The Rio Grande diffusion battery, Fig. 170, 
consists of ten copper tanks or cells, holding 20 
Fig. 176. 
gallons of water each, and 10 or more baskets 
of perforated copper of such form that each 
can be placed in a “cell,” leaving little or no 
waste room. With careful packing each can 
hold 100 pounds of cane chips. Then there is 
a crane or derrick with 10 arms—one for each 
cell or basket. These arms radiate from the 
central shaft like spokes in a wheel, and are 
so arranged that a movement of any one of 
them, in any direction, involves a correspond¬ 
ing motion of the entire system. This derrick 
can be easily raised or lowered through a 
space of 10 inches by meaus of the hydraulic 
press. It can also be involved, by hand, 
around its shaft as fast and as far as the fore¬ 
man desires. When in operation its load 
weighs 1,700 pounds. 
The tanks are arranged in a circle 10 feet in 
diameter. Each is provided with a two-inch 
outlet, and also with the steam-fittings neces¬ 
sary to heat its contents to 212° Fah. 
The derrick shaft forms the center of the 
circle. It is a four-inch iron pipe, approxi¬ 
mately 12 feet in length, with its lower end 
fastened to the piston of the hydraulic press 
and its upper end chained to a counterpoise. 
The diagram shows that the baskets are 
attached to the derrick by means of bent rods 
pivoted upon the ends of the arms; this makes 
it possible to swing any basket outside of the 
circle of the tanks for convenience in handling. 
Assume that the battery has not been in use 
—the first step will be to draw 20 gallons of 
hot water into each cell. A covered basket 
containing 100 pounds of cane chips is then 
hung upon an arm of the crane and dipped 
in cell No. 1. After a delay of a minute, the 
cane is raised and revolved so that the basket 
hangs over cell No. 2. A second basket of 
chips is then hung upon the empty arm over 
cell No. 1 and the crane is lowered. When¬ 
ever the crane is raised it is also revolved and 
an empty arm is thereby brought over cell 
No. 1. Whenever the crane is lowered the 
basket of fresh cane hung upon this arm is 
dipped into cell No. 1. This process is repeat¬ 
ed again and again until a basket of chips 
hangs from each arm of the derrick. The 
result of this will be that the first basket will 
have been dipped into ten cells; the second 
will have been dipped into nine cells; the 
third into eight cells; and the tenth or last 
basket into cell No. 1 only. Three distinct 
ends are thereby gained: 
1. Practically, all of the sugar will be extract¬ 
ed from the the chips in the first basket, and this 
sugar will be distributed among the solutions 
in ten cells. This basket can therefore be emp¬ 
tied upon the bagasse pile. 
2. Ten baskets of chips will have been dipped 
into cell No. 1, and each will have given up 
■more or less of its sugar. The solution in the 
first cell will therefore be concentrated enough 
to admit of economical evaporation, and can 
be drawn off into the evaporator, 
3. An empty basket aud an empty cell will 
thereby be secured side by side. The basket 
can be filled with fresh cane and dipped into 
the strongest solution left in the battery, viz., 
that in cell No. 2. The empty cell can be filled 
with hot water and the final dip thereby pro¬ 
vided for the cane containing least sugar, viz., 
that in the second basket filled. When the 
crane is raised, the solution in cell No. 2 can 
be drawn into the evaporator, and basket No. 
2 can be emptied upon the bagasse pile. From 
this stage, the process continues without inter¬ 
ruption from Monday morning until Saturday 
night. 
There are also an open evaporator, a vacuum 
pan, hot room appliances, and a centrifugal 
machine; but as similar apparatus can be seen 
in use wherever sugar is produced on a com¬ 
mercial scale, no description of them is needed 
here. 
SPIRIT OF THE PRESS. 
The silo has slowly moved, in yearly waves, 
westward, shorn at each step of some of its 
first magnificent pretensions, says Prof. San¬ 
born, in the Mirror aud Farmer. It has not 
quite settled down to its true merits yet, b 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
has reached a point where it can be dispassion¬ 
ately discussed. The R. N.-Y. certainly has 
reason to congratulate itself that it tried hard 
to guard its readers against the ensilage craze 
under the advocacy of Dr. Bailey, of Bille¬ 
rica. 
P. B. Crandall stated, before the Western 
N. Y. Hort. Society, that grapes, picked and 
wilted, then buried in stone jars three or four 
feet below the surface, will come out with 
stems green and fruit plump and bright in the 
spring. 
Prof. C. S. Sargent, cur leading arbori- 
cultural authority, speaks warm words of 
praise for our favorite tree, the Yellow-wood 
(Cladrastis tinctoria). He says, in his excel¬ 
lent paper, Garden and Forest, that it is very 
hardy as far north as New England,and grows 
rapidly in all soils and situations. No insects 
prey upon its dark-green, graceful foliage; its 
beautiful, long, pendulous racemes of pure 
white, fragrant flowers appear in June, when 
most other trees have passed their blooming 
period. The Yellow-wood is a beautiful ob¬ 
ject in winter on account of its perfectly 
smooth, gray bark and the delicacy of its 
branchlets. 
The New England Farmer says that it was 
not an unwise remark of a young man who, 
when speaking of another who had spent much 
of his life in ‘pulling wires” for his promo¬ 
tion, said that if one will settle down to the 
work undertaken with a determination to do 
that in the best manner, he will soon find that 
other folks will attend to promotion. It is the 
one who learns to do some useful thing and to 
do it well, whose services are always in de¬ 
mand. Advertising is an indispensable way 
to make one’s wants known e nd the reputa¬ 
tion for knowing one’s business thoroughly 
aud for doing it as well as he knows, is a 
standing advertisement which enough will see 
to keep him constantly employed. The world 
needs and is willing to pay for honest, well 
performed, useful labor. This is a commodity 
the supply of which is never equal to the de¬ 
mand . 
Mr. Stewart says that when potatoes are 
boiled and fed with wheat bran and milk 
there is no other food which makes better and 
more pork. It cannot be ignored that pota¬ 
toes when fed in this way are cheaper food for 
swine than corn is. 
Permanent sod is an injury to the trees of 
an orchard, says Professor Bailey, of the 
Michigan Agricultural College. This is forci¬ 
bly shown in the case of the old College or¬ 
chard. The trees in grass make less growth, 
have foliage of a yellowish-green color and 
bear smaller fruit... 
Some of our exchanges, says Farm and Gar¬ 
den, are indulging in considerable captious 
criticism on the appropriation of $585,000 
made by Congress to the States, to be used in 
experiment station work. It is certainly 
within the range of its capabilities for any 
single one of these experiment stations to dem¬ 
onstrate, by a very slight improvement in the 
methods of agriculture, how the whole sum 
can be saved to the country. The director of 
the Ohio Experiment Station gives a very 
forcible illustration of that in these words: 
“Could the Station furnish the farmers of 
Ohio with information that would enable 
them to reduce the cost of producing their an¬ 
nual wheat crop of 30,000,000 bushels by but 
half a million the bushel , or to increase, an¬ 
nually, the yield by but one pound, even, on 
each of the two and a half million acres de¬ 
voted to this crop, it would save them its an¬ 
nuity of $15,000. 
DIRECT. 
Puck: “It requires no profound study to 
learn that the farmers are numerically the 
greatest body of workmen in the country; 
that they have an enormous plurality over 
any one class of laborers. They do not make 
so much noise as, let us say, one certain other 
class; but they can make Presidents and Con¬ 
gressmen, and through their representatives 
can make laws. These facts wo sometimes 
forget; and to people in the large cities a 
howling master-workman on a street corner 
is a much greater figure than a silent farmer 
on the far horizon. Yet the master-work- 
man, according to his own figures, has one 
million men behind him, while there are seven 
and a-half million persons doing work on the 
farm lands of the United States. . . . 
These things are undeniably true—yet it is 
equally true there is no large class of men in 
the country whose interests receive less intel¬ 
ligent and sincere attention from either State 
or national legislators. The farmers have not 
the means of ready intercommunication, the 
facilities for frequent meeting and for the 
discussion of public matters, which townsfolk 
enjoy. They are hard-working men; their 
acquaintance with any but their own narrow 
world is slight; they have little opportunity 
to read the newspapers—and those they do 
read are not tjie sort to give them broad views 
of human affairs and of the world’s progress. 
They grow, naturally, in such life, conserva¬ 
tive, hide-bound (is ’the good old country 
phrase), and intensely partisan. 
Thus it comes that their representatives 
in Congress or in the State Legislature are 
often peculiarly unrepresentative of the very 
men who elect them to office. The country 
member is, nine times out of ten, the smart 
man of a village or country town. He gains 
his position in politics by his influence 
with the townspeople on the one hand and 
with the party managers on the other. 
Thus he is put forward as the candidate 
of his party, and when election-day comes, 
the farmers of his district drive in from 
miles around and vote for him, because he is 
the candidate of the party. He can rely on 
their vote if he is a partisan in good standing; 
and he need do no more to keep in favor with 
them than to canvass his district in the ortho¬ 
dox fashion, and make a few empty promises. 
If, when elected, he has offices to dispose of, 
they go to the .townspeople who worked for 
him; if he gets an appropriation for his dis¬ 
trict, it goes to the local contractor for dredg¬ 
ing some 10-foot wide creek between a cheese- 
factory and a railroad station. As for the farm¬ 
ers —why he will give them a brand-new speech 
when he comes up for re-election. . . Truly 
he appears as the champion of a bill to sup¬ 
press the manufacture of oleomargarine, or 
some such measure. But it is doubtful if he is 
moved to this course as much by the prayers 
of the farmer as by a desire to make the oleo 
men buy him off. And if he carries through 
a bill for the establishment of a State Board 
of Agriculture, it is safe to predict that two 
or three of his political workers will find em¬ 
ployment on that Board.”-Hon James 
Wilson, Iowa: “Where men farm for dear life 
the cow is the foremost consideration.”- 
Breeder’s Gazette: “As mere producers of 
manure, the scrubs are perhaps the equals of 
the improved breeds, and the manure is 
generally about all that those who keep 
inferior stock have left in the way of 
profit on their stock operations.”- 
Trade Bulletin: “The Russian Agricultural 
Department announces that the time has ar¬ 
rived when Russia can come forward with 
considerable chance of success to compete 
with America and other countries in supply¬ 
ing che Western European markets with live¬ 
stock,”-- Husbandman: “The true measure 
of a man may be found in what he achieves, 
not in his pretenses,or assumptions.” . . .“The 
farmer who says his business ‘does not pay’in 
most cases'proclaims his own incapacity, for 
there is the plain fact that agriculture returns 
larger profits in this country than in any other 
land, no matter whether prices be high or low.” 
-Rural World: “The mo3t practical 
thing in the world—science.”-Stockman 
and Farmer: “Did you ever notice what a 
wonderful influence one good farmer in a 
township or valley has upon all other farm¬ 
ers in his vicinity?”-Uncle Esek in the 
May Century: “All grab, and no grip, is the 
most common, as well as the poorest, kind of 
economy.”. . . “Vanity is a disease, and there 
is no cure for it this side of j the grave, and 
even there it will often break out anew on the 
tombstone.” . . . “Freedom is the law of God, 
and yet if man could have his way, one half 
of creation would be abject slaves to the other 
half.”. . . “There is learning enough in the 
world just now to solve any question that 
may arise; but there isn’t wisdom enough, 
put it all together, to tell what makes one ap¬ 
ple sweet and the next one sour.”- 
Hoard’s Dairyman: “Boys.—Educate your¬ 
selves in dairy farm work. Learn how to 
handle cows and young stock carefully, and 
be a good milker. Don't you see that men are 
constantly advertising for young men of that 
character at better wages than other farm 
hands can obtain?” 
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
[Every query must be accompanied by the name 
and address or the writer to Insure attention. Before 
asklnp a question, please see If It Is not answered in 
our advertising columns. Ask only a few questions at 
one time. Put questions on a separate piece of paper. 
SORGHUM AS A FODDER CROP. 
R. H. O., Montague , N. J.— Wbat is the 
value of sorghum as a forage crop for cattle? 
ANSWERED BY SECRETARY J. S. WOODWARD. 
j^The leaves'of sorghum are valuable cattle 
food, and the same is true of the stalks when 
in a green state, but when ripe, although they 
contain much more sug ar and a re consequent¬ 
ly morouutritious than wnen immature, they 
are coated with a very hard flinty layer that is 
hard for the animal to masticate when un¬ 
broken. Mr. M. Little, of Malcom, N. Y., 
has, however, demonstrated by several years’ 
successful experience, that the bagasse — 
the crushed stalks from which the juice has 
been pressed in making sirup—is a very 
valuable food for cattle, as his stock have 
kept in the best condition; in fact, fat enough 
for beef, on an exclusive diet of this sub¬ 
stance. But he thinks—and this is reasonable 
—that owing to the very hard surface of the 
unbroken stalks the bagasse is worth more 
as cattle food than the whole stalk, although 
it must have lost 75 per cent, or more of its 
sweet. His method of preserving this ba¬ 
gasse for winter feeding is very simple. He 
draws it from the mill to some field having a 
good grass surface and spreads it thinly, so 
that the sun can reach all parts of it, and in 
dry, bright weather one day’s exposure dries 
it so that it can be put into large stacks and 
keep thoroughly, and in winter it is fed direct¬ 
ly from the stacks. I think sorghum promises 
great things for use in the silo. By cutting it 
when the seed is in the dough state and imme¬ 
diately ensiloing it, cutting very fine, or not 
over three-eighth of an inch in length, the 
stalks will not develop the very compact sur¬ 
face, and even what of it there may be upon 
them will, by the action of fermentation, be 
much softened, and thus rendered much more 
easily masticable and digestible. I doubt 
whether we have any other plant that is so 
easily raised and that will furnish such a large 
amount of cattle food per acre as sorghum, 
and we should see it thoroughly tried this 
coming Summer. I further tfiink that those 
people who grow it for sirup-making will find 
that by cutting the bagasse directly as it 
comes from the crusher, it will still be more 
valuable, ton for ton, than corn for ensiloing. 
It would be a good plan to study the possibili¬ 
ties of sorghum a little more closely. It may 
be that we have in it a plant more valuable 
than we have heretofore thought. 
A BADLY AFFLICTED LOT OF HORSES. 
J. T. P. (no address). —1. My two mares (seven 
years old), when plowing, get nervous and 
tremble in the shoulders. One has a young 
colt; the other will have one soon. They eat 
heartily and are fed three times a day. They 
get two quarts of oats and corn each at every 
feed, besides all the wild hay they can eat. 2. 
The colt has a soft lump at the knee of one of 
her front legs. I have an old mare, one of 
whose knees is very big; was the colt marked 
on this account? A “horse doctor” says the 
lump is full of water and will disappear by 
rubbing. 3. One of the mares has a speck in 
one eye. The “doctor” says it is caused by 
catarrh of the head; what is a remedy ? 4. 
The other mare discharges a little from the 
right nostril and has a hacking cough when 
driven on the road; is there any cure? 
ASSWERED BY DR. F. L. KILBORNE. 
1. If the trembling is due to nervousness, 
the only remedy is to handle them quietly and 
kindly, and avoid all shouting, whipping or 
other causes that tend to excite them. Many 
such horses are exhausted more by being ex¬ 
cited and worried than by actual hard work. 
If due to weakness, give rest, and if the ani¬ 
mals are poor, a more generous diet would be 
the proper treatment. Four quarts of grain 
three times daily are a moderate grain ration 
for work horses. For some animals that 
quantity is ample, while others require more. 
You must judge from the condition of the 
horses whether the feed is sufficient in your 
case. 2. Such swellings are not uncommon. 
If soft, this would propably disappear as the 
colt grows older. It can be removed by draw¬ 
ing off the liquid with the fine needle of a 
hypodermic syringe and applying a wet baud- 
age. Frequent rubbing and the application 
of a stimulating liniment would favor its early 
absorption. 3. If the speck has been in the 
eye for some time, we would advise you not to 
trouble it, as you might easily make it worse 
instead of better. But if it appeared recently, 
touch it daily with a small camel’s-hair brush 
wet in a solution of three grains of nitrate of 
silver in an ounce of water. 4. For the cough 
and nasal discharge we refer our inquirer to 
the reply given to B. T. C. elsewhere in this 
department. 
CHRONIC COUGH IN A HORSE. 
B. T. C., West Torrington, Conn. —My 25- 
year old mare has coughed for three months 
aud the cough grows worse. Ordinarily it is 
loose, and rattles in the throat. Sometimes 
white matter is thrown from the mouth in 
coughing; but there is no discharge from the 
nose. She takes cold easily, and then the cough 
is dry and hard. She looks and apparently 
feels well. “Condition powders” have done 
her no good; how should she be treated? 
ans. —Rub the whole region of the throat 
daily with a liniment of equal parts of ammonia 
and olive oil well shaken together, aud con. 
tiuue uutil,reUeved or^the skin is slightly blis 
