1897 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
6i3 
little chicks would stand with their backs against the 
hot-water pipes, and still feel cold below. Since I 
arranged my brooder as shown in Fig. 259, I have 
little or no trouble. It will be noticed that the air 
enters at X at the back of the brooder, passing through 
the air spaces D, is heated by the water pipes, and 
when leaving the top-opening diffuses itself through 
the lower, and then the outside brooder box. The 
little chicks will sit under the hover, looking out 
through or between the fringe in front, with their 
backs against the flannel, C, believing themselves to 
be under the protecting wing of their mother. The 
air is always being renewed with warm air, and not 
by cold, draughty air as in most brooders. 
But I left the new arrivals in the bottom of the in¬ 
cubator. All that are lively and dried are put, on the 
morning of the 22nd day, in a box lined and covered 
with cloth; 100 in number, they are placed in my 
brooder under the hover by lifting the top, F. The 
brooder entrance is shut down and they are left to 
explore their new world, and to pick about the sand 
covering the bottom of the brooder. After a while, 
they get some rolled oats and water. On the follow¬ 
ing day, they can go outside into the pen, which has 
a barricade across, so that they can get only a foot 
or so from the entrance, and not lose their way and 
get chilled. They will have to be watched for an hour 
or so, teaching them where their mother is. On the 
fourth or fifth day they get bread soaked in milk, and 
wheat and rice (crushed) soaked in milk ; on the sixth 
or seventh day they are divided into lots of 50. If I 
had plenty of room, the largest number should not 
exceed 25 in each lot. 
Their bill of fare after the first week consists of 
two parts of bran ground fine, one of corn meal, one 
of wheat meal or ground barley or oats, with 1% per 
cent of blood meal or meat meal, fed to them in 
troughs alternately every three hours, and a few 
grains of cracked wheat during the intervals. They 
must get only a little at a time, always be kept a little 
hungry and on the move. As they grow, increase the 
quantity of food, and the meat meal, give them all 
they will eat by feeding often if they are going to be 
used for broilers ; if for breeding purposes, feed no 
corn in their soft food till they are six weeks old, 
and only soft food once a day. They get green 
vegetables and fruit not decayed, when we have 
them, otherwise Alfalfa, clover, and anything else we 
have, even the young shoots on the branches of the 
apricot trees. They are always kept hungry (a little), 
therefore busy. At night, they have all they can eat 
of grain. From the very beginning, they regulate 
their desired temperature by going closer to, or 
farther from, the pipes in the heater. • f. s. 
Petaluma, Cal. 
SOME SILO EXPERIENCE. 
Our silo is a wooden chestnut girt silo, built in 
1889 against the outside of the barn. The sills stand 
upon a wall 18 inches high, and the inside boards ran 
down to the ground. They don’t run down there 
now. They have been gnawed off by the teeth of 
time, rats and rot. The girts were six inches thick, 
faced on two sides with a six-inch face, in fact rail¬ 
road ties elongated to 15 feet. The first girt is about 
two feet above the sill, the next space a little further, 
and so on. For the first years when we put in long 
corn, the pressure was only great enough to bulge 
the center a little ; but since we have cut the corn in 
the ensilage cutter, the strain was too great, and 
the tenons started in the corners. The posts were 
six inches square, the tenons 6x5x2, with two pins. 
We have stopped further spreading by putting on 
iron straps around the corners, fastened with coach 
screws. 
But the above-mentioned teeth have been gradually 
undermining the silo, until we found at least two 
loads of spoiled corn in the bottom corners in the 
spring of 1897. In fact, we also found some daylight 
that would have been better out-of-doors. Before 
this, the inside had been relined with rough hemlock 
boards over paper ; this lining, when swelled with 
the steam of heating ensilage, makes a tight job, but 
will not last near the bottom more than three seasons. 
The side next to the barn, which was covered in 1873 
with first quality matched pine, has never had any¬ 
thing put on it, and the original one thickness is be¬ 
ginning this year for the first time to show signs of 
wear. The ensilage has always kept the best on this 
side. 
In early June, this year, we cut off the double 
boarding on the inside of the silo up to the first girt; 
making a good foundation, we laid up a brick wall 
with cement from the bottom to the underside of the 
first girt, cutting out the sill where it was rotten and 
filling over it where sound. On the face of the sill, 
we set a brick flatwise and endwise, making the top of 
the brick come even with the top of the sill, and bound 
with a brick laid its length across the top of the sill, 
-•-his bound everything firmly, and so we walled up to 
the first girt, and washed the face of the wall with 
cement. In July, we filled 8 or 10 feet of the silo 
with oats and peas. We found, when feeding out, 
that our new wall had worked well, and there was no 
rot in the bottom, only some dry mold around the 
edge, which worked down from above, for it is impos¬ 
sible, in so small a body of oats and peas, to ex¬ 
clude the upper air entirely. We are now filling 
with corn. 
We use a Baldwin cutter with 15-inch knife and a 
one-horse power of Messinger make. Both are good 
tools. The throat of the Baldwin cutter is wide and 
low, so that it does not take the feed quite as readily 
as the higher, narrower throats. But the feed is dis¬ 
tributed thinner along the knife, and the knife re¬ 
volves closer to the shaft than in some other machines. 
This makes a saving of power, I think. The knife 
also strikes down, and the sills of the barn act as a 
chopping block ; whereas the upper-cut machines try 
to pull the barn up by the roots. Probably the 
makers of upper-cut machines can say something 
to this. We used a 1,200-pound horse this year. One 
horse cuts in the forenoon and another in the after¬ 
noon. Our 800-pound bull was putin one day; he 
had been cutting dry feed all winter, and was well 
used to the power, but it was moved now to a new 
place with no obstruction in front, as before, and 
having no trace rope, he jumped clean over his feed 
manger, landing on the ground. He is nursing a 
sprained ankle. We cut 1% inch long, six loads in 
half a day. This rate keeps one man hard at work 
feeding the machine. We use a straight 18-foot 
carrier. 
This rate of filling sounds slow to the men who use 
a two-horse power or an engine ; but it will do for 
the small farmer. Only one man <is needed at the 
barn. We have three or four men at other work and 
bringing the corn. As the rains prevented seeding 
in the corn this year, we are clearing up weeds and 
cultivating rye and wheat in between the rows of 
CROSS SECTION OF “ SWEET AND SOUR ” PEAR. Fig. 260 
corn stubs, two or three acres at a time as we clear 
the ground. Perhaps the silo has no greater advant¬ 
age than this clearing of corn ground at a season 
when a winter grain or grass crop can be put on. 
Connecticut. e. c. bibge. 
The Farmers’ Club. 
[Every query must be accompanied by the name and address of 
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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.] 
A Sweet-and-Sour Pear. 
F.8. IV., Vineland, N. J .—I send you a Bartlett pear which may 
be interesting in the discussion of the half-sweet-and-half-sour 
apple question. As you will see, a section of it running length¬ 
wise—about one-fifth—is distinctly and clearly a russet. I do not 
recollect ever seeing one like it before, although the tree has been 
in bearing about 20 years. The nearest russet pear trees—Shel¬ 
dons—are about eight or ten rods distant. It would seem to be 
only a freak of nature. The cause of such freaks, sports or varia¬ 
tions is, certainly, very obscure. Whether the particular tree on 
which this pear grew has a tendency to produce pears of this 
kind, will be a subject for future observation. My object in sending 
you the pear is to show that such things may sometimes occur with¬ 
out any known cause, and the question arises whether this may not 
be the case with the sweet-and-sour apple. Whether there is any 
difference in the flavor of the sections, we leave to you to decide. 
Ans.— The pear sent by F. S. N. has been carefully 
examined, and I find no difference between the 
flavor of the flesh under the two colors of skin. 
The russet is very distinct, and covers a slight frac¬ 
tion less than one-sixth of the surface of the 
fruit, by actual measurement, which is more than 
the fifth part as we see. If the theory should be 
advanced that this russet strip is the result of the 
cross-pollination of one cell of the core, and there 
being five cells to it, which is the normal number, then 
the two should agree proportionately in measure¬ 
ment, as is shown by the drawing at Fig. 260. This 
they do not do; neither do the lines coincide as to 
position with the core cells. Only one seed was found, 
and that in another section than the one that might 
be supposed to have been fertilized by the pollen 
from the Sheldon trees. In the absence of any evi¬ 
dence in the matter, except the existence of the speci¬ 
men, I am at a loss to account for its peculiarity 
upon any other grounds than that it is a freak of 
nature, as F. S. N. says. 
I do not remember that I ever saw a like peculiarity 
in a Bartlett pear, but I have seen clear streaks on 
Sheldon pears more than once. This whole matter of 
abnormally colored segments on fruits is so wholly 
without positive knowledge as to their cause, and 
there is so much said in the way of theory, that it 
might be well to experiment some. Let those who 
may perform artificial cross-pollination next spring, 
try the mixing of pollen from diversely-colored 
varieties on the stigmas of the same flower. Where 
the pistils are separate from each other, it might 
easily be possible to fecundate them with pollen from 
oppositely colored varieties. Perhaps the State ex¬ 
periment stations can best afford to do this. I will 
try it myself if life and health be given me. If the 
theory is correct (which I do not now believe), that 
pollen has direct effect upon the flesh of the result¬ 
ing fruit, then the transmission of the flavor of a 
sour variety to one or more parts of the sweet variety 
might be possible, and vice versa, u. e. van deman. 
Partition in a Twin Silo. 
G. A. G., Lyons, N. Y .—I intend to build a silo 12 x 34 feet, and 
26 feet deep. I would like to divide it into two parts. How shall 
I build the dividing wall ? I feed steers for beef. Shall I break 
off the ears of corn, and grind them to feed or cut corn and all 
into the silo ? 
Ans —Ordinarily, we would not advise a silo so 
long and narrow. In fact, we prefer the circular tub 
silo whenever it can be adapted to the surroundings. 
But assuming that the size and shape of the silo are 
fixed, if you desire to fill each silo independently of 
the other, you will need to make the partition as 
strong as an outside wall, but if you can so arrange 
the machinery as to fill alternately into one silo and 
then the other, changing every 20 or 30 loads, so that 
as the pressure becomes greater, it will be equally on 
both sides of the partition, then you may use quite 
light material in its construction. 
In the former case, we would recommend 2x10 
timbers for the partition ; in the latter, 2x4 would 
be sufficient. The method of putting them in will 
depend upon the method employed in building the 
silo. If constructed of upright studding, a trench 
should be dug along the line of the proposed partition, 
six or eight inches deep. Into this, a sill, preferably 
of oak or chestnut, four inches thick and as wide as 
the studding to be used, is laid level on a few small 
stones, so that it will nowhere come iD contact with 
the earth. Pour around this sill a thin mortar made 
by using three parts of sand to one of good cement. 
When this cement is thoroughly set, you have a sill 
that cannot be moved out of place, and will outlast 
the structure above it. Set up the studding on this 
sill not more than 20 inches between centers, and 
double board on each side with tar paper between ; 
or if one course of good matched lumber is cheaper 
than two courses of rough lumber and paper, the 
matched lumber will answer nearly as well. 
If, however, the silo is constructed with a frame 
work of horizontal timbers, then the partition would 
better be constructed in the same manner, each tim¬ 
ber of the partition taking a good strong lap on those 
of the side walls of the silo. It is especially im¬ 
portant that all laps and joints be very thoroughly 
secured, and it is more economical to cut off the 
angles of a square silo when built than to suffer the 
annual loss of ensilage in them. You will practically 
save all the expense of husking, grinding and hand¬ 
ling the corn by cutting the ears with the stalks into 
the silo. 
A Case of “Dry Roup.” 
F. 11., Trumansburg, N. Y. —I had a brood of chickens hatch 
July 12, and when about three or lour weeks old, I noticed that 
some ol them had sore mouths—a sort of warty growth alongside 
of the mouth, which afterwards extended to the comb and around 
the eyes, making some of them entirely blind, so that I have 
now killed half the brood, with a good prospect of having to kill 
the rest, as it seems to be contagious. The hen having them in 
charge has become infected with it, and it shows as brown spots 
on the comb, wattles, and swelling around the eyes. They have 
run at large separate from other fowls, and have had the best of 
care. I have bathed them once daily with chlorate of potash, and 
applied carbolated vaseline. At first, I thought this arrested 
the progress of the disease, but none of them was cured. 
Ans.—F rom the description, I should think that F. 
R.’s chicks are affected with what is known as dry 
roup. As he does not say what feed was used, or how 
they were housed, it is impossible to give the cause, 
which may be over-feeding, damp or filthy quarters, 
or various other causes. For treatment, touch the 
warty growths with citric ointment, and in two <or 
three days, they will come off and bring the roots of 
the disease, which will be probably one-sixteenth of 
an inch long, or more. After removing the warts, 
apply carbolated vaseline. Give about a teaspoon¬ 
ful of flour of sulphur to each quart of soft feed for 
two or three days, and add 10 drops of bromide of 
potassium to each quart of drinking water. Give 
them dry and clean quarters, and the trouble wiU 
most likely disappear. j. e. s. 
