of temperature 
are not very great. The most abundant ventilation 
is provided. This is superfluous in cold weather, 
but very important in warm, as the products of 
combustion, when the lamp is turned down very 
low, are without doubt deleterious to the eggs, or 
rather the chicks within them. My own days being 
largely spent away from home, the Incubator was 
left to the care of a lad of 11 years, who did very 
well, but could not be expected to take note of all 
the changes of temperature, and raise or lower the 
flame accordingly. We have had some fair hatches, 
and the young birds have proved exceedingly hardy 
and healthy, quite so much so as any we ever 
raised. A very small percentage were weakly, and 
since what may be termed the casualties of the 
nest, we have had no deaths by disease, and but 
one or two by accident. A hawk took one, one 
was chilled in the dewy grass of a cold morning, 
another was killed by a cross hen, and that is about 
all. We have used what is called 
A Hydro-Mother, 
which is a brooding box with a water-tank, having 
a screwed top opening, and which will hold 10 
quarts of water. We fill it with boiling water, and 
the chicks nestle under it, having a few folds of 
flannel between it and their backs. In cold spring 
weather, the tank was filled morning and evening, 
in moderate weather, in the evening only, and as 
soon as the chicks began to take care of themselves 
—except on very cold nights—they were left to 
keep one another warm. When a fresh hatch was 
added, as a rule, the tank was heated once or twice. 
This of course in dry spring weather. On cold 
rainy days, we warmed the tank. I think this sys¬ 
tem is, on the whole, better than heating by a lamp. 
The “ Mother ” we use, will hold about 50 chicks, 
one or two weeks old. We have adopted the prac¬ 
tice of excluding the older ones, by putting wire 
net of two inch mesh before the door. This forces 
the big ones to put up with an old fashioned hen 
coop standing closely, except on very cold nights, 
when we want them inside for extra warmth for the 
young chicks, and they are allowed to pass within. 
A pair of little wheels were placed under the rear 
end of the brooding box, and so it is moved about. 
The chicks thus become accustomed to associate 
their domicile with no particular locality, which 
will enable us, as the season progresses, to move 
them up and associate them with the other fowls. 
This is the story of our own chicken raising this 
season. We have kept in the brooder about forty 
chicks at a time. None have been trodden to death 
by the hens. None have been killed by taking ref¬ 
uge in the wrong coop. None have been troubled 
with lice or other parasites of any kind. Gapes has 
been unknown, and of course they have been 
thriftier and happier than any similar lot of chick¬ 
ens we have ever raised. 
Good Luck with Incubators. 
I alluded to the fact that some of my neighbors 
were trying incubators in a small way. They have 
had better luck than I. Their incubators had self¬ 
regulating attachments, and as a consequence there 
was less watchfulness required to keep the tem¬ 
perature right. They have hatched forty to sixty 
per cent of the eggs—that is, of the fertile eggs. 
The story has often been told how plainly 
The Chick can be Seen in the Egg:, 
but unless a person makes a study of it and ex¬ 
amines egg after egg, time after time, with care and 
a good strong light, very little idea can be had. 
Pictures of the appearances would only mislead, 
for the same egg looks differently as it is turned 
and as the motions within it are more or less active. 
Of course all the observations are like watching the 
movements of vessels in a fog, but yet are quite 
clear when the observer knows what to look for. 
It would be worth while for any one to break an 
egg a day for the first two weeks, for up to nearly 
that time the examination of the eggs before the 
lamp will be of use. After that no illumination 
will give much idea of the continued development. 
feet wide, and has a capacity of many thousand 
bushels (18,000). The iffethod of storing away 
corn iu a large house like this, is an interesting 
feature. It is done by horse power, w'hich operates 
a large belt elevator. On the right of the entrance 
or floor, of the house, the elevator is seen running 
from A to B. This is a strong endless belt of 
leather, which passes over a pulley above and be¬ 
low, and has a series of “ buckets ” attached to its 
outer surface. The “ buckets ” or cups are about 
two feet apart. The pullgy A, is connected with 
one above the letter D, and this is turned by a 
tarred rope, which connects it with the large wooden 
wheel, 5 feet in diameter, at the top of the turn- 
post, to which the horse is attached. Thus by a 
proper construction of the pulleys, a sufficiently 
rapid motion of the elevator-belt is obtained from 
the ordinary gait of the horse on the “power.” 
The corn is fed to the elevator-cups through a 
hopper below the floor; shown only in cross sec¬ 
tion in fig. 1. The wagon is driven in upon the 
floor, which is provided with a “ Dump.” A trap¬ 
door, 2i by 3 feet is opened at the rear of the loaded 
wagon, at the same time the floor is so arranged, 
that the whole wagon tips back, as shown in side 
view in figure 2, and the end board of the wagon 
box being removed, the corn slides into the large 
hopper below. It is not necessary to have the 
whole floor arranged to tip, but simply two narrow 
sills upon which the wheels must be placed. Mr. 
W.’s floor is so arranged, and this leaves the central 
portion of the floor stationary, except the trap¬ 
Fig. 2.—END VIEW OF MAIN PART. 
door and movable sills. The com, after it is carried 
from the hopper at B, to the top of the pulley A, 
vtfhere the cups are inverted, is thrown upon a long 
smooth horizontal belt, which is run by a cord con¬ 
necting A, with the belt pulley at A 1 , a short distance 
below it. This horizontal belt runs the whole length 
of the storing portion of the house, and iust below 
section of the storing room, and gives an idea of 
the way the sides of the house are braced, by means 
of ordinary boards, nailed to the sides of the beams 
which run from the ground to the roof. “The 
crib stands on posts cut 26 inches long, and set in 
Fig. 3.—CROSS SECTION OF STORE HOUSE. 
the ground about one foot, and the ground is so 
raised that no water will run under the same.” 
Among the Farmers.— No. 54. 
BT ONE OF THEM. 
It is not very long ago that our agricultural pa¬ 
pers were printing with quotation marks, and 
clearly expressed “credit,”—as if the authors 
should be held responsible for their own Mun- 
chausenisms—tales of how Chinese and Egyptian 
poultry raisers hatched chickens in ovens, or heated 
rooms, or even in manure heaps. Their readers 
accepted the tales with grains of allowance, suppos¬ 
ing that some truth must lie at the bottom. The 
times have changed. Now, 
Artificial Incubation 
is established as an economical system, and before 
long—1 hazard the prediction—more eggs will be 
hatched by kerosene than under hens. Perhaps I 
live in rather an incubative neighborhood, but iu 
all probability, we are neither more progressive, 
nor more experimentally inclined, than many others. 
There is indeed one monster establishment, which 
I am ashamed to say I have not visited for many 
months, where the weekly hatch altogether by arti¬ 
ficial heat, amounts to several thousands, where the 
eggs are collected from the surrounding country 
by wagon loads, and received by express from 
hundreds of miles away. This, though It may be, 
or may not be very successful as a business enter¬ 
prise, is necessarily what common farmer folk can 
not imitate. It demonstrates, if demonstration be 
needed, the practicability of egg-hatehing artifi¬ 
cially. I have been interested in a more difficult 
problem, namely : Is artificial incubation profitable 
on a small scale ? That I have not yet determined, 
yet hope what I write may add to the stock of 
general knowledge on this important question. 
I have an Incubator for 100 eggs, without any 
automatic means of either regulating the flame, or 
