448 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
March 25, 1922 
CATKINS 
SAVS' 
"" riPM 
Simple Science 
By Dr. F. D. Crane 
Growth of Stones; Ripe Hay 
Do stones grow? When should hay be 
cut for most nourishment for stock? 
Oallieuoii, N. Y. j.m. l. 
Some do and some don’t. The ordinary 
field stone probably loses a little, very 
little, indeed, however, from sun, frost, 
and rain. The sun, by warming the stone, 
opens minute cracks, and the rain gets 
in and Ihe frost expands them farther 
Rut some stones, bog iron ones, for in 
stance, keep picking up a little more sandy 
iron if the conditions are favorable Many 
stones seem to grow because the frost 
heaveg them a little, and the ram washes 
the earth away, and so they stick out a 
little farther each year. Rut there are 
plenty of places where clay and sand are 
slowly turning in the harder state which 
we may call stone. 
Your second Question cannot be an¬ 
swered on paper, because it is >nlv 
learned by experience. It is a part of 
the trade of farming which must be 
learned by observation front year to year. 
There are a few days when hay is “ripe,” 
just as there is a day when an ear of 
corn is just right for roasting. Rut you 
cannot tell on paper just when to pick 
a peach or a melon, or when to cut hay. 
. However, there is nearly always a heavy 
Copper Weather Vane and Lightning shower that same afternoon. 
I have made a weather vane of copper 
and iron and want to know if it will draw 
lightning on a 25-ft. building. ,T. R. 
Torresdnle, Pa. 
Xo one can tell, but it is by far the 
wisest plan to ground anything of the 
sort. Make a good soldered joint between 
the base of the vane and the cable, and 
put the other end at least 2 ft under 
ground. 
Crack Filler 
ITow are crack-filling preparations 
made? w. d. t. 
New York, X. Y. 
The good ones, and the best will shrink 
a little, since there has to be a volatile 
constituent, are very fine sawdust or 
wood flour made into a paste with a 
quick-drying oil. The less oil. the small¬ 
er the shrinkage and the harder to apply. 
A little color, ochre perhaps, is added to 
match the wood before using. The home¬ 
made ones are usually paper pulp and 
glue. 
||m || Buy Cross-Cut 
Get the cross-cut saw that 
- will % we the lon £ est service 
with the greatest satisfaction. 
—ask for an Atkins. 
ns Saws are made to Steel and other exclusive feat- 
iter and easier—to hold ures give them an unsurpas- 
dge longer—to give you sed value. 
eatest savings in time And there are other Atkins 
bor. A poor saw costs Saws for every use—circular 
ore money than a good saws, hand saws, hack saws, 
Get Atkins value. docking saws, pruning saws, 
erever cross-cut saws etc * 
ied, Atkins Silver Steel Ask your dealer to show 
lent Ground” Cross-Cut you some of the saws of the 
are acknowledged to be Atkins line. If he does not 
:aders. The segment sell them, write us, it will 
lg, the Atkins Silver pay you. 
Sent to You—FREE 
: on Saws and Their Care 
Cleaning Paint from Tank 
Can an oil tank of iron, which appears 
to have been recently used for roof paint, 
be cleaned so as to use it for oil or gaso¬ 
line? A. ,T. C. 
Doylestown, O. 
It. can certainly be cleaned, but it is 
unlikely that it will pay to do it, un¬ 
less you put a very low value on your 
time. First, find if any solvent—kero¬ 
sene. for instance wi’l dissolve the stuff, 
and 1 lien use that solvent till the tank is 
clear. 
Tinning or Galvanizing Iron 
What is the process of tinning or gal¬ 
vanizing east iron and iron pipe? 
CohoCtofl, X. Y. V. A. W. 
The name “galvanizing” has stuck from 
the days when it was supposed to be elec¬ 
trical. bur it is no more electrical than 
anything else is. Roth processes depend 
on the fact that melted zinc or tin will 
wet clean, hot, iron, just as water wet3 
your hand. If you have dust, flour, for 
instance, on your hand, water will not 
easily wet it. and so scale or dirt must be 
taken from the iron. This is done by 
washing and acid. The clean iron is then 
dipped in melted zinc for galvanizing, or 
tin for tinning, and withdrawn, with a 
skin of metal, which cools at once, cling¬ 
ing to it. That is the general principle; 
the details are a trade, and it cannot be 
done on a small scale. 
Wood Alcohol from Juniper 
I have any amount of juniper which I 
have to Cut and burn to keep the pas¬ 
ture clear. Could wood alcohol be made 
from it? R, C. S. 
The chief product would he tar, with 
very little if any wood alcohol, since 
that is obtained in good yield only from 
the “hard woods.” and the process pays 
only on the large scale. We fear there 
is no use for your shrubbery, hut if any¬ 
one knows of one we would be glad to 
bear about it. Better consider it a 
We've just printed a new book that contains all 
kinds of useful information and tables, also handy 
suggestions as well as descriptions of the complete It 
line of Atkins Saws. Fill in your name, address 
and what you use saws for, and we’ll send you a t I 
copy by return mail. Write at once as the books 
are going fast. Use the coupon below—NOW! 
E. C. ATKINS & CO., Inc., Dept. L, Indianapolis, Ind. 
Please send me your FREE book, “ The Saw on the Farm 
(Name)... (Use). ... 
Gilding Frames 
How can I regild picture frames? I 
have tried varnish and gold powder, but 
they look well for only a short time. 
New York. r. h. n. 
We do not 111 ink that you ran. Gilding 
is an art and a trade, and quite a trick, 
too. and your treatment with varnish and 
gold powder, which is a sort of brass, has 
probably put them out of the game for 
.is. A professional will begin bv clean¬ 
ing off everything, resurfacing, sizing, and 
laying on gold leaf, hut this is not a form 
of indoor sport that we can recommend 
to the amateur. Tf there are any gilders 
among our renders who want to tell you 
how. we will be glad to hear from them: 
but if they are really good gilders, we 
think they will tell you to begin with a 
two years’ apprenticeship in a gilding 
Wood Painted to Imitate Stone 
How is wood painted to imitate brown 
stone? j. E. K. 
By using a thick and rather sticky 
brown paint and throwing a lot of fine, 
clean sand on it just as it is put on. 
Your trouble will begin when you start 
to take olY the old paint, which must be keep: 
The farmer’s . 
best friends | 
When there’s wheat 
to be harvested, when 
there’s hay to cut, 
when oats are ripe, and 
corn and potatoes must 
be cultivated, Planet 
Jr. cultivators are the 
farmer’s best friends. 
Planet Jr. cultivators 
are scientifically de¬ 
signed to work fast and 
clean with minimum 
effort. Time saved 
cultivating is labor and 
money saved. Planet 
Jr. saves them all. 
will thaw a Rj-in. water pipe frozen un¬ 
der ground? Could it be thawed with a 
32-volt lighting plant? w. n. 
There is none. You will have to wait 
till the violets bloom and then dig it lip 
and relay it a foot deeper. They have 
thawed pipes with electricity, but it is 
too large a job for your plant. 
No. 8 Planet Jr. Horae Hoe and Cultivator is 
one of the most useful, popular horse hoes wc 
make. Its extra length and stiff construction 
give it steadiness. Works quick and close, 
saying hand work. Adjustable to all widths. 
Hills or throws from the row. Has solid, 
non-clogging depth wheel with lever. 
S. L. ALLEN & CO., Inc. 
Dept. 38 
5th and Glenwood Ave., Philadelphia 
How can I make soap at home to sell? 
Xew York. E. T. r. 
Making soap in neat cakes, slightly 
tinted, and perfumed acceptably, is not 
an attractive home industry. The rensnn 
is that io produce a competitive article 
you would need considerable mechanical 
aid. machines which would require quite 
a little power to run them, and rather 
large kettles, with steam beat, to get uni¬ 
form batches. The final form is given 
the cakes by powerful presses, and the 
good perfume, which is injured by heat¬ 
ing. is added when the mass of soap is 
cooling down and is far too stiff to stir 
by hand. However, if you think that 
“homemade” will cover a multitude of 
omissions, here is a recipe from n well- 
known collection which has been used 
with success on a small scale: 
Dissolve 1 lb. of pure caustic soda in 
five pints of water and let it get cold. 
Warm 714 lbs. of the fat or grease, which 
must he entirely free from salt, till it is 
nicely melted, but not very hot, the exact 
point depending on the sort of fat you 
are using, and so impossible to give in 
figures. Then pour, slowly and with 
good stirring, the lye solution into the 
warm fat. Stir till it blends, hut not too 
hard nor very long after it is blended. 
This is the part that needs a little prac¬ 
tice. Then either leave it alone or pour 
into a box (wet the box first), and leave 
it standing in quite a warm place for a 
day or so, < if course there is no chance 
to - perfume this, as the lye will kill any 
perfume you could add. Rut if you stir 
in. at the last, some oil of spike lavender 
there may he a trace of it left. Of 
course you can re-melt it with great care, 
though you will probably burn it some, 
and add perfume then. The proportions 
given work well, on the average, but run 
a small lot and increase either the caustic 
nr oil as indicated by the results if they 
are found out of bala ice. 
Corrosion of Brass Well Point 
What is the chemical in water that 
causes a brass well point to corrode? 
Hnmmoutnn. X. J. a. b. it. 
It is not possible to say positively, since 
an analysis is not worth while, because 
an analysis couldn’t possibly xt p the 
action: but the chances are that it is 
nothing nioro srrious Mian tniros of iron 
and common salt. These are quite harm¬ 
less to the human system, but there ts a 
slow action between them and the alloy 
of copper arid zinc we call "brass.’ A 
copper nr bronze (copper and tint well 
point will probably last many years. 
Wrile lor complete llluhlrutcd 
Planet Jr. catalog, showing 
seeders, wheel hoes, one- 
horse and riding cultivators. 
Imperfect Freezing 
I have been freezing ice in a bottomless 
box on sawdust, and it works well, except 
one spot, where I emptied some carbide 
sediment some rears ago. Why is Hus'' 
Le routes Mills. Pa. Q. f. b. 
Your plan dcoends on perfect heat in¬ 
sulation from the earth, and it may be 
that the carbide residue makes it a b tier 
conductor; it. is hard to sav. However, 
it will cost nothing to move a few fe;t, 
and you would better try it. 
Permanent, fire-safe, sanitary farm build¬ 
ings of NATCO Hollow lilt art easily 
erected with less time, labor and mortar 
and never need painting or repairs The 
air spaces in the file along with the exclu¬ 
sive double shell construction eliminates 
through mortar joints and keeps in hear 
arid keeps out told and dampness 
IF rue for our n/ui "Sateo on the Farm” 
t ook today. Tells how you can build durable 
NATCO Farm limldiugx whuh are reason¬ 
able in first cost and last for generations 
Filling for Fire Extingui»her. 
I find that a small fire extinguisher pur¬ 
chased some years ago is empty. What 
shall I put in? J H, P. 
Carbon tetrachloride, which your drug¬ 
gist should get you for a few 'vnt* a 
pound (hut you get only about 12 fluid 
ounces to a pound). If the thing is likely 
to get pretty cold during the Winter, add 
an ounce of benzine (not benzene) to the 
pound: this will keep it from getting 
pasty, and will not hurt its fire-extinguish¬ 
ing properties. 
Money Making Farms in Arkansas 
nml other Southern State* for exohnnee. If you 
have any veal estate of any kind for exi-htuiee. write 
at once, givine full description of property. 
JOHN D. BAKER • DeQueen, Arkansas 
NATCO 
DOUBLE 
SHELL 
When you write advertisers mention 
The Rural New- Yorker and you ’ll get 
a quick reply and a "square deal. ’’ See 
guarantee editorial page. 
NATIONAL FIRE- PROOFING • COMPANY 
1Fulton Building :: Pittsburgh. Pa. 
