Vol. LXII, No. 2808. 
NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 21, 1903. 
PER YEAR. 
A STEAM ENGINE AS ‘'FARM HELP/' 
Plenty of Power Needed. 
On page 7.54 we have the experience of E. C. Birge 
on light farm powers. About eight years ago, having 
had some experience with tread powers, we concluded 
to look for a better propeller for farm and dairy ma¬ 
chines, and let our already overworked horses rest. 
We decided that with water free and soft coal 314 
to 4 cents per bushel at the mine a little soft-coal 
engine would best serve our needs, so we orderel 
an upright four-horse power. The outfit, including 
stack, line shaft, pulleys and belting, cost $234, a 
trifle more than the price of a good farm horse. We 
then went about preparing a permanent room for the 
engine; this was done by excavating deeper into the 
hill, joining the barn, dairy-room and engine-room 
under one roof, the engine-room being 8x10 feet, 25 
feet high. (The floor is cement, the wall up five feet 
is stone, and from that point to the top is plastered. 
The coal as used settles down a chute from a bin 
above to the front at fire door. The power is conveyed 
by belt to a pulley on a line shaft on the ceiling of 
costing as follows: Two men per day, $1.50, $3; two 
boys, $2; team and driver, $3.50; total per day, $8.50, 
or $52, a trifle more than 50 cents per ton. We can 
raise steam in our boiler in a few minutes; while two 
milkers milk 12 to 15 cows enough steam is generated 
to run the cream separator, or in fact, sufficient for 
any machine. During Winter we keep fire in the 
boiler almost constantly, covering the fire at night. 
With our experience we would now prefer a hori¬ 
zontal boiler of six or eight horse power, and would 
again set it in a convenient and permanent place 
properly connected up in detail for all the service it 
was capable of rendering. We now have a brick 
stack. Metal stacks are usually short lived and not 
as safe as a well-constructed brick flue. A screen 
should be hung over the flue vent; in our experience 
even when no screen was used, we have never seen a 
spark ignite either on the roof or near by, yet it 
is best to be on the safe side. Rubbish should not 
be used to kindle the fires, but pine or other wood 
that does not generate sparks. The steam engine 
comes the nearest to being a “Jack of all trades” on 
the farm of any machine or implement, and aside 
HOW THEY DO IT IN IOWA. 
A Carload of Potatoes to the Acre. 
This may sound like a big story, especially when 
1 add that it was grown without the aid of fertilizers 
of any kind, or irrigation. It is, however, an actual 
fact, as I had abundant evidence in the check I got 
from the commission man. I have been growing 
potatoes here in the corn belt for several years, in 
fact ever since I was big enough to hold a hoe, and 
have always kept in mind a comment made by The 
R. N.-Y. when I first began to read it. It seems that 
some man had advertised for a farm manager, and 
specified that he must be a man who had grown 300 
bushels per acre of potatoes, and The R. N.-Y. re¬ 
marked that “if he got that kind of a man he would 
sure get a mighty good one.” Now that was just the 
kind of a farmer I wanted to be, “a mighty good one,” 
and I thought that if I could show up the 300 bushels 
of potatoes I would be entitled to a seat at the first 
table. I tried with both eariy and late, over 150 
varieties all together, some costing a dollar a pound, 
and some 15 cents a bushel, and sometimes the 15 
VERMONT BEAUTY APPLE. F 16 . 299. See Page 805. 
the dairy-room. The •shaft extends under the thrash¬ 
ing floor near the large barn doors, and at a point 
20 to 25 feet from where we set the various machines 
at will, the thrasher, silage cutter, feed grinder, pony 
planer or small crate and box saws. On the shaft 
in the dairy department are pulleys where wo run a 
cream separator and a 30-gall<pn churn. A sausage 
cutter has frequently been driven here, and indeed 
W'e have sometimes set our respect for the dairy- 
room aside so that we could run a power washer an 
hour or two on rough clothing and bedding. 
In one corner of the dairy department is a barrel 
into which raw steam is conducted to heat water for 
dairy use, and for scalding hogs and poultry and 
many other purposes. The dairy-room is heated by 
steam in severe weather, and steam is thrown into 
the watering trough to take the chill off the water 
for the cattle when the weather is severe. In filling 
our silo we use a No. 6 F Dick cutter. With sufiicient 
help this engine and cutter would fill lOO-ton silo in 
about two to three days. This year one man fed the 
cutter and watched the engine, cutting 100 tons in six 
days, burning 25 bushels of coal that cost $1. Our 
force wa;si three men and two boys, and one team. 
from the dairy feature of farm operations we would 
.be lost without it. We thrash when we are ready, 
and not when some thrajsherman is ready; we are 
never obliged to be in a hurry for the usual large 
crew of traction engine followers. d. n. w. 
Kerrmoor, Pa. 
CHEAP SILO FILLING.—At a farmers’ institute 
here John Gould told of one man who took care of 
a silo, tended the engine, and did odd jobs which I 
suppose included all the milking, cutting up a year’s 
wood, etc., and now E. C. Birge telljS about slow work 
and small rigs being cheap, so I want to compare 
notes. Calling Mr. Birge’s days nine hours, which 
is about what we work here, his time filling an 80- 
ton silo was: Five men four days of nine hours, 180 
hours; one team 36 hours; total, 216 hours. Our 
time filling a 70-ton isilo level full was, 12 men five 
hours 15 minutes, 63 hours; three teams 16 hours; 
tcKtal, 79 hours. We used a No. 18 Ohio cutter with 
traveling feed table, and an eight horse power steam 
engine which burned 250 pounds of soft coal for the 
entire job. Moral: Don’t get “stuck” on small rigs 
for silo filling. a. l. h. 
Norway, N. Y, 
cent ones would be the best. In 1896, with the Car¬ 
man No. 3, then just out, I made at the rate of 500 
to the acre, but I only had a half acre of them, so 
that did not count. What I had set my head on was 
something of that sort over my whole crop of 30 to 
40 acres. In 1899 on three acres of Early Michigan I 
had 875 bushels, and for the next two years I planted 
mostly them, and while I had smalj spots that would 
make over 300 I could not get the whole field to 
come alike. 
In 1901 we had so near a failure, owing to dry 
weather, that the land got a good rest. We plowed 
the potato land in October, and let it lie loose aljl 
Winter; 1902 opened up favorably with the ground 
in the best of condition and the weather fine. I 
planted 40 acres with Early Ohio, White Ohio, and 
Early Michigan, It was the best seed I could buy, all 
Red River grown, and fine as silk. It cost me an 
average of $1.45 per bushel wholesale, and I put on 
over 500 liushels on the 40 acres; cut coarse and 
planted one piece in a place a foot apart in the row 
with a Robbins planter; rows three feet apart. Tliis 
was about the first of April, and as soon as the weeds 
began to sprout we started the harrow and kept it 
