622 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
SEPT. 21 
hides it. The seat is 14 to 16 inches higher than 
usual from the ground —not from the floor of 
the privy—so as to make more space under¬ 
neath. There isa horizontal hinged door,made 
to turn up at theback. Earth is thrown in as 
needed from the rear by"means of a shovel 
which always stands there. Whenever 
needful the earth is scraped out clean with 
the hoe, and as it is odorless, just like clean 
soil, no one dreads the job at all. 
It makes several loads of good top-dress¬ 
ing per year. During winter coal ashes and 
sawdust take the place of earth. I wish 
some one'who knows would tell liow'gyp- 
sum (land-plaster) answers the purpose. 
Nice people object—and with good cause—to 
the dust’that flies up when the earth or ash¬ 
es, especially the latter, are thrown in from 
above. We never use wood ashes. 'To throw 
it in from the back is much the best plan. 
A “hopper” can be put on the back of the 
building andjbe'kept full of the absorbent; 
the receiving box should be put on castors 
or home-made wooden wheels and made to 
pass under the hopper by turning a crank 
or pressing a lever, the motion of which at 
the same time discharges a quantity of 
earth or ashes into the box, reversing the 
motion to bring back the box. Other de¬ 
vices'that I like much better,‘especially for 
children, are attached to the seat-cover, 
charged with earth from a box in the build¬ 
ing, and dump themselves by being shut. 
My attention was drawn to this subject 
many years ago by some English writer, 
and my ideas were made practical by£what 
befell some dear friends. While calling at 
Hill-side Farm, I was horrified to note that 
several days’ heavy rains had flooded the 
whole back yard with a coffee-colored liquid 
that came from the privy-vault, the hog¬ 
pens, stables and manure heap. 
“ For mercy’s sake!” I exclaimed, “ Don’t 
use water from your well, and do drop all 
other work and drain your yard and move 
some of those outbuildings.” 
“ Pooh! ” said my friend, “ so soon as the 
ground thaws, it will absorb this offensive 
liquid, and in the mean time, don’t you see 
what nice bridges we have laid to walk 
upon? It would cost from £10 to £20 to do 
what you propose and use up ever so much 
of the men’s time, besides.” 
“But this polluted water will soak into 
the well and give you typhoid fever,” I 
persisted. 
“I’ll risk it,” was the laughing answer. 
But within four months typhoid—malig¬ 
nant typhus, the doctor said—attacked the 
whole family except one daughter who was 
away from home. My friend lost her most 
promising son, her mainstay, and besides 
losing that most precious life, the other 
evils that sickness brings we can imagine. 
She became so deeply indebted to her doc¬ 
tors who lived 12 miles away and charged 
from £20 to £30 per visit—as they do to this 
day—that she had to give up the dear old 
homestead. However, she said that a place 
on which eight such usually healthy persons 
as they were would sicken in so short a 
ime could not be a healthy one, and she 
did not regret its loss. 
Only two years before, their nearest 
neighbor—a relative—was showing me their 
fine farm stock and well-filled hog-pens 
when 1 noticed that they had placed their 
well in a “sag,” at a point where it must 
needs receive all the drainage from the 
barnyard that lay high, dry, and warm in a 
cozy southeast hollow on the slope of the 
hill. The home stood near the foot of this 
hill, sheltered by it from cold, northwest 
winds, open to sunshine—a real snuggery. 
“ Oh pray, pray, do dig a new well out 
there, or there, or there,” said I pointing 
out various places out of the line of drain¬ 
age from barnyard and privy. “You will 
sux-ely be sick, now that your outbuildings 
are all located in that hollow above the well; 
so sui’ely as water runs down hill there 
must be poisoning of the water in your well 
from those things above it.” 
“Nonsense!” was the answer; “this well 
is 75 feet deep and there is no chance for 
any uncleanliness to leach through that 
depth of soil. It’s an impossibility.” 
When only a few weeks later, this iron- 
constitutioned fanner lay deadly ill, the doc¬ 
tor’s bill alone amounted to much more than 
the cost of digging a new well would have 
been. But that was not all: in autumn of 
the same year their only son had just such 
an illness and the mother died a year later 
from spinal meningitis. The father, his 
constitution weakened from typhoid fever 
with which he had begun the programme, 
soon followed her. 
The son, left alone, mairicd and moved 
away, and what was once the cheeriest home 
in the State to visit, now stands empty and 
desolate, making my heart ache evei’y time 
I drive past it on my way to the Post Office. 
It has not been very easy for me to bear 
all the ridicule heaped upon me for refusing 
to drink or use for cooking water from an 
average well; but I run down the steep hill 
at the foot of which a jet of pure, soft water 
comes out of the sand-stone and carry up 
the water with a conscience void of offense. 
I imagine that I know of a certainty what 
broke xip the homes and families of those 
fi’iends of mine, and I will take no risks. 
E. S. LINCOLN. 
Slje Sxn wcljcrt). 
COOKING FEED. 
NOTES ABOUT THE PRACTICE 
B Y 
FARMERS WHO FOLLOW IT. 
IT PAYS FOR HOGS. 
Some Doubt About Other Stock, 
they will do better on cooked feed once a 
day. My experience has been that hogs on 
dry feed (that is, corn and water wit hout 
grass or swill of any kind) become costive 
and will not fatten unless they have a 
change of food. Here in Iowa corn is our 
main feed for hogs, and by feeding alter¬ 
nately cooked and raw feed we keep their 
digestive organs healthy. I have had a 
good deal of experience with hogs, in cook¬ 
ing feed. I keep from 200 to 400 head a year, 
but have never weighed my feed and pork 
when cooking feed; still I am satisfied that 
where hog misers have not a variety of 
food, as in Iowa, it will pay to cook part of 
the feed. But I think where one has not so 
many hogs (say only 25 or 30) and can give 
them a variety of feed, such as mill feed or 
swill from the house, milk and dish-water, 
etc., or where the hogs get a little grass, it 
would not pay to cook any feed for them. 
A good clover field is worth more to hogs 
than any feed cooked in summer time. It 
doesn’t pay to cook feed for other 
stock. For hogs only gi-ain—corn, 
oats, barley, rye, etc.—can be profita¬ 
bly cooked. I have never made any 
scientific experiments in this matter. I 
cook my feed thoroughly and feed all the 
hogs will eat once a day. If I cook ground 
feed 1 feed it about as thick as it will run 
freely out of a bucket, and never feed it 
warmer than at a milk-warm temperature. 
I do not think it would pay to cook feed 
for less than 50 hogs. It is a good deal of 
trouble to fire up and cook feed every day 
and farmers are very apt to neglect it. I 
know of farmers who have bought steam¬ 
ers and never used them at all because do¬ 
ing so would cause too much trouble. 
A SHETLAND PONY. 
Re-engraved from the London Live-Stock Journal. See Page 621. Fig. 236. 
OUR experiment stations have had con¬ 
siderable to say about the economy of cook¬ 
ing food for farm animals. Most of the 
experiments tried at these stations have 
given results unfavorable to cooking, and 
those who write for the farm papers gener¬ 
ally use the figures gained by these experi¬ 
ments rather than the experiences of practi¬ 
cal farmers. The ft. N.-Y. has faithfully 
reported the conclusions of_the experiment 
stations, all of which have stated that cook¬ 
ing feed will not pay. Now it proposes to 
give the other side. It is a fact that the 
business of the manufacturers of feed 
steamers and boilers is increasing all the 
time. Each year finds a greater number of 
farmers who cook and steam food for hogs 
and cattle. They are good business men, 
too, who understand the difference between 
loss and profit. It would seem that such 
men are well qualified to discuss t he matter 
intelligently. The R. N.-Y. submitted the 
following questions to a number of these 
farmers. Their answers are given below: 
1. Does it pay you to cook food for stock? 
2. What kinds of animals do you feed? 
3. What gi’ains or fodder are most prof¬ 
itably cooked? 
4. Have you ever "made any experiments 
to show how well cooking pays you? 
5. What is your daily practice of feeding? 
6. How' much stock must a farmer keep in 
order to have cooking pay him? 
FROM ELI ROBERTS. 
Cooking feed for stock does not pay for 
the trouble and expense except with hogs 
where they are confined on dry feed. I know 
FROM W. E. PENDLETON. 
I have read from time to time the long 
and startling array of figures against cook¬ 
ing food by the learned professors of agri¬ 
cultural colleges and directors of experi¬ 
ment, stations, but still I keep on cooking 
feed, perfectly satisfied with the results 
without being able to bring the same 
amount of figures to explain the cause, 
partly from a lack of time and partly be¬ 
cause, perhaps, 1 do not know enough. It 
certainly pays me to steam or cook feed 
from the fact that I can keep my hog stock 
for about one-half the outlay they would 
cost me did I attempt to feed them grain 
and roots without steaming, because my 
hogs will not eat roots raw and the grain 
costs too much to feed alone. Perhaps had 
I been able at first to get swill enough from 
private residences and hotels to feed my 
stock all winter, as 1 do in the summer sea¬ 
son, I would never have been such an en¬ 
thusiast for cooked feed as I am at present; 
but I could not, so I made my plans to raise 
roots, etc., to feed them in winter time, to 
save so much expense in grain; but after 
feeding grain and cut roots time after time, 
only to find the grain eaten clean up and the 
roots left in the trough, and hogs squealing 
for more feed, I set about to find a remedy, 
and I found it when 1 commenced to steam 
my grain and roots together. Then every¬ 
thing was eaten clean; t he hogs were satis¬ 
fied, and instead of shivering on cold days 
over cold feed, they got it warm and it did 
not take one-half the usual quantity to keep 
warmth in the animals, and it would, 1 am 
afraid take all the figures of all those 
learned professor's and directors to cause 
me to change my mind and convince me 
that it does not pay me to cook my feed. 
I cook it only for hogs, but still if I were 
keeping cattle, I would certainly connect 
one of the steam pipes with the water tank; 
but I hardly think I would attempt to 
steam food for cattle. My opinion, how¬ 
ever, is in favor of hog stock as the most 
profitable stock to cook feed for. For the 
hogs one should cook every thing from 
early in the fall till late in the spring, then 
get them out-of-doors into the grass pas¬ 
ting, if one has such; if not, he should have 
yards out-of-doors, and feed sparingly of 
grain, but give plenty of soiling crops. 
Clover I think is the best, and peas are 
next. As for myself, I depend partly on 
grass feed and partly on fresh swill obtain¬ 
ed mostly from summer l'esidences every 
day. 
In one sense I have made no experiments 
to determine how much the cooking pays, 
and yet in what is to me the main point I 
have. I do not have time to weigh the 
hogs; neither have I convenient means of 
weighing them to determine by long 
columns of figures the pros and cons of the 
matter; but, nevertheless, the hogs thrive, 
grow fat, are perfectly healthy and breed 
better. And, again, I say it does not cost 
me one-half so much to feed them when I 
use cooked feed, as it would if I fed a grain 
ration alone, nearly the whole of which I 
should have to buy. 
My system of cooking I can easily ex¬ 
plain: I have, first, xi Purington steam gen- 
erator burning either wood or coal. The 
first thing every morning the hog-man 
opens up the draft and gets a good fire 
going. After feeding all the hogs and pigs, 
he prepares a barrel of food holding about 
50 gallons, turns on the steam and in from 
half xm hour to an hour the feed is cooked, 
the time depending, of course, on the brisk¬ 
ness of the fii'e. While the feed is being 
cooked the hog-man is preparing another 
barrel, cleaning out the pens, bedding 
down, etc. This work is repeated from 
three to five times every day, according to 
the number of hogs and pigs we have in 
hand. My ration now—and it has been the 
same since last fall—is steamed cabbage. 
We fill xi barrel about one-third full of 
chopped cabbage, then put in a lxiyer of 
grain—sometimes middlings, but mostly 
flour—and alternate layers are put in until 
the barrel is as full xis it can be packed. We 
use from one to two bushels of grain to 
exich barrel, the amount depending on 
whether the feed is for sows with pigs, 
slioxits that I am fattening, or sows that 
are in barrow. The last are fed more light¬ 
ly to prevent them from getting too fat. 
The cabbage will shrink about one-third 
when mixed and steamed in this way. The 
flour is bought from xi ci’acker factory, and 
consists of fine flour sweepings which cost 
one dollar per barrel, and are the best feed 
for growing pigs I ever used. The cabbages 
would not have paid freight, cartage, and 
commission last fall and winter. 
The hogs did not eat them well raw. but 
when steamed with a litt le grain they ate 
them and did wonderfully well on them. 
They paid me well for feed alone. Later on 
in the coming winter, I shall feed parsnips, 
turnips and small potatoes, mixed with 
grain and cut up fine. Pea-straw, hay and 
cured clover I fed twice each day. This I find 
sufficient with my line of stock, which con¬ 
sists of Yoi'kshire hogs. As to how much 
stock must be kept to make it pay to cook 
feed for them, in the Eastern States, where 
grain is expensive, it would pay all the wxiy 
from the person who keeps one hog for his 
own pork barrel to the large pork producer 
or the large breeder of breeding stock, only, 
of coui'se, each must regulate his apparat us 
for cooking according to the amount of stock 
kept. As to the needs of farmers of the 
great grain-producing States, 1 know noth¬ 
ing; but in this section, the piggery must 
be run in the least expensive way, and with 
some cooking apparatus the farmer who 
cooks his hog feed can use a great many 
unsalable vegetables and other things that 
would be otherwise wasted. 
New London County, Conn. 
FROM JOHN E. DAVIS & SON. 
1. It pays us to cook feed for hogs which 
are the only stock we have cooked for. We 
find ground feed more profitable to cook 
than ungrouud. The feed that gives as 
good results as xmy other, if not the best, is 
corn ground up cob and all, and t horoughly 
cooked. This well salted and with enough 
water added to make a slop, makes a feed 
on which any hog will get thrifty and im¬ 
prove. 
The only experiment we have made is 
one in cooking. The feed swells and mxikes 
a larger quantity, and for fattening and feed¬ 
ing purposes this feed seems superior lo 
any kind of dry feed we have ever fed. 
