1898 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
783 
repair, and did not do it, the township committee 
could get some one else who would do it. If a farmer 
did unnecessary work on the road in order to get the 
pay, he could be stopped in time. Where Mr. Dawes 
lives, there is gravel along the streams which makes 
as good a road as crushed stone. If there were no 
good material at hand, the township could buy a stone 
crusher, and move it about from place to place. In 
two cases, the railroad company had delivered fur¬ 
nace slag free, and other railroads would, doubtless, 
help, as good wagon roads always help a railroad. 
Farmers where Mr. Dawes lives are opposed to any 
bonding scheme, or any plan that proposes an expen¬ 
diture of $3,000 or more per mile. This plan, he 
thinks, would meet with public favor, would 
be cheap, and also give good roads. All the 
money expended would stay right in the sec¬ 
tion benefited, and where it would do the most 
good. 
Some Vermont Ideas. —The pig is a grazing 
animal sure, and there is nothing he likes so well 
as a good field of clover. Have a movable house 
for the pigs, and divide the field so that, when 
they are in one field, the crop on the other part 
will be growing. 
I saw a neighbor to-day gathering a fine crop 
of cabbage and cauliflower, and he told me that 
all the fertilizer used was a good crop of wild 
Canada peas plowed under. Perhaps if those 
farmers who have been cursing this legume as a 
pesky weed, will plow it under for manure, they 
will feel pleasanter. 
The general-purpose-cow idea so much talked 
of is, to my mind, the greatest mistake and foe 
to progress in cattle breeding that was ever 
conceived. Improvement is the watchword, and 
how can we hope to improve our dairy animals 
or our beef animals if we mix the two ? It is 
against all reason. Remember that old truth, 
“ Like begets like or the likeness of some 
ancestor,” and breed for one purpose, improvement. 
Grand Isle, Vt. _ h. m. p. 
" INDIVIDUAL MILK JARS.’’ 
Not Desirable. —In regard to the note on page 747, 
concerning individual milk jars, it is my opinion that 
they would add not only to the first cost, but ma¬ 
terially to the running expenses; besides they are 
absolutely unnecessary, and would not be necessarily 
effective. If the bottles are sterilized as they should 
be, no danger can come from mixing bottles, and if 
they are not sterilized but merely washed in water 
not hot enough to destroy disease germs, the individual 
milk jars may be contaminated through washing them 
in the same water in which bottles 
containing disease germs have been 
washed. 
For many years the Department of 
Agriculture of the Ohio State Univer¬ 
sity, has maintained in connection 
with its farm, a retail milk route with 
a herd of about 30 cows constantly in 
milk. Only recently, however, has the 
Department changed to the bottling 
system, chiefly because it did not here¬ 
tofore have the proper facilities for 
washing and sterilizing the bottles. 
Our system at present is briefly as 
follows : 
Handling the Milk. —About once 
a year, our herd is tested with the 
tuberculin test. That the cows are 
carefully fed and handled goes with¬ 
out saying. The milkers wear special 
clothing, and do no work in connec¬ 
tion with the cattle which might con¬ 
taminate the milk. The first milk is 
rejected. The milk is then aerated, 
cooled, and passed through a centri¬ 
fugal separator. In the process of sepa¬ 
ration, enough skim-milk is removed 
to bring the butter fat up to five per 
cent. After the milk has been passed 
through the separator, it is cooled and 
placed in sterilized bottles. The cap 
of the bottle bears the stamp which guarantees the 
milk to contain five per cent of butter fat. 
It cannot be insisted upon too often that washing 
bottles in hot water in which the hands can be com¬ 
fortably used does not make them bacteriologically 
clean. After the bottles are washed in this manner, 
through two waters and, unless previously washed by 
the customers, through three waters, they should be 
subjected to a steam bath in a tight chamber, prefer¬ 
ably at a slight pressure, for 15 to 20 minutes. This 
is a matter in which merely going through the motions 
will not suffice. You may humbug the people, but 
you can not humbug the bacteria. It is not only de¬ 
sirable, but it is essential, that every utensil, from 
the pails used in milking, through every stage of the 
process until the milk jars are reached, should be 
sterilized. This means that we should have a good- 
sized sterilizing room, and not a small steam-box. 
A Sterilizing Outfit. —In equipping the dairy 
laboratories in Townshend Hall, an attempt was 
made to construct a sterilizing room that would be 
sanitary and durable, and obtainable at an expense 
that would not make it prohibitive to the average 
dairyman. The result is shown in Fig. 358 This 
consists of a brick chamber made of 13-inch brick 
walls; in interior dimensions it is 46 inches wide by 
53 inches long and 88 inches high. In practice, this 
has been found large enough for a dairy of 35 cows. 
bottles, or in all, 300 bottles. The shelves are 10 inches 
apart in the clear. The casters have wheels five inches 
in diameter. The car is made of oak with as little iron 
as possible, and before being put into service, the wood 
was given two coats of boiling linseed oil. It has been 
found to be, in practice, a very satisfactory car, and 
so far gives the appearance of being durable. 
Ohio State University. thomas f. hunt. 
BURBANK'S SEEDLING OF GRAVENSTEIN. 
See Ruralisms, Page 786. 
Fig. 357. 
To increase its dimensions, it should be lengthened. 
It is wide enough and high enough for all purposes. 
This room is laid up inside and out with enameled 
brick, but could be laid up with hard-burned brick in 
cement mortar, and when so built would be compara¬ 
tively inexpensive. It is covered with sandstone. In 
order to make the room tight, the door is made like a 
refrigerator door. This makes it necessary to have 
an incline on which to run the car carrying the milk 
jars. This incline must, of course, be removed before 
the door is closed. 
The door is wood, and here arises the difficulty. 
The door must be covered on the inside with some¬ 
thing that will not be acted upon by steam and, as we 
STERILIZING OUTFIT AT THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY. Fig. 358. 
have learned by experience, acids also. We lined our 
door with a good quality of zinc, but we have dis¬ 
covered that the hydrochloric and carbonic acids 
formed by the decomposition of the chlorides and car¬ 
bonates when steam is produced under pressure, will 
make a good quality of sheet zinc as rotten as brown 
paper by using this sterilizing room 90 minutes a day 
for three months. Probably the only thing left to use 
is lead. 
The car which is shown at Fig. 358 we had made 
after the suggestions of Mr. Marion Imes, one of our 
students who has direct charge of the bottling of the 
milk. The car is 32 inches wide, 46 inches long, 70 
inches high. There are five pairs of shelves, each one 
of the 10 shelves being 16 x 45 inches, and holding 30 
HOW MANY PIGS IN A PEN? 
GIVE THEM ROOM ENOUGH. 
One of our readers in Pennsylvania asks the fol¬ 
lowing questions, and requests us to submit 
them to some extensive hog breeders for answer : 
Will 35 fifty-pound pigs do as well in a pen 11x40 feet, as 
they would were the pen divided into, say six pens ? It 
would be a much easier matter to keep the bedding clean 
in the large pen. The feed could be distributed along the 
trough so that each would, probably, get its share, but 
whether for other reasons, it is a good or desirable thing 
to have so many together, is the question. 
Give the Weak Ones a Chance. —Under 
ordinary conditions, 35 pigs in one pen will not do 
so well as the same animals would do if divided 
into several lots, care being exercised to make 
each lot as uniform as possible. In so large a 
number, there is almost sure to be considerable 
difference in the size and vigor of the animals* 
Where so many are put together in one pen or 
inclosure, the weaker ones do not have an equal 
chance with the stronger and more vigorous. 
Not only is this true at the feeding trough, but 
also in the bed or sleeping apartment. Weak 
pigs are frequently injured by the stronger and 
more robust in the nest, by the larger ones 
lying on them, particularly if the weather is 
cold. In feeding any class of animals, it is 
always desirable to have the lots small and the 
animals of each lot of uniform size and vigor as 
nearly as possible, in order that each may have its 
due proportion of food without unnecessary struggle 
to obtain it, and that each may, also, be made as com¬ 
fortable as possible during the fattening period. 
Pennsylvania Agricultural College. G. c. watson. 
Crowding Means Disease. —They would do bet¬ 
ter in the divided pen. There would, undoubtedly, 
be several in the lot not so hearty as the majority, 
and these would consequently be crowded out of the 
trough, and not get their share of food. In addition, 
if any disease were to break out, it would be much 
more difficult to keep the unaffected ones from infec¬ 
tion ; while in the case of a slower disease, such as 
tuberculosis, the pigs not confined in immediate con¬ 
tact with those affected would not be so liable to con¬ 
tract it. Then again, if it were im¬ 
portant to change the feed of a few, so 
as to force them ahead to keep pace 
with the majority, these could be 
changed over into a pen by themselves, 
while if they are all in one large pen, 
they would be likely to go without the 
special ration required. G. R. foulke. 
Pennsylvania. 
Sort by Size. —As most of our pigs 
are sold for breeders, we always make 
it a point to separate them into pens of 
about seven or eight, being careful, if 
there is any difference in the size of 10 
or 12 litters, to sort them according to 
size. By doing this, the small ones 
are not so liable to be injured by the 
larger ones, and will get their share of 
the feed. Several years ago, we would 
turn 40 or 50 pigs into an orchard, 
after weaning them; although they 
would be very even in size at that 
time, some of them would grow faster 
than others, and the small ones would 
not do well. To avoid this, a. few 
years ago we built a new piggery ; it 
was arranged with pens on each side, 
leaving a walk through the center to 
feed. The pens are about 8 x 14 feet and 
24 in all. Each pen slopes to a gutter 
that runs nearly through the center, 
so the back part of the pen is used for a bed, and can 
be kept dry. All the water runs to the gutter, a 2 x 4 
is placed about two inches from the cement bottom to 
prevent the straw from getting wet. It is very handy 
to clean out, and economical in the saving of feed. It 
might be a little less work to have one large pen ; 
but straw is cheap on the farm, and we bed them 
often, trying to work all the straw into manure that 
we possibly can. Almost without exception, we are 
assured of an excellent crop of corn when we can fer¬ 
tilize the ground from our piggery. 
New York. f. h. gates & sons. 
Pretty Small Space. —This is a question out of 
the usual order for pig growers that have “ all out of 
doors ” for their pigs, I do not understand whether 
