1875 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
139 
A Cheap and Handy Feed Cooker. 
I c 
A few years ago the writer, when in Kentucky, 
6aw a method of cooking corn in the ear, and other 
feed for hogs, which may be used by farmers who 
have not the means to buy any of the more econom¬ 
ical but more costly kinds of cooking apparatus. 
It is built on the ground, of stone or brick, or 
where these cannot be obtained, as out on some of 
the new prairies, a pit may be dug in the ground for 
the purpose. The furnace may be 6ix or more feet 
long, three feet wide, and 
two feet or 18 inches high. 
A feeding door for fuel, (a 
fig. 1), is made at one end, 
and a chimney or stove pipe, 
(c fig. 1), is built at the other 
end. About one-third of the 
distance from the door a 
wall, (6), is built across the 
furnace to within six inches 
of the bottom of the boiler. 
This is to throw the fire up 
to the boiler, thus economiz¬ 
ing the heat and saving fuel. 
The boiler is placed upon 
the fire pit. It consists of 
a piece of sheet iron 3 inches 
larger every way than the in¬ 
tended size of the boiler. A 
box frame of plank 2 inches 
b 
CL 
Fig. 1. GROUND PLAN. 
thick and 8 inches wide, is made and set upon 
the sheet iron. The edges of the iron are turned 
up around the sides and ends of the frame, and 
nailed closely with broad-headed nails, so as to be 
water-tight. The furnace, if built of brick or stone, 
is then banked up on three sides with earth, by 
which it is made tight, and the heat is retained. 
Five or six dollars will be about all the outlay, as 
the wall may be built up dry or laid in tempered 
clay and renewed at each feeding season. Brush¬ 
wood, chips, weeds, corn cobs, or even ropes of 
coarse prairie-hay may be used as fuel, and but lit- 
Fig. 2.— FEED COOKER. 
tie fuel is required if the pit is made tight and 
built with the cross wall. A boiler of this descrip¬ 
tion may be made to last several years if it is taken 
up and stored in a dry place when not in use. 
Reclaiming Peat Swamps and Wet 
Prairie. 
A subscriber in Illinois, not far from Chicago, 
has a wet section of prairie upon his hands, and as 
a largie number have similar lands, that they wish 
to reclaim, we give the case to our readers. He 
says: “ The question is, what are we to do with 
our hundreds of acres of low, marshy, peat land ? 
It is a matter of experiment with all of us so far, 
and within the last three years, they have become 
so dry that the most of them would bear up a team 
without drainage. Scarifying the surface and sow¬ 
ing with grass seed does not seem to answer. I 
have 120 acres of this peat land, in which I can find 
no bottom. It seems to be a sort of vegetable 
matter partially decayed. I have deepened the 
outlet about four feet, and cut large open ditches 
about six feet wide and three deep. After drain¬ 
ing last fall, I plowed about sixty acres, and this is 
Chicken Coops Made from Barrels. 
Very good Chicken Coops may be made of old 
flour or fruit barrels. One way in which they may 
be made, is by removing the hoops from one end p 
Fig. 1.— A new tore dairt barn. —(Seepage 140.) 
as far as I have got. Have I sunk the water low 
enough or too low to raise a crop ? Then, if I plant 
my crop in this light soil, what will become of my 
potatoes when the surface becomes so dry that the 
wind will blow it away ? How dry will this soil 
get ? Last season when the grass grew it dried 
down two feet or more.” 
There are large tracks of land of this character in 
the prairie regions that have attracted little atten¬ 
tion thus far, because there have been unlimited 
quantities of cheap uplands all around them, all 
ready for the plow. It would not pay to drain 
such lands at a cost of forty dollars an acre, while 
adjoining dry prairie could be bought for ten to 
twenty dollars an acre. But as the population has 
increased, and farms have risen in value to fifty 
and a hundred dollars an acre, the possibility of 
reclaiming these wet places has attracted attention. 
They are as rich as the adjoining lands, and proba¬ 
bly richer, if they can be drained and made solid 
enough to bear up teams. Our subscriber lives 
near good markets, and the land is appreciating in 
value. The time has probably come when it will 
pay him to drain his land thoroughly, and cultivate 
it in the ordinary crops of the farm. The question 
is one of drainage, which he can easily decide for 
himself. The land now is without value. If he 
can drain it for forty dollars an acre, and make it 
pay the interest on twice that sum, he has a good 
job, and can afford to use capital freely in ditches 
and drain tile. The surface draining is better than 
nothing, but only a partial success can be gained 
with this. The proper thing to be done is to have 
the whole bog thoroughly drained with tile. This 
would cost, in the older states, near a tile factory, 
about forty dollars an acre. The outlet, if possi¬ 
ble, should be at least five feet deep, the main 
drains four, and the cross drains at least three in 
the shOalest places in the center of the plats where 
they commence. As the water is drained off, the 
surface of the swamp will grow compact and find a 
lower level. Allowance must be made for this 
sinking in laying the tile. Drainage will increase 
the moisture of the land in summer, and cultiva¬ 
tion, with the use of the roller, will help to make it 
more compact. Chicago probably contains the 
draining material, and the engineers, who can tell 
him what the job would cost. He will find works 
op drainage in our list of Agricultural Books. 
and putting them inside, in such a maimer that the 
staves are forced apart on one side, as shown in fig. 
1. The barrel is set on the ground, with the opened 
staves downward. On the other side of the barrel 
the staves should be kept close together as a pro¬ 
tection both against the weather and vermin. An¬ 
other way is to cut through each alternate stave, m 
lines, about 3 inches from each other. The halves 
Fig. 2. —COOP, BY SAWING OUT STAVES. 
of the barrels then taken apart, and set bottom up¬ 
wards, make very good coops as shown at fig. 2. If 
a piece of leather is fastened upon the top of one 
of these coops, so as to form a handle, it may¬ 
be lifted and moved to fresh ground very readily-. 
