Vol. LXI. No. 271 <5 
NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 15, 1902 
$1 PER YEAR. 
"THE BEST FARM ENGINE 
WHAT POWER IS REQUIRED ? 
Power to Drive a “Blizzard.” 
Tn The R. N.-Y. (page 52) W. H. R., Trevose, Pa., 
asks whether a five horse-power gasoline engine will 
run a No. 12 Blizzard cutter and blower to give satis¬ 
faction for a farmer wishing to cut 40 or 50 tons of 
silage? I will answer yes, most decidedly. It will 
cut very much more, and answer for a neighborhood 
of three or four farmers who have from 75 to 150 tons 
each of corn to silo. Still, I would prefer the smaller 
size—the L10 Blizzard with either the plain or the 
self-feed table, to be run by a four to six horse-power 
engine. I have known the L12 to be run successfully 
for filling small silos by a five horse-power steam 
engine, but I would prefer more power. The Bliz¬ 
zard’s surpassing value is the very fine preparation 
it gives the silage. This superior preparation is 
caused by the high speed given the fly-wheel, which 
is inside the blower 
case, and is also the 
knife or cutter and fan- 
wheel, all in one. After 
the cutting is done the 
high speed of the wheel 
gives such severe con¬ 
cussions to the cut ma¬ 
terial as to split, soften 
and batter the silage; 
virtually grinding the 
grains of corn into 
meal, and the same is 
all thoroughly mixed 
with the silage. The 
softened silage settles 
quickly in the silo and 
packs so tightly as 
practically to seal the 
silage from the air; 
also putting from 20 to 
25 per cent more silage 
in the same space. The 
result of this treatment 
is to prevent the usual 
high heating and sour¬ 
ing commonly known; 
practically making 
sweet silage, because 
of its almost perfect se¬ 
clusion from the air— 
good for all domestic 
animals and greedily 
eaten by them. If W. 
H. R. wishes to use the 
L12 Blizzard, I would recommend a six horse-power 
gasoline or steam engine, yet as before stated a good 
five horse-power will do very well, though the cutter 
cannot be crowded by any means to do its best. To 
obtain the desired high speed, to do the best work 
with the low power, the cutter will have to be fed 
more lightly. The R. N.-Y. is right in stating that 
“steam power has the advantage of providing live 
steam for washing or heating in the dairy,” yet the 
gasoline engine has a number of very valuable ad¬ 
vantages over the steam engine for farm purposes. 
Among these are perfect safety, light expense for 
fuel, and needing no engineer—running for hours at 
a time without attention. May it not in the long run 
pay to have a small steam boiler in the dairy to sup¬ 
ply steam, unless power is needed to run the separa¬ 
tor? The steam is needed in the dairy usually morn¬ 
ing and evening for scalding milk cans, pails, etc., in 
which case it would be very troublesome to move the 
engine to and from the dairy while needed for other 
farm work. This point is one we must bear in mind 
in providing farm power where the dairy is a factor. 
Towanda, Pa. r. m. w. 
A Trial of a Steam Engine. 
For some things gasoline engines are all right; 
they are easy to start, and if everything is just right 
will do a lot of work. I am not stating personal ex¬ 
perience, but from all I can learn from owners and 
their neighbors who have employed them with cutters 
they work something like a balky horse; some little 
thing will set them wrong. As for me (and I state 
personal experience), give me steam for power on a 
farm every time. There is always more or less rub¬ 
bish on a farm which is not fit to burn in a stove and 
can be used for making steam in a boiler. If you use 
gasoline it must all be bought, and if your supply 
runs out in a busy time it means a trip to town when 
time is money. A small-sized gasoline engine has so 
many small and delicate parts that in moving from 
place to place they seem liable to get out of order 
and adjustment, and if said parts are not right the 
whole thing goes wrong or won’t go at all. Of course 
there may be, and probably are, engines which are 
doing good work on the farm, but if they are I have 
failed to hear from them in my town. In regard to 
size or horse-power of any engine for farm use, don't 
be afraid of getting too large a size, provided it isn’t 
so heavy as to be too much for two horses to draw 
on our roads, if you want to run a machine up to 
its full capacity it pays to have plenty of power, so 
as not to be obliged to crowd the engine; from six to 
10 horse-power is none too large. Personally, I made 
a mistake in getting an engine too small for the work 
I had to do, so had to buy another in two years’ time, 
getting a seven horse-power. Don't buy second-hand 
engines and boilers; no one, not even an expert, can 
guarantee the condition of a second-hand boiler. One 
objection to an ordinary boiler is its weight. There 
is now built a boiler of small size on the plan of the 
water-tube boiler, which weighs but about two-thirds 
as much as the ordinary tubular boiler of the same 
size, and as there is only a small body of water it 
takes but a short time to get up steam from cold 
water, and to deal destruction in case of accident. 
In regard to any kind of engine of five horse-power 
running a Blizzard cutter or any other blower and 
cutter combined, it would be out of the question un¬ 
less the cutter was so small as to be of no practical 
use. A man bought a 13-inch cutter with blower and 
had to change to an ordinary carrier; and he had for 
power a five-horse gasoline engine which worked 
fairly well. I think the blower is the way to elevate 
cut green corn, but it takes power. I think the manu¬ 
facturers recommend nothing less than 10 horse¬ 
power; that is, five for cutter and five for blower, or 
perhaps three for cutter and seven for blower. The 
sawmill men claim that it takes five horse-power to 
blow sawdust without elevating it. How much more 
will it take to blow green corn 35 or 40 feet and ele¬ 
vate it from 20 to 30 
feet? Unless there is 
power and to spare 
there will be times 
when the blower will 
not take all the corn, 
and then look out for a 
plugged blower pipe. I 
have found in my ex¬ 
perience of five years 
cutting corn that the 
best of feeders will oc¬ 
casionally get a little 
too much corn into the 
cutter for the power, 
and of course that 
slackens the speed, and 
in order to blow corn 
you must keep your 
speed uniform, for the 
fan must go at the rate 
of 2,000 revolutions per 
minute. I would like to 
hear through The R. 
N.-Y. the experience of 
anyone using a blower- 
cutter for green corn. 
Of course if a farmer 
does not care to do any 
but his own work a 
small outfit will do it, 
but unless it is so small 
as to be of no use out¬ 
side and perhaps for 
his own work, or so 
large as to be stationary, neighbors will want their 
corn cut, and as it is hard to say no to neighbors, a 
medium size machine should be bought. One other 
thing; unless the purchaser is naturally a mechanic 
it is better to go slow on power machines, for there 
will be alw'ays more or less repairing on cutter and 
on gasoline engines; always some studying of what 
is the matter; why it doesn’t run. In any case better 
get the outfit early and run it and study everything 
about both power and cutter before the time comes 
to get men and teams to begin drawing and cutting 
corn, for every little delay then means not only a loss 
at cutter, but at least ?1 or $2 lost in the field. If 
either machine is second-hand the cutter would bet¬ 
ter be “it”; a second-hand cutter will do for a few 
years. Get plenty of power, for if you get a small one 
it will be only a short time before a larger one will 
be wanted. I am running an 18-inch Ross cutter with 
37 feet of straight carrier with seven horse-power 
steam engine, bu£ for custom work a swivel carrier 
