7o4 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
October 15 
seemed to me that Ex.-Gov. Hoard showed great skill 
in handling it. In introducing him, Prof. Jordan had 
applied well-deserved eulogy with a large brush. Mr. 
Hoard said this reminded him of a time in Canada 
when a chairman had told the audience what a won¬ 
derful man he was. He told them that the one thing 
he needed to make him happy was to have that chair¬ 
man go and talk to his wife for about 10 minutes. If 
that were done, she might change her mind about 
two or three things. Then there came a voice from 
the rear of the room : 
No use, mon. I ken she knows ye too weel. 
Every man and woman in the tent saw the point, 
and the laugh that went up carried with it all the 
weariness in that audience. Among other things, Ex- 
Gov. Hoard said that the hanker, the merchant and 
the lawyer deal only with the laws which man has 
made. The farmer deals with God’s laws—yet it must 
he said that man-made laws often trip him up. As 
compared with former years, the New York State 
farmer has lost pride and ambition, hut we were not 
told what caused this loss. 
Ex-Gov. Hoard paid a high tribute to the German im¬ 
migrants who came in such great numbers to the West 
and Northwest. They were naturally good farmers, 
and had been taught in the German schools that it is 
a disgraceful thing ever to let the land lose its fer¬ 
tility. The land they farmed always improved, and 
this German love of the land has been of wonderful 
benefit to Wisconsin. Ex-Gov. Hoard gave it as his 
opinion that, if these Germans had settled in New 
York State, and carried out their ideas of tilling the 
land, there would now he a very different story to 
tell. His theme was improvement—making one blade 
of grass produce the hay for which two small blades 
are now required, and making one well-bred cow dis¬ 
place two scrubs. This is not to be reached by any 
miracle, but through the slow and sure process of 
education. The States and the general government 
are now honestly in favor of agricultural education. 
They must go further, and go down into the country 
school so that American children, like the German 
peasants, will love the land. “ Why,” said he, “the 
man who leaves his farm less productive than he 
found it, is not a good citizen, for he destroys the re¬ 
sources of his State.” 
It was a great day—one that will long be remem¬ 
bered by those who attended the meeting. We went 
home with higher thoughts—lifted up, inspired—with 
a nobler idea of farming, and more respect for the 
farm. Many of us went back to face the small, mean, 
disagreeable features of farm life, but the memory, 
the thoughtful hope and the ennobling inspiration 
went with us, too. It is true that thousands of farm¬ 
ers who most need this uplifting, never go to such 
meetings. The work of the Experiment Station must 
be made so simple and so clear, that it will reach 
out to them, so that they can understand it. The 
Station must reach new men, as well as discover new 
methods. n. w. c. 
POSTSCRIPTS. 
Tub average weight of a cubic foot of ordinary 
ensilage is figured at 40 pounds. Probably that is a 
fair estimate for ensilage that has been well trodden 
down, in silos of reasonable size. 
Experiments at the New Hampshire Agricultural 
College indicate that it takes at least 12 days after 
the first blossoms of daisy or whiteweed for the seed 
to mature. Thus early cutting must be practiced to 
kill it off. 
At this season of the year, we usually get a number 
of inquiries regarding the possibility of wheat turn¬ 
ing into Chess or Cheat. There are not so many as in 
former years, yet some farmers evidently believe 
that this change is possible. It would, probably, be 
just as easy for a hen to turn into a duck, as for this 
change of grain to be made. 
Several weeks ago our friend, Benj. Bucltman, of 
Illinois, gave his experience with the new plant, Ro¬ 
selle. He writes that he still has some faith that their 
yearly “ hot spells” or corn weather, will show some 
fruit of the Roselle, if it is planted early enough. He 
says that crops mature a week or so earlier than they 
do in northern New Jersey. He can judge how early 
the plants mature by the way they receive the Fall 
frosts. On September 17 they were over five feet high. 
The story is told of a man in Dawson, Alaska, who 
came into camp with a copy of a newspaper, giving 
the first account of Dewey’s victory at Manila. A 
bright Yankee bought the paper for $10, and hired the 
largest hall in the place. He charged 50 cents admis¬ 
sion, and packed the room, and then he read the 
paper aloud to the crowd. It is said that he made 
$400 off that one newspaper, and then sold it for $50 
to a miner who went to another camp and repeated 
the performance. 
The Farmers’ Club 
[Every query must be accompanied by the name and address of 
the writer to insure attention. Before asking a question please 
see whether it is not answered in our advertising columns. Ask 
only a few questions at one time. Put questions on a separate 
piece of paper.1 
An Ice House and Cool Room. 
T. B. N., Center , N. Y .—I wish to build an ice house large enough 
to hold 10 cubic feet of ice, and to have the house large enough 
to have a milk room at one end. Can I have the room cool 
enough to raise cream from that body of icc ? If so, how would it 
be best to build it ? Would it be best to fill with cakes or to run 
water into the ice house, and freeze in one solid cake. ? 
ANSWERED BY HENRY 8TEWART. 
Ten cubic feet is quite too small a supply of ice for 
anything. It is a mere mass scarcely more than three 
feet in size each way. Such a mass might be kept, if 
well packed in sawdust, for a considerable time, but 
we are to think of what goes on when ice is used for 
the purpose of cooling anything. Ice cools by absorb¬ 
ing heat from the substance cooled, and by the ab¬ 
sorption of heat the ice melts; so that we cannot cool 
anything, not even the air, without waste of ice. 
It will help to make this matter plain to give a 
drawing of a cooling house for milk, the size of which 
may be made to suit any circumstances, from the 
mere cooling closet to the large refrigerator. It is a 
plain building with a door and one window. See Fig. 
324. At one end is the cool closet, made with double 
walls, four inches apart, and the space filled in with 
dry sawdust or broken charcoal. The inside is best 
lined with galvanized sheet iron, which will not ab¬ 
sorb dampness, and will always be free from the bad 
odor of a wooden closet. The floor and the ceiling 
should be of the same stuff. Overhead in this closet 
is the ice chamber. This is the same in every way as 
the lower part, except that the floor of this chamber 
is of metal and is sloped a little to one corner to drain 
off the water of the melting ice by a pipe, for it is the 
melting of the ice by which the lower closet is cooled. 
A closet six or eight by four feet, and six feet high, 
will easily use up two cubic feet of ice every day, if 
there is milk enough to occupy it. Of course, the 
milk should be cooled in water as much as possible 
before it is put into the cold closet, to save ice, and as 
well to prevent the evaporation of it from making 
the closet damp, and a bad odor in it. 
The ice should be stored near the cool house or 
room. It is not desirable to have it in the store milk- 
house, on account of the odor from the dampness of 
it. As much ice as will be needed for use may be put 
into the upper part of the closet every two or three 
days, or if it is well managed, as much may be put in 
as will last a week or longer. It may be packed in so 
that it may last a month if only a small quantity of 
milk is to be cooled. The quantity may be easily fig¬ 
ured out in this way. Every pound of ice in mere 
melting will absorb 142 degrees of heat, that is, it 
will cool in melting one pound of water 142 degrees, 
or 142 pounds one degree. Thus in melting merely, a 
pound of ice will cool 10 pounds of milk 14 degrees, 
or from 60 to 46 degrees. In a well-made cooler, there 
will be but little loss of ice after the closet is once 
cooled down, except so far as the cooling of the milk 
goes, so that it is easy to figure how much ice will be 
needed to supply any sized cooler. 
It has been found wholly impracticable to fill an ice 
house by running water and freezing a solid mass of 
ice in it. Ice, when packed in square, closely-fitting 
blocks in an ice house, will always freeze together, by 
its special native and peculiar action, which is called 
regelation or repeated freezing, and this peculiar act 
occurs at the ordinary freezing temperature of water, 
viz., 32 degrees. So that the easiest and most prac¬ 
ticable way is to cut the ice for filling the house, in 
square-shaped, close-fitting blocks. 
How to Cut Tops of Small Trees. 
■7. S. S., Pittsburgh, Pa.— 1. This Fall, I intend to plant quinces, 
pears, plums, cherries aDd apples, and would like some informa¬ 
tion about cuttinfr the tons at planting. I would like to head 
everything low. Is this practicable in all the above list ? If so, 
how should I go about it ? 2. I noticed some time ago in The R. 
N.-Y. an article on painting young trees with blood for protection 
against rabbits. Has this been tried thoroughly ? Can you rec¬ 
ommend it? If not, which is the best protection that is not too 
expensive to apply ? 
ANSWERED BY H. E. VAN DEMAN. 
1. There is considerable difference of opinion among 
good orchardists as to high or low heading of trees. 
The most favor low heads, especially for the western 
States. While many good orchards are headed four 
and more feet high in Pennsylvania and farther east, 
there are many very good ones that are not so. The 
general tendency among the best fruit growers is to¬ 
wards lower heads in all sections. No rule can be 
laid down as to any specific height at which to head 
all varieties of any one species, much less a common 
rule for all species, because there are such different 
styles of growth. I like an apple tree to start its head 
from two to three feet from the ground, and to send 
out its branches one after another on all sides of a 
central stem as far up as they may be induced to do 
so. This divides the strain caused by future crops. A 
Northern Spy tree, which is of upright habit, should 
not be allowed to begin to branch as high as a Wine- 
sap or Rhode Island Greening, which are of spreading 
habit. It may be necessary, in many cases, to head in 
some of the lowest branches, as their tips are bent to 
or nearly to the ground in future years. But this is 
much better than to have the trees too high. 
The main reason given by most of those who contend 
for high heads is that they may plow right up to the 
trunks. This I do not wish to do after the first few 
years, for there is no benefit in doing it. The feeding 
roots are not there, and the brace roots should not be 
disturbed. No weeds of consequence can grow under 
the shade of a well-branched tree. A wide cultivator 
will reach well under the limbs anyway. The disad¬ 
vantages are greater difficulty in gathering the fruit 
from high trees than from low ones ; greater distance 
of shade cast by them, and more purchase by the 
wind. One must use good judgment in planting the 
different classes and varieties of fruit trees. He must 
know his tree, what is its habit, therefore its pos¬ 
sible future. Pear trees should be headed lower than 
apple trees, because they generally have a more up¬ 
right habit. Two feet is not far from right to begin 
their branching. Peach trees should be still lower— 
about 20 inches is an approved height. Plums vary 
greatly in style of tree. The Abundance and nearly 
all of the Japan class are very upright, while the Bur¬ 
bank is very drooping. The other classes of plums 
vary somewhat, too, but the native kinds are usually 
spreading and the European upright. From 20 inches 
to three feet is about the range for length of trunks, 
to be judged according to the necessities. Cherries are 
very much the same as plums, the sour kinds being of 
a spreading habit. Quince trees of all varieties that 
I know are prone to bend towards the ground, and 
need to be headed about two feet high, and then fre¬ 
quently pruned from below to keep the lower branches 
off the ground. 
2. As to protecting fruit trees from rabbits, I have 
had an extended experience. I believe that I have 
tried about the whole catalogue of “protectors” as 
mentioned in the papers, and some that I have not 
seen there. I ma 3 r say at the start that all are a fail¬ 
ure when a close time comes for rabbit food, except 
those that cover instead of coating the tree trunks. I 
have no faith in nostrums of any kind as safe pre¬ 
ventives. It is true that rabbits do not like blood or 
any animal substance ; but it will wash off. Liver is 
fairly good, as it sticks quite well. I have even split 
the rabbit himself and rubbed it on, but with only tem¬ 
porary effect; axle grease, whitewash with sulphur 
in it, milk, cowdung and ashes mixed, and coal" tar to 
cap the climax. The last was the nearest sure to 
last, and the most effective as a deadener to the trees. 
It may seem strange, but it is true that rabbits gnawed 
through coal tar to get apple bark on my farm when 
a crusted snow covered all other food. Tying up with 
paper, rags, hay, straw, pieces of cornstalks and coarse 
slough grass tied on with strings have all been tried, 
and all were effective as long as they lasted, which is 
generally the whole season, if the work is well done, 
except the paper. Wire screen is effective, but it is 
costly and rusts out within two years. The last and 
best thing I tried was plastering laths cut in three 
pieces and made into a protector by weaving them 
into four strands of wire, two near each end. If the 
laths are of some durable timber (cypress is what I 
used), they will last for many years. In the United 
States Agricultural Report for 1892, is a complete de¬ 
scription of this protector, with full directions for 
making it. No doubt copies could be had of members 
of Congress, for thousands of them lie molding in 
Washington, because of the lack of interest these 
same members take in distributing them. 
