403 
Farm Machinery Stored in Snow 
T HE Hope Farm man tells us of the farm tools 
stored under the snow through a certain section 
of New York State where he was traveling. This 
seems to be a common practice in this section, as 
shown by the enclosed snapshots. All of these were 
taken along the State road, and as you will notice 
within sight of the farm homestead. I am just 
wondering what the effect of the snow and ice is on 
the gears of the binder, and just how many years is 
An Example of Depreciating Value. Fig. 178 
taken from the life of the machine by this neglect. 
This is only a sample, as there are dozens of imple¬ 
ments "stored” the same way within a radius of 10 
miles. x. h. t. 
It. X.-Y.—We have attempted to make a ’’census” 
this Winter to see what proportion of farm tools are 
“stored" in this way. The result is astonishing. We 
had no idea of the neglect to which farm machinery 
is subjected until we made a business of investigat¬ 
ing. Millions of dollars will be required this Spring 
to make up for the loss through rust and plain neg¬ 
lect. It is little short of an economic crime to let 
expensive machinery go in any such way. It seems 
to us worse than a political crime to waste our sub¬ 
stance in this way. and then blame trusts and 
monopolies for all our troubles. “We must do it 
ourselves!" Let us take care of our own machines 
before we blame it all on the political machine. 
That “Turk-hen” Fowl 
T HE various statements that have appeared from 
time to time about the “turk-hen fowl” prompt 
me to write of one of a similar breed which I knew 
as “Bermuda Naked Necks." About 1912 I was in 
the employ of William S. Mead of Ulster County. 
N. Y. Mr. Mead was quite a fancier in Reds and 
Barred Rocks. While on a trip to Bermuda in 1910 
or 1911 he saw these fowls and brought home with 
him a rooster, and as a curiosity it was certainly 
something out of the ordinary in the chicken line. 
This rooster was exhibited at Kingston. New Pa It/, 
and Poughkeepsie, and naturally, being in a class 
by itself, was awarded some sort of a special prize. 
This is according to my memory of what Mr. Mead 
told me of the fowl when my curiosity ifrompted me 
to ask. 
This rooster was mated to both Barred Rocks and 
Reds, and as a head of a breeding pen there was no 
better. Finally after.three or four years the old 
fellow was on his last legs, and I killed him. after 
which all his progeny were used on the table. 
During the Winter poultry course at Cornell Uni¬ 
versity, iu 1915-16, at the students’ poultry show. I 
saw some similar birds exhibited. These, I believe, 
were from Penn Yan, N. Y.; that is, if I remember 
correctly. A few days ago the thought struck me 
that I had a picture or a negative of the picture I 
had taken of the rooster about 10 years ago. and 
after considerable search l discovered it. so I am 
enclosing it for your use. While I cannot say any¬ 
thing about its history or where it originated. I 
thought perhaps that you might be interested in this 
information. tiiomas g. hexry. 
Naked Neck Birds in Jamaica 
HAVE a letter from one Z. T. Spencer of Cali¬ 
fornia, wherein he claims that he has developed 
a new breed of fowl—a cross between a Red hen 
and a White Holland gobbler turkey, for which he 
has copyrighted the name “Spencer Turken.” He 
further writes: “Since these new fowls have been 
advertised a traveler who visited Kingston. Jamaica, 
two years ago. tells me that the same cross was made 
in your island some years ago, and that they are 
called in Kingston ’turkey chickens’ or ’turkey liens.' 
are very common there and are considered very good 
fowls." lie asks for dlie facts concerning this. 
We wrote him a history of the Naked Neck or 
Peel Neck fowl, and he writes back asking where 
they got the naked neck—which seems very peculiar 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
for a man who claims to have invented the breed, 
or a duplicate of the breed. I wrote him that these 
fowls had nothing to do with turkeys whatever; 
that they originally came from Herzegovina, in 
Austria, where they were common fowls; in fact, in 
the British Museum, in London, there are specimens 
of this breed—as there are of all breeds—with a 
card marked as follows: “Presented by the Min¬ 
ister of Agriculture in Herzegovina.” There are 
large numbers of fowls with the bare neck charac¬ 
teristic here, but they are all the progeny of a pair 
that was brought here, so that what we have here 
now are crosses of many generations, but the bare 
neck is prepotent, like the poll head in cows. The 
cross between a turkey and a common hen—which 
would be a very rare cross indeed—would result in 
a “mule,” and “mules" do not breed. 
JOH.\ BARCLAY, 
Jamaica Agricultural Society. Secretary. 
Testing Samples of Muck 
1 HAVE been reading with considerable interest 
the articles on “Muck and How to Use It.” on 
pages 148 and 194. especially as it called to mind a 
knoll enclosed swamp of from one to two acres that 
was covered with a growth of low bushes and some 
of taller kinds, such as “choke-berry," willow and 
an occasional maple. This swamp was twice ditched 
but in neither case sufficiently deep to drain it pro¬ 
perly. Parts of it had been partially cleared of 
brush and low cranberries set out. The fruit of 
these cranberry plants was quite large and of good 
quality, but the second ditching lowered the dry 
season water level so much that it was impossible to 
flood the field of cranbe'rries. More recently my 
brother (now its owner) allowed a creamery com¬ 
pany to use it as a disposal field for the refuse whey, 
etc., from the creamery, and the result was that the 
acids or other fluids entering the swamp killed out 
nearly the whole of the brush, especially the larger 
growths. The depth of the muck varies from a 
few inches along one bank to the depth of about 
a hand rake in some parts. The point of in¬ 
terest just now to me is regarding the value of this 
muck at present as a fertilizer on account of the 
saturation of same from creamery fluids. We know 
that along the line of the tiles to the pond or swamp 
wherever there was a leak the grass of whatever 
kind grew very luxuriantly as far as the leakage 
spread about. I may be wrong in my conclusions, 
but I think that the bulk of the muck in that swamp 
has already been put into a condition to become at 
once a very active fertilizer. d. s. j. 
New York. 
R. N.-Y.—In such cases our plan would be to “ask 
the muck." Take out fair samples here and there 
and fill flower pots or boxes with them. Keep them 
in a warm room, water reasonably and plant seeds 
of such crops as corn, wheat, buckwheat, grass, etc. 
Observe the growth. In some of the pots use small 
quantities of lime with the muck. The way these 
seeds sprout and grow will tell you quite clearly 
whether the muck is tit for seeding or not. You will 
probably find that it needs lime. 
New Method of Hog Killing 
T HE other day I saw a method of killing and 
dressing hogs that was new to me. My neigh¬ 
bor keeps two hogs, and each year at killing season 
she has had a time to get them killed. She has al¬ 
ways had to secure two men in order to catch the 
pigs, throw them and hold them while the sticking 
process was going on, and then to furnish muscular 
power to scald and dress the carcasses properly, 
which always weigh about 250 lbs. apiece. It meant 
a full half day’s work, with a dinner to provide for 
two men. Several pails of water, boiling, had to be 
provided and kept at boiling point in order that the 
barrel in which the pork was scalded might be kept 
sufficiently full to cover and scald the pigs. It was 
slow, laborious and dirty work. This season she had 
a new man on the job. 
This man, a neighbor of mine—an Austrian, I 
think—told the owner of the swine that when she 
•was ready to kill he would come and do it. When 
the owner asked how much help she should get the 
man answered, “No one; I can do it all.” When she 
asked “How much boiling water?” he answered, 
“Three or four pails will be enough." I was inter¬ 
ested and went to see how he proceeded. When he 
came, he had in his sleigh an old tin bathtub, which 
he proceeded to unload near the site of the proposed 
killing. Then he asked, “Where are the pigs?’’ On 
being shown, he slowly drove one up to near the 
bathtub and then reached quietly down and grasped 
the pig by the foreleg. Before the pig seemed to 
realize that he was caught the man had stuck him. 
This was done while the pig was standing by shov¬ 
ing a slim knife right in the side of the face, between 
the jaw and the ear. The sticking was so quickly 
done that the pig seemed to not be frightened and 
did not struggle at all. as is always done when an 
attempt at throwing is made. The sticking was 
what butchers would call “perfect” and a thorough 
drainage took place. At once the man called for 
boiling water, which he threw into the bathtub, put¬ 
ting in about three inches of water. Then he laid 
down two shor> pieces of half-inch rope across the 
top of the tub. letting them sag down in the tub a 
little, picked up the pig and placed him in the tub so 
that he rested on these ropes. Then, standing over 
the tub, with a foot on each side, he grasped the ends 
of the rope and gently rolled the pig back and forth 
in the shallow water of the tub. When one part of 
the pig was sufficiently scalded, he unhooked the 
ends of the ropes on one side of the tub. and grasping 
the other two ends, easily rolled the pig out on a 
plank placed alongside the tub. There was no strain, 
ing, no heavy lifting, and in a little while the pig 
was clean and ready to be hung up for removal of 
the interior. The man knew his business all right. 
When I said to him. "I never saw that method be¬ 
fore.” he smiled and said: “That is the way all pig 
killing is done in my country, only there we do not 
use a tub. The women, who do all the killing, dig a 
trench iu a clayey soil and puddle it to make it hold 
the hot water, then drive the pig alongside and 
slaughter it and roll the carcass in the trench.” 
Within three hours from the time the man appeared 
be had killed and dressed two hogs weighing over 
200 lbs. each, and had picked up his tools and de¬ 
parted. c. o. warford. 
Drainage from Septic Tanks 
I have read many of the descriptions of septic tanks 
for receiving the wastes from the house. As I under¬ 
stand it. the flow from such tanks runs off into pipes 
or tile arranged somewhat like a system of sub-irriga¬ 
tion—that is. running off underground, where the water 
is finally seeped out into the soil. Will not such a 
system clog in Winter through freezing of the soil or 
the pipes? The Winters are cold here, and the soil 
freezes deep. What is the experience of those who have 
used this system in New England? j. L. 
Western Massachusetts. 
W E do not have any trouble with sub-surface 
irrigation due to freezing of the soil in which 
the absorption tile are laid. This trouble might 
occur if the sewage did not contain quite a lot of 
warm water, but in the average household there is 
enough warm water going through the sewer to 
prevent any trouble in the absorption line. I have 
in miud one case where the liquid in the tile froze 
Rough Treatment for the Binder. Fig. 180 
up, but this was entirely due to carelessness on the 
part of the owner. The absorption tiles were put 
in late in the Fall, oil a western exposure, and were 
covered with chunks of frozen earth rather hur¬ 
riedly, and consequently they did not receive the 
usual protection. With ordinary care in back-filling 
the trenches there should be no trouble whatever 
from freezing in our latitude, or in the latitude of 
West Springfield, Mass. j.c. mccurdy. 
