and concluded that the above statement was 
entirely correct. Scientific men, therefore, 
conclude as the first principle of house drain¬ 
age that water forms the best seal for shutting 
out foul gases. The effort has been, therefore, 
to devise forms of plumbing fixtures that shall 
most readily provide such a seal, and, at the 
same time, offer fewest joints or other places 
where obstructions would be likely to occur. 
The illustrations show a few of the devices 
their study has wrought out. 
Fig. 336 shows the complication of joints and 
pipes used in adjoining rooms on the floor of 
an elegant residence just built in this city. 
Could anything be more complicated or more 
likely to cause obstruction than this bewilder¬ 
ing array of fixtures ? Compare this with the 
modern system shown at Fig. 337. In one 
case we have five pipes and six joints, while 
in the other, there are 17 pipes and 29 joints, 
and yet some plumbers will msist upon using 
the puzzle shown at Fig. 336! In the construc¬ 
tion of wash-basins, there is an equal amount 
of folly shown. Fig. 338 shows the common 
orm with five joints just exactly formed for 
the accumulation of a thick deposit of filthy 
slime. Compare it with the basin shown at 
Fig. 339. 
But the greatest danger comes in the con¬ 
struction of water-closets. Here, it is abso¬ 
lutely necessary that a water-seal should be 
maintained. Speaking of this water-seal, Dr. 
Hoyt, the author of the article in the Popular 
Science Monthly, says: 
First of all, the water-seal must be deep— 
never less than four inches—and this seal must 
be exposed to view for reasons which will 
hereafter be given. Again, there must be a 
considerable depth of standing water in the 
bowl of the closet, to deodorize fecal matter 
and to secure cleanliness. The outlet of the 
bowl must also be completely submerged, to 
prevent its becoming foul and offensive from 
use. The closet should invariably have some 
device for maintaining the water-seal against 
loss from evaporation. 
The traps of water-closets are especially ex¬ 
posed to the danger of losing their seal. This 
happens frequently from the effect of wind 
and other atmospheric disturbances. An 
open fire in an adjoining room, or a ventilator 
near by, may cause this loss of seal from sud¬ 
den draughts of air, and sewer-air frequently 
has free entrance into houses for hours and 
even days at a time when the danger is not 
suspected by the occupants, since the water- 
seal of the trap, in badly-constructed fixtures, 
is wholly concealed from view. 
It will be noticed that the water-closets in 
most common use have a very shallow seal. 
They are all dangerous and should be discard¬ 
ed. The importance of having the water-seal 
fully exposed to view is shown at Fig. 340. 
Here the depth of water is ample, but the 
outlet is removed from view, and the brush 
which has been carried down cannot be seen. 
At Fig. 341 is shown what is termed a siphon 
closet, with deep water-seal. This is supplied 
from a tank above, which produces a quick 
rush of water into the bowl. This fills the 
larger arm of the£siphon, and the weir-cham¬ 
ber below by the overflow through the neck 
or short arm. As soon as this takes place, 
the contents of the bowl are forcibly drawn 
out by siphonic action, and discharged into 
the waste-pipe. At Fig. 342 is shown a trap- 
jet closet, which is considered as simple and 
effective as can be designed. This is fed from 
a tank placed above it. The water-seal is 
deep and perfectly exposed to view, and the 
supply of water is so regulated that a perfect 
equilibrium will always be maintained. 
IS IT BUSINESS TO BIND GRAIN ? 
Mr. Hiram Smith, a noted dairyman of 
Wisconsin, has put himself on record as being 
opposed to the general practice of binding 
grain. This is certainly a unique and start¬ 
ling departure from the generally accepted 
notions of agriculture. With a view to find¬ 
ing out what farmers in other States think of 
this idea, we have sent the main points claimed 
Fig. 338. 
by Mr. Smith to a number of our correspond¬ 
ents. Here are the first answers. Mr. Terry 
gives Mr. Smith’s propositions. 
FROM T. B. TERRY. 
To start with,- allow me to say that I am 
personally acquainted with Mr. Smith. He 
is a grand man, and a grand farmer, and has 
done a grand work for the farmers of Wis¬ 
consin by going ahead and setting them an 
example. No one man in the Northwest has 
done more in this line than my friend Hiram 
Smith. 
Now, when such a man deliberately comes 
forward and says it does not pay him to use a 
binder to cut his oats, barley and rye, I would 
consider myself almost an idiot should I say, 
without a large amount of experience in doing 
the way he does, that he was wrong. He 
grows some 2,000 bushels of small grains a 
year. He always has his book and pencil 
ready to pull out and give one the figures. 
Not one farmer in a thousand knows so well 
what pays and what doesn’t on his own farm 
as this same Hiram Smith. This is not said 
by guess at all. The writer has stood before 
thousands of farmers and asked all w r ho knew 
even so much about their last season’s busi¬ 
ness as to be able to tell, when at home, what 
their gross and net income was, to hold up 
their hands. From one to three went up in 
audiences of from 300 to 800 people ! 
But let us look at some of the points Mr. 
Smith makes in favor of his practice. He 
says : “It takes three horses on a self-binder 
to cut the same grain two horses will cut with 
a self-rake reaper, a loss of one-third of the 
power.” No one can dispute the truth of this, 
as a general rule. The binding apparatus un¬ 
doubtedly uses up fully one-third of the power 
necessary to run a binder. 
“ Bound gram takes three times as long to 
dry out as that left in the gavel.” Well, this 
has been a wet season and thrashers _tell me 
they have much trouble with oats. As a rule, 
the bundles are not dry at all. Both straw 
and grain are more or less musty. Oats cut 
as early as they should be, and bound and 
shocked, could not dry out in such a season, 
as a rule. Before we got binders our farmers 
often cut them and let them lie a day or two 
before binding. This gave a chance for good 
oats and bright straw. This year many oats 
must be at least very unpalatable to the stock, 
if not positively injurious. The stock should 
return a vote of thanks to Hiram Smith. 
Taking this peint by itself, I can fully agree 
with our Wisconsin friend as regards oats and 
rye. About barley 1 know nothing. 
“ It takes double the time to unload bundles 
by hand in the barn that it does to unload 
loose grain with a horse fork” Few will ques¬ 
tion this statement; but we have farmers in 
Ohio who by the use of ropes or “slings”—as 
I think they are called—unload grain in bun¬ 
dles by horse-power. In this way the load of 
bundles could be taken off almost as quickly 
as the load of loose grain. Again, it would 
seem that not as much grain, if even loose, 
could be got on a load as when it is bound, 
and it certainly would take up more room— 
much more—in the barn. Although what 
Mr. S. says on this point is doubtless true, 
there are some other points in the same con¬ 
nection to be thought of by other farmers, 
points which he has not brought out, such as 
this matter of loose grain taking more storage 
room. To Mr. Smith it probably makes no 
difference how much room is taken, as he has 
several large silos and puts his grain in them, 
thus making use of the room for two purposes 
in a year. This is excellent management; but 
many farmers have not got so far along. The 
last sentence perhaps tells the story—Mr. S. 
is away ahead of most of us, and what is the 
best for him may not be the best for the rest 
of us for some time yet. 
“ There is no gain in [thrashing in having 
grain bound.” From my experience in thrash¬ 
ing rakings, I should think Mr. S. must be 
wrong on this point. I have never been able 
to get along nearly as fast on loose grain, and 
the thrashers always growl if there is much 
of it. 
But our friend says :“ Repeated trials last 
week showed that a ten-horse power thrasher 
ran out one and one-half bushel of bai’ley per 
minute from bound grain, and from unbound 
barley from the same field two bushels per 
minute were uniformly thrashed.” When he 
says this, why it settles the question for me. 
It is folly to attempt to argue against cool, 
deliberate facts brought out by such a man as 
Hiram Smith. Readers must bear in mind 
that Mr. S. is a dairy farmer, milking a large 
dairy, and he wants his straw bright and nice 
for his cattle as well as the grain. His prac¬ 
tice is to turn the gavels left by the reaper 
the next day after cutting, and turn them in 
such a way as to leave roads through the field 
for loading the day following. The men pitch 
on to the wagons with barley forks, and Mr. S. 
says the crop is thus put into the barn with 
less labor than when it is bound and put into 
shocks. It would take two good hands to 
shock up after a binder here, and that labor of 
course is saved and makes up to the full, or 
more, the extra amount required to turn the 
gavels and pitch the loose grain instead of 
the more easily handled bundles. 
A word more about loose grain drying more 
quickly than bound bundles : Some of our 
wheat this year was bound up when damp. 
After standing some days it got no drier in 
the middle of the bundles. We opened them 
at last and in an hour they were ready to be 
Fig. 341. 
bound up and drawn in. Even a heavy rain 
on loose gavels would dry out very'qaickly in 
sun and wind so the grain could be turned 
over and got in, when one could do nothing 
with what was in shocks. Rural readers 
will notice that Mr. S. is not speaking of 
wheat, which would, 1 think, take some in¬ 
jury in the gavel for several days in a catch¬ 
ing time. 
FROM PROF. G. E. MORROW. 
In answer to a question concerning the ad¬ 
visability of continuing the practice of bind¬ 
ing grain, I may say I believe the advantages 
of the practice much more than counterbal¬ 
ance the disadvantages for this region. A 
self-binding reaping machine costs more and 
requires more power than does an ordinary 
reaper or a mowing machine. The cost of 
binding twine is considerable. In cutting 
grain not yet ripened or when damp, or when 
there are many weeds mixed with it, there- 
may be some trouble in having the sheaves, 
dry out thoroughly in the center. 
On the other hand, [a well managed self- 
binder will cause less wastage of grain than 
when the grain is handled without binding by 
any system with which I am acquainted; this 
saving fully equaling the cost of the twine, in 
my observation. In practice we have not 
found any serious trouble in having the 
sheaves thoroughly dry. In case of rainy 
weather I would prefer having the grain in 
shocks of well-bound sheaves, rather than in 
unbound sheaves or in piles as raked together. 
The sheaves are more easily loaded on wagons 
and put in stack or barn. In thrashing the 
bound sheaf is decidedly preferable. We have 
recently thrashed about 2,400 bushels of oats 
on the University farms. I gave some per¬ 
sonal help in the work and noticed the annoy¬ 
ance which an occasional unbound sheaf or 
the inevitable “scatterings” gave. If to be 
fed unthrashed—and there are some good rea¬ 
sons for feeding oats in this way—I decidedly 
prefer the bound sheaves, especially if the oats 
are to be run through a feed-cutting machine. 
Much of the oat crop in Central Illinois was 
badly lodged by wind and rain. A consid¬ 
erable percentage of the crop could not be sat¬ 
isfactorily handled by the self-binders and 
was cut with mowing machines. On the Uni¬ 
versity farms we considered ourselves for¬ 
tunate in not having to cut more than two 
acres in this way. I thought these two gave 
us more trouble tban any other five acres. 
Almost universal practice is presumptive 
evidence in favor of binding grain, and I 
know of no branch of farm work concerning 
which I would have less hope of inducing 
farmers generally to change their practice: 
than this. 
University of Illinois. 
THAT “NEW BREED” OF POULTRY. 
FROM J. H. DREVENSTEAD. 
I Have read with considerable interest the 
remarks of the Rural regarding an exper¬ 
iment made by crossing White Dorking hens 
with aWhiteWyandotte cockerel. The attempt 
to produce from such a cross a general-purpose 
fowl will, I hope, prove ultimately successful, 
although judging from the results given by 
the Rural, the ideal is still far off. The re¬ 
sults forcibly illustrate the folly of intro¬ 
ducing a new (?) breed in an embryo state 
when neither characteristics nor true breeding 
qualities are definitely fixed, and yet many of 
the new breeds and some of the old ones are 
sadly deficient in breeding to standard re¬ 
quirements. Andalusians have been known 
for years, and yet many strains to-day will 
not hatch five per cent, of true colored, 
standard birds. Andalusians are of blue 
color. A cross between a black and white 
fowl often produces a blue one, and it is my 
opinion that some Andalusians have been pro¬ 
duced very recently in that way. I have 
hatched from 13 Andalusians eggs two blue 
chicks, four black, two white and three 
mottled ones. The black chicks were almost 
identical with Black Minorcas. The whites 
resembled White Minorcas excepting in the 
color of the legs, which, instead of being 
white, were blue. I produced this season from 
