702 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER: 
October 7 
ness or trade which ignores these exact principles has 
gone to the wall, or is going there. Farming will 
stand more abuse than any other business on earth, 
yet the end will come. Mr. Van Dresser picked out a 
neighbor’s boy with good mind and strong character, 
and sent him to Cornell to learn the why and the how 
of the hen. Now he comes back to lecture on eggs to 
a class of 2,500 Leghorns, and we get the third link of 
the chain. The brain feeds the man, the man feeds 
the hen, the hen feeds the farm, and the farm feeds 
all. 
THE WOODEN NURSE.—In an article of this sort, 
I do not try to give all the details of breeding and 
feeding a hen. If I went to an institute and had a 
chance to question Mr. Van Dresser, 1 should want to 
know how the little chicks are nursed. We find it 
comparatively easy to hatch a fair proportion of 
fertile eggs 'in the incubators, but nurs¬ 
ing the chicks is far more difficult. I 
want to tell how Mr. Van Dresser man¬ 
ages it. He says the essentials of suc¬ 
cessful hatching are—“fertile eggs, even 
temperature, and a good incubator,” but 
he cannot dismiss the nurse question so 
easily. The picture of the little feath¬ 
ered infant asylum, Fig. 258, tells most 
of the story. The little boy at the cor¬ 
ner of the house is a nephew that Mr. 
and Mrs. Van Dresser have adopted. 
These little houses are six feet -square, 
three feet high at back, and five feet in 
front. The outside is covered with 
building paper. The picture shows how 
these houses are made. The window is 
covered with fine wire netting, and so 
is the round ventilation hole at the 
side. When the little door under the 
window is shut at night, the house is vermin-proof. 
The brooder is seen in place through the door, and 
an extra brooder outside shows how it is made and 
arranged. The lamp slides in and out on a frame. 
These little houses are scattered through an apple 
orchard. 
The little chicks are put into these little brooder 
houses, directly from the incubators, except the ear¬ 
liest ones, which come in very cold weather. These 
early birds could not catch worms, for the ground is 
usually frozen solid when they wake up. They are 
kept in the upper story of the large incubator and 
brooder house. When the weather moderates, the 
little chicks go straight to their small houses. After 
they begin to run out, it is necessary to fence a small 
yard around the house for a few days. This creates 
a “home feeling,” so that, when the fence is taken 
down, the chicks remember their own house, and 
never go far away from it. When the little chicks 
first go to the brooders, the temperature is kept at 
100 degrees, gradually lowering after the third or 
fourth day. The object is to give enough heat to 
make them comfortable at all times. This heat is 
kept up until the youngest chicks are from four to 
six weeks old. There are no set rules for feeding 
these little things, as much depends on the condi¬ 
tions. The following is a fair average statement: 
FOOD AND CARE.—On the first day, bread crumbs 
soaked in milk, and then a Johnny-cake of mixed 
meals until the birds are three weeks old. Then grad¬ 
ually change to a mash composed of ground oats, 
wheat and corn meal, with a little wheat bran added. 
This is fed in the morning, and cracked corn, wheat 
and oat flakes during the rest of the day. Of course, 
fresh water, grit and charcoal are kept constantly be¬ 
fore them. 
The baby Leghorns play and run through the or¬ 
chard, and grow strong and lively with this food and 
care. They are as happy as little children on a roomy 
farm. As soon as really cold weather begins, they 
must leave their playhouses, and get ready for busi¬ 
ness in the big egg factory shown at Fig. 259. Jack 
Frost serves notice on the pullets that their idle days 
are over, so they leave their happy orchard homes, 
and learn the hen’s song of labor in the big building. 
This house is 345 feet long, 15 feet wide, 5Vz feet high 
at back and 9% feet in front. There are partitions of 
wire netting every 15 feet, which gives a space 15 feet 
wire netting every 15 feet, which gives a space 15 feet 
into My Lady Leghoim’s chamber, and show you what 
she does there. n. w. c. 
Grass Nitrogen.— About 10 years ago, we bought some 
damaged cotton-seed meal at half price, and spread it on 
grass in May. It made some show in the grass crop, 
and probably helped later crops. But, being on top of 
the ground, it became soluble too slowly for that grass 
crop to get it all. The same amount of money invested 
in nitrate of soda would have gone twice as far, and 
have acted promptly. Under ground, no doubt, cotton¬ 
seed meal will become soluble sooner. Surface applica¬ 
tions of cotton-seed meal are too much like burning 
wood on top of the stove. E- c - B - 
Southport, Conn. 
PACKING APPLES IN BOXES. 
What do you think of the possibility of using the fruit 
box for shipping our eastern apples or pears? Vast 
quantities of California fruit come to this market in these 
boxes. Many small dealers like to handle these small 
packages, and on the whole, they seem to give good sat¬ 
isfaction. Whether they would prove equally satisfac¬ 
tory for shipping our eastern apples is a question. In 
your opinion, would it pay to ship our eastern apples and 
pears in these smaller box packages? 
Barrels for Eastern Fruit. 
While the fruit box is used almost altogether for 
shipping California, Colorado and Oregon apples to 
our eastern markets, and for export as well, and 
meets with the general approval of commission men 
and retailers, there seems to be an unwritten law 
among these men that the western apples, and none 
others, shall be packed in such manner. It is my firm 
A WHITE LEGHORN EGO FACTORY. Fig. 259. 
belief, based on actual experience, that they are justi¬ 
fied in the stand they have taken, and in discouraging 
the use of the box among eastern apple growers and 
shippers. As much money with less labor can be ob¬ 
tained by using a full-size, nicely-coopered barrel, 
neatly marked and stenciled, and above all, filled 
with honestly graded, perfect fruit.. I have used both 
barrels and boxes, and find the former altogether 
more satisfactory than the latter; I think, however, 
that the box may be used with profit for fine quality 
pears, though lit has been demonstrated to me this 
Summer that the barrel is again foremost for style 
and for money; however, we must not lose sight of 
the fact that it is the packer who creates a demand 
for his fruit, whether it be in barrels or boxes, or in 
MR. HENRY VAN DRESSER-HENMAN. Fig. 260. 
other words, it’s what is inside the package that does 
the selling, and not the package itself. 
New York. a. w. williams. 
Ought to Prove Successful. 
I have never had any experience in the matter; in 
fact, we have never had nice apples enough to do it, 
but I believe fancy apples will bring more in boxes of 
about one bushel, nicely and attractively put up, than 
in any other way, and that these will increase the 
sale of apples. People do not like to buy a barrel of 
apples to put in the cellar, as they rot too soon, but 
if they could buy boxes of three pecks to one bushel, 
they would be bought for family use, where barrels 
would not take. This use of boxes would be for 
fancy and table apples. T. B. Wakeman, of Green 
Farm, always used to ship his pears in his grape 
boxes. They would hold less than a bushel each, 
and he thought they brought him more, and sold 
more readily, than in barrels. They seem to be about 
what one wants at one time. The boxes would, of 
course, need to be made of nice, clean white stock, not 
too thick, and cheap enough so they would not need to 
be returned. I think for European shipments these 
boxes would take well. edwin iioyt. 
Connecticut. _ 
TOP OR BUTT END FOR POSTS. 
Will One Sooner Pot than the Other? 
Farmers sometimes claim that, when a post is set 
in the ground with the butt end down, it will rot more 
quickly than other posts which have the butt end of 
the timber upwards. I have thought this a popular 
superstition until recently, but having had some ex¬ 
perience, I am inclined to think there are sufficient 
scientific reasons to believe it true. A few years ago, 
I set a board fence, sawing the posts 
tapered, and cutting them alternately 
wide and narrow to get the taper. Of 
course, half these posts have the butts 
reversed as to the position the timber 
had in the tree. Now, after 10 years, 
half those posts have rotted off in the 
ground, and half exactly are sound. Of 
course, there is no proof that the re¬ 
versal of the timber had anything to do 
with this fact, but is is very strong pre¬ 
sumptive proof of it. I have recently set 
some similar posts, and marked them, 
and in time, if I live long enough, this 
matter will be settled in my mind. 
This is the fact, now here is my ex¬ 
planation of it, which is based on a 
scientific principle. We know that the 
sap of a tree goes up from the roots to 
the very top, and tip of every twig. We 
know, too, that mere capillary attraction is not suffi¬ 
cient to raise the sap so high as this. We know, too, 
that a vacuum in the tree which might exist would 
not raise the liquid to a greater height than 30 feet 
or so. Then how does the sap get from the roots to 
the top of a pine tree over 100 feet high? It does this 
by a beautiful process of nature which we call osmose. 
This is the effect of a function possessed by all mem¬ 
branes, by which any liquid holding any substance in 
solution on one side of the membrane, and which so¬ 
lution differs in density or specific gravity, passes 
through the membrane of the matter held in solution 
until the density of the liquid in each cell becomes 
the same. It is easily perceived that, in this way, 
step by step, each of infinitesimal length, the matters 
held in solution by the sap, and by which the tree is 
fed, go up through the cells from the tip of the roots 
which absorb it from the soil, to the very tip of 
the highest twig where the bud is ready to receive its 
food thus carried up to it through all these cells. 
This process goes on in timber after it is cut from the 
tree, and becomes a post, the moisture being absorbed 
by these posts which are set as the timber stood in 
the tree, but not by those that are reversed. Thus 
these are more durable than the others. I don’t feel 
quite sure about this yet, but it seems to be worthy 
of thought. ii. s. 
A SILO REVIVAL IN OHIO. 
t 
Cow Peas Under Hard Conditions. 
WHAT NEW IN SILOS?—Silo filling is in full op¬ 
eration now in this locality—northern Ohio. Within 
a few miles of my house, more than 40 new ones have 
been, and are being erected, since August 1, and new 
ones are being heard of every day. The round tub 
silos seem to be the favorites, and some are hooping 
them with breadths of Page wire fencing. Others are 
of the square pattern with rounded corners. The fill¬ 
ing of silos about here is taking on a radical change, 
and is being correspondingly cheapened; some farm¬ 
ers put it at 33 per cent. The low-down Deering corn- 
harvesters have superseded hand cutting entirely, 
and silo men are all using them. Eight of these har¬ 
vesters were sold to the silo men in our town this 
season. The gavels are tied in small compass, and 
are easily picked up and put upon the wagons, two 
men easily doing the work of three with untied ones. 
At the silo, the big long^tabled self-feeding cutters 
have come, and the bundles are dropped off from the 
wagons on to the carrying feeder, and go through the 
knives without any band cutting, two men throwing 
on to the table with the machine “just a little ahead” 
all the time. One of these machines will cut for five 
teams to draw, as easily as for three last year With 
the force-feed machines of older date. The hopper- 
box under the carrier with “trousers-leg” delivery, 
avoids all forking and leveling in the silo until the 
top is nearly reached, and enables a good boy to do 
with ease the work of two men where the ensilage has 
to be hand leveled, and do it far better, for with the 
hopper, there is a perfect mixing of all the fodder, 
grain, and leaves; if the ensilage is kept highest 
