622 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
September 10 
about the gate, but we think he has given enough of 
them to show what may be expected from it. He says 
that the idea came to him while making a trip to 
California last Summer. Passing through the country, 
he observed the thousands of miles of different kinds 
of fence—rail, wire, board, stump, stone, etc. This 
brought to mind something of an idea of the amount 
of money and brains spent in trying to produce a 
portable fence. This suggested a portable gate, and 
out of this grew the idea of using a hoop for a fence 
post. He came back to his New York farm full of the 
idea, and worked it out into practical operation. 
WHAT THEY SAY. 
Coat, from Peat. —As is well known, our supplies 
of coal were originally derived from vegetable mat¬ 
ter, and our coal mines were once probably bogs or 
beds of peat. In Sweden, scientists have tried to 
hasten the process of nature by turning the turf and 
peat into coal rapidly by the simple process of heat¬ 
ing. This was not found practical, but the turf is 
now placed in iron retorts and subjected to a strong 
current of electricity. This turns the turf rapidly 
into a fair quality of coal, which burns with a good 
flame, and develops great heat. This process is so 
cheap that the coal can be sold at S3.50 a ton. 
Oregon Wheat Growing. —One of our readers in 
Grouse, Oreg., sends us a newspaper clipping describ¬ 
ing what is known as the banner wheat yield of his 
county. One farmer had 10 % acres that yielded 83 
bushels of wheat to the acre. He says that, in that 
country, wheat usually follows barley or corn. No 
fertilizer or manure is used, but the old-fashioned 
Summer fallow is practiced. The varieties are Little 
Club and Red Chaff, and from one bushel to five pecks 
of seed are used per acre. The soil and climate of 
that section are peculiarly adapted to wheat culture, 
and the crop can be grown on the same ground for 
many years without any marked decrease in yield. 
Spring Wheat in New York. —Last Spring, we had 
a number of articles about the possibility of growing 
Spring wheat in western New York. Several localities 
were reported where this wheat gave fair satisfac¬ 
tion, but most correspondents seemed to think that it 
would not pay. One of our readers in Orleans County 
sends us samples of Spring wheat which, he says, has 
been grown for several years in his neighborhood. 
He has just thrashed the grain from five acres which 
were cut on July 26. It was sown April 13, and it 
yielded 130 bushels of fine wheat. We doubt, how¬ 
ever, whether this wheat will thrive in all parts of 
western New York, although in this case it has cer¬ 
tainly been a success. 
Use of Cigarettes. — Several readers have com¬ 
mented on the editorial on page 596, referring to the 
use of cigarettes and tobacco. The laws against the 
use of cigarettes were made chiefly to prevent their 
sale to minors. The advocates of these laws claim 
first, that cigarette paper contains a quantity of 
opium, which adds to the bad effect on the smoker. 
They also claim that the cigarette gives a cheap 
smoke, so that boys with little money really use more 
tobacco in this form than any other. Our readers 
seem to vary in opinion as to whether the cigarette is 
a,vy more injurious to health than the pipe or cigar, 
but the two points mentioned above are the chief 
arguments of those who favor restrictive legislation 
against the sale of cigarettes. 
Wild Turkey Blood. —A few years ago, we gave a 
good deal of information about the practice among 
Rhode Island breeders of using wild turkey gobblers 
in their flocks of tame turkeys. The use of this wild 
blood seemed to give the poults greater stamina, and 
to a certain extent, it improves the quality of the 
meat. So far as we can learn, this cross was desir¬ 
able in every way at that time. Many of our readers 
expressed a desire to experiment with birds containing 
this wild blood. We would like to have them tell us 
now how the experiment came out. Has this wild 
turkey blood been an improvement in your flock ? In 
what way is this improvement manifested, and what, 
if any, have been the disadvantages ? We would like 
to hear from as many readers as possible regarding 
this matter. 
Potatoes in Maine. —To give our readers an idea 
of the extent of the potato business in Aroostook 
County, Maine, we may state that one of our sub¬ 
scribers, Mr. E. E. Parkhurst, with his two sons, will 
produce over 25,000 bushels this year. Nearly 6,000 
of these will be Early Rose, and Mr. Parkhurst grew 
the first Early Rose potatoes ever produced in his 
county. He bought three pounds of seed at $1 a 
pound, the yield being 3 % bushels. Five storehouses 
are used, containing an aggregate of 8,544 square 
feet of floor room. Mr. Parkhurst tells us that this 
year’s potato crop bids fair to give a full average 
yield. The blight has appeared in a few localities, 
but in many sections, the vines are yet green and 
making a rapid growth. Ten days of dry weather 
will give a better quality than has been seen for sev¬ 
eral years. Bugs have not been plentiful this season ; 
a few farmers have used Bordeaux Mixture with good 
results. Farmers in Aroostook County look for low 
prices through September and October. 
Cotton Hulls for Mulching. —Cotton-seed hulls 
make a good mulch for strawberries. In the cotton¬ 
growing States, they can be obtained for about S4 per 
ton. Three tons to the acre of berries are a suitable 
quantity to use, but make their cost an objection, al¬ 
though the value of the mulch as a fertilizer balances 
this to some extent. No cotton is grown in Kentucky 
at present, and I have never observed the use of the 
hulls for berries in the State. While it is not abso¬ 
lutely necessary to mulch berries in this part of the 
country, a mulch of some kind seems to me always 
desirable, to keep the ripening berries clean, and to 
prevent loss from rotting. When berries lie on the 
ground, they are more liabl 1 to be gnawed by insects, 
also. [prof.] h. garman. 
Kentucky Experiment Station. 
The Creamery as a Buyer.—The R. N.-Y. asks 
why cooperative creameries cannot buy feed, fertilizers 
or other goods for their patrons. The plan is a most 
practical one, and might be successfully carried out 
by cheese-factory and creamery managers, and a sav¬ 
ing be made to the patrons. But generally they do 
not seem to think it comes within their scope to lead 
out and perform any duties not absolutely necessary. 
We have purchased feeds for our patrons for several 
years in car lots without charge to them, and made a 
saving of about $2 a ton. For the past three years, I 
have made out formulas for fertilizer mixtures, and 
bought the chemicals, making a saving of about $8 a 
ton. Our patrons apparently appreciate the effort in 
their behalf. Local dealers do not take kindly to this 
plan, but I fail to see anything wrong about the plan. 
We shall, at any rate, continue as long as it seems a 
profitable aid to our business. I do not speak from a 
philanthropic standpoint. Different localities would, 
of course, demand large quantities of different stuffs ; 
but the principle remains the same. Such is the order 
of business to-day, and I am inclined to think that, as 
farmers, we could profit more by accepting this order 
of things than by denouncing every form of concen¬ 
trated business effort. h. e, cook. 
Lewis County, N. Y. 
Stock Feeding in Oklahoma. —Our method of win¬ 
tering stock is very different from what it is in the 
East. Nearly the entire acreage of the h’gh prairie 
is used for growing wheat. Most of the corn is grown 
on the bottom farms. Up to the present time, we 
have not been very successful in raising corn on the 
high prairie, but this year will be exceptional. I 
have 30 acres of corn which will go, at least, fifty 
bushels to the acre ; but this has been an exceptional 
year, having had rains just when needed for corn. 
We do not feed the amount of corn to Winter stock 
that is required in more northern countries. We drill 
our wheat here from the middle to the last of Septem¬ 
ber, and in about six weeks, we have fine wheat pas¬ 
ture which lasts all Winter, and is used excepting 
when the ground is too wet to turn the stock on to it. 
The wheat pasture la ts until the prairie grass is large 
enough to pasture in the Spring. 
Ample corn is raised here on the bottom farms for 
all home consumption, and some to sell, but the farm¬ 
ers on the high prairie farms usually buy from the 
farmers on the bottom lands. Wheat bran is fed by 
most progressive farmers, and is kept here at the 
wheat elevators. Farmers generally who keep stock 
raise some sorghum or millet for rough feed. This 
with the wheat pasture carries the cattle through our 
short Winter in fine shape with very little corn. 
Oklahoma. e. h. littlefield. 
Possibilities in Florida Groves.— While visiting 
a neighbor yesterday, I saw a grove which I thought 
your readers might be glad to hear about. This man 
is one of the stay-at-home kind, and takes care of his 
belongings, as is proved by the appearance of his 
place, which looks as though somebody lives there. 
One year ago last Christmas, this man set his grove 
from regular nursery stock trees; these trees now 
have fruit on, some hanging very full. All are citrus 
trees, most of them Silver Cluster pomelo, or grape¬ 
fruit, as it is commonly called. 
There are many citrus trees in this section fruiting 
on two-year buds, but most such are trees that had 
been previously set in groves of which, for some 
reason, the owner desired to change the variety. On 
such trees, we have here had three crops set this sea¬ 
son. One from the regular Spring bloom, the fruit 
from which is now practically full grown. A second 
crop from bloom which appeared on trees well cared 
for, during the dry spell in May ; this fruit is now 
about half-grown. The third crop from July bloom, 
which came when the rainy season had fairly set in, 
and is now growing rapidly. These trees are all 
strong and healthy, and have had only such care as 
should properly be given all groves. I write this that 
The R. N.-Y. readers may realize that in this section 
at least, the long wait of 10 or 12 years for fruit from 
orange trees is no longer necessary under modern sys¬ 
tems of culture. c. i. p. 
Auburndale, Fla. 
A PNEUMATIC WATER SYSTEM. 
AIR THAT RAISES WATER. 
A Giant Squirt Gun. —Last year we printed a 
picture showing a new device for spraying. A steel 
tank was mounted on a wagon, and partly filled with 
spraying liquid. Air was then forced into the tank 
by means of an air-pump working by gearings at¬ 
tached to the wagon axle. The result was that this 
compressed air forced into the tank was used for blow¬ 
ing out the spraying material whenever it was needed. 
A friend of The R. N.-Y has used this same prin¬ 
ciple in working a smaller spraying apparatus. In 
this case, a small tank is carried on a wheelbarrow, 
and the air is forced into it by means of a small hand- 
pump. After these articles were printed, we learned 
of a device patented by a firm in Ohio which enables 
the ordinary windmill and pump to store water and 
air in this way, so that the water may be thrown to 
almost any situation. This is known as the Pneu¬ 
matic Waterworks System, and in correspondence 
with Dr. Lewis Dunn, the inventor of the system, we 
have obtained the following interesting facts: 
Dr. Dunn illustrates his system with a drawing, a 
copy of which is shown at Fig. 289. “ You will see,” 
said the Doctor, “how this system works. You will 
notice at E a pump resting on a platform B. This 
p’atform is placed at the mouth of the well, and be¬ 
low the freezing point. This pump cylinder has a 
solid plunger. You will see that when this plunger 
is at the top and makes a down stroke, air is forced 
into the cylinder through the air valve at the left, 
marked H.” 
“ Your idea, then, is to force air into this cylinder 
at every down stroke of the plunger ?” 
“ Yes, and see what happens when the plunger is 
pulled back. On the up stroke, this inlet air valve 
closes, and the air is discharged into the pipe J, 
through the valve at the left of the pump cap. These 
air valves are easily gotten at with a monkey wrench, 
so that they are kept in order.” 
“We can see what this does to the air, but what 
about the water ? ” 
“ On the up stroke, water is drawn from the well 
into the lower part of the cylinder, and at the next 
down stroke, the valve K closes, and the water is 
forced through the valve N into the pipe L, meeting 
the air, and both passing on into C, which is a strong 
reservoir or tank.” 
“ Then that is all there is to it ?” 
“ Certainly. There is nothing to attend to except 
the stuffing box, and the plunger leathers. The air 
compresser is cooled by the water in the steam cylin¬ 
der. The air and water are mixed in the pipe L, and 
driven into the tank C. This tank can be located any¬ 
where that is desired.” 
“ But, is there not danger of forcing in too much 
air ? ” 
“ This is guarded against in the following way : 
The plunger is operated by the windmill. When 
sufficient pressure has been attained, the mill is pulled 
out of gear. The cylinder N is a one-inch brass pipe. 
In this pipe a plunger operates, and is kept down or 
in its place by a 70-pound weight marked W. When 
the tank pressure exceeds 70 pounds, this weight is 
raised. This pulls up the plunger, and the pressure 
is transferred through the small pipe O, until the hol¬ 
low plunger rod P, which operates in R, pulls on the 
chain T, and in this way draws the mill out of gear. 
It remains thus until the water is removed, and then 
the 70-pound weight will force the small plunger 
down past the opening of the pipe O. This will 
allow the water and air in the cylinder R to escape so 
that the mill comes back into gear again.” 
How It Operates.—“ How does this really work 
in operation ? ” 
“ It works to perfection. With one of our systems, 
