422 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
May 27, 
plete lit, as that is the secret in glazing to avoid “drip” 
as much as possible. Instead of the strips that are 
used to secure the glass in position being nailed, screws 
are used, preferably those with round heads. 
Greenhouses have been built in the neighborhood of 
Philadelphia 56 feet wide (the sash bars are 32 feet 
long), but personally I would prefer them more on what 
is called the “ridge-and-furrow” plan, or as your reader 
says, “six or eight feet in width,” with the gutters 
seven or eight feet high, as there would be naturally 
less- strain on the lesser than on the larger roof, espe¬ 
cially in windstorms. At some points on the Pacific 
Slope what is known as the redwood lumber is in gen¬ 
eral use for all purposes, being very durable, and is very 
often used without any paint whatever. A first-class 
job of glazing greenhouses cannot be made without at 
least three coats of paint. edwin lonsdale. 
Pennsylvania. 
Good Construction Needed. 
I would suggest to your correspondent that he pur¬ 
chase “Greenhouse Construction,” by. Prof. L. R. Taft. 
It is an extremely valuable work, and answers his ques¬ 
tions in detail. I think the reason his double-pointed 
tacks worked loose was the light construction of his 
houses, which gave too much spring during high winds 
or from snow. This is obviated by stifTer sash bars or 
purlins, with supporting posts nearer together. Houses 
are built with butted glass, and caps are placed upon 
the sash bars to hold the glass in place and are fas¬ 
tened by screws. To replace a square of glass these 
caps must be unscrewed. Putty need not be used under 
this method, but in a cold climate like ours, where 
heavy winds are frequent, I believe a good glazing of 
first-class putty would give a much warmer house. 
Ye have both t he butted and lapped glass and do not 
~It lakes considerably 
think there is much i J 
longer to lay the butted, as i',* /'S 
closely. I would use the grooved sash bar to carry 
away the drip. I do not think there would be any ob¬ 
ject in building a roof in sections, but a house 60 feet 
wide would need to be thoroughly braced. 
Maine. f. c. curtis. 
Thirty-foot Houses Preferred. 
I would advise the Oregon reader to build either one 
60-foot house or two 30-foot houses solid roof. I 
would prefer two 30-foot houses, as a 60-foot house will 
be very high at the ridge. There is no danger in a 
solid roof from expansion or contraction of the glass. 
The most improved method of glazing greenhouses is 
to lap the glass and bed it in good putty. Add some 
white lead in the putty, and fasten the glass with stout 
zinc points or the perfect double glazing points. If he 
uses large glass the zinc points are best; he will not 
have any trouble with their working loose. I would not 
advise him to butt the glass end to end, as there will 
always be some drip, which is injurious to the plants. 
New Jersey. _ f. c. schweinfurth. 
FANCY MARKETS FOR EGGS . 
How can I reach a fancy egg trade or obtain an advance 
above market quotations for strictly fresh eggs? Which are 
the most satisfactory customers, private, hotel or restaurant, 
or commission merchant? Should eggs be stamped with 
name and address? How should the price be regulated, by 
an advance above highest market quotations or a set price 
for certain periods of the year? How are the eggs graded 
as to size? Would advertising in the dailies of large cities 
reach private customers? I have a flock of about 300 White 
Leghorns which I expect to increase. I am at present sell¬ 
ing the product in the local market at market price, which 
is 18 cents per dozen, the lowest price reached yet for the 
season. a. c. p. 
New York. 
There are always two sides to everything, even the 
poultry business, one no more important than the other, 
and the marketing of your product to advantage is 
almost as hard as raising the article for market. There 
is a market for fancy eggs, but how to handle it, to get 
it and keep it, is quite a study. Taking for granted we 
have fancy eggs, large and pure white, the first obstacle 
we run up against is the difficulty of supplying them 
throughout the whole year, October and November are 
the weak points, which must be met each year with a 
large number of early pullets. A good hotel trade is 
perhaps the most satisfactory of all the markets, 
and the best way we know to handle it is giving 
a guaranteed article at an advance over the 
regular market quotations. Go personally and see the 
manager and get him interested in having a fine product 
coming regularly that he is absolutely sure is fresh, and 
he will stand for an advance. The private family trade 
is the most work and the best pay, the hardest to get 
started; but once you get a start it grows of itself, as 
the people will tell their friends where they get those 
delicious eggs. For both private family and hotel trade 
the eggs should be put up in strong locked boxes, well 
marked, and either painted or varnished so as to be 
neat-looking packages. 
Remember that the fancy egg trade is peculiar in some 
respects. You can never replace an egg that reaches 
your customer’s table bad, or even slightly stale, and 
your care must be to see that nothing leaves the farm 
you are not sure of. The commission merchant is not 
in it with the two kinds of markets mentioned already, 
but there is another market which depends on where 
you are located whether you can handle it or not. I 
refer to public institutions, such as hospitals, sanitari¬ 
ums, asylums, homes, and schools. These we have 
found good markets at reasonable figures. Personal 
calls on the managers or stewards you will find much 
more to the point than advertising in any of the dailies, 
and the stamping or dating eggs is a matter of detail 
to be done, or ieft undone, as you find your market 
demands. floyd q. white. 
STRAWBERRY BASKET CARRIER. 
At Figs. 175 and 176 are shown a handy device in¬ 
vented by T. C. Kevitt, of New Jersey, for carrying 
HANDY BASKET HOLDER. Flu. 175. 
two baskets of strawberries home from market. A 
great many retail buyers take two baskets at a time, 
and the common way is to put them into a paper bag 
or set one on top of the other and tie them together. 
No matter how carefully this wrapping up is done some 
of the berries will be crushed, and the whole package 
will look messy when opened. With this device the 
baskets are kept separate, no weight rests on them, and 
a convenient handle is provided. The carriers fit in 
any of the standard crates now in use, weigh about an 
ounce, and are inexpensive. The idea is for the shipper 
to furnish each crate with a set of the wire carriers, 
and it is thought that the neatness and convenience se¬ 
cured by their use will, for many lines of retail trade, 
ensure an advanced price, considerably more than 
enough to cover the cost. 
AN ADVOCATE OF THE SILO. 
Experience in Construction and Feeding. 
Having just emptied my last silo of its silage, I wish 
to record my continued satisfaction with this excellent 
Winter forage. The year’s experience has been a rather 
discouraging one for a silo man, but as man has no 
control over climatic conditions we are obliged to take 
both success and partial failure as they come. I am 
now very sure of one thing; viz., that immature, late, 
frosted corn will not make the best silage, and when 
T 
BASKET HOLDER IN HSE. Fig. 176. 
this kind of material is put into a silo we cannot ex¬ 
pect it to keep as well as matured, unfrosted corn (by 
matured I mean at the dough stage, when cut). But at 
the same time, when caugfet by a frost there is no way 
in which one can realize so much from his crop as 
through the silo, and while, as stated above, the loss 
will be somewhat larger than with good corn, still it 
will not be as great as it would be if the corn were left 
in the field. Carefully kept accounts with our silage 
field show us that we can grow and harvest corn for 
the silo for $1 per ton, and in an exceptionally good 
year the cost is even less. I cannot give any figures as 
to the value of a ton of silage, but after 15 years’ ex¬ 
perience with silage fed to dairy cows I consider its 
value, if good and sound, at from $1.50 to $2 per ton. 
When we installed the silo we were keeping from 20 
to 24 head of cattle; now on the same land we carry 
from 30 to 36 head, so we credit the silo with increas¬ 
ing the capacity of the farm 50 per cent. Of course as 
we increased the stock we increased the fertility of our 
farm. We found it necessary to purchase more grain, 
but this was offset by the prolonged period of milking 
which our cows were easily able to maintain when 
they had this succulent food during November and De¬ 
cember. From the little start at Winter dairying we 
received during the first Winter after we built the silo, 
we now dairy all the year round, a thing that one cannot 
do unless he has succulent food for Winter feeding. 
There is no crop that will furnish as much food per 
acre as the corn crop, and no way in which it can be 
so economically preserved as in the silo. I presume 
R. N.-Y. readers understand thoroughly that all of our 
farm crops, excepting the clovers, are rich in carbo¬ 
naceous material and poor in nitrogenous or muscle and 
milk making elements, so when buying grain to feed 
with silage select those with the largest percentage of 
protein. 
In the construction of a silo to-day, we have changed 
our ideas somewhat from those of 15 years ago. Wc 
now favor higher silos, with smaller surface exposure. 
Probably about six square feet of surface per cow is 
the maximum amount for best results; then if one has 
a light crop and is obliged to feed a half ration he 
can still keep ahead of the second fermentation. We 
find it better to feed the lighter ration and make the 
silage last until Spring, rather than to feed a large 
ration for a short time. In shape I prefer the round 
silo, as all sharp angles are obviated with this form. 
I would locate the silo as near to the feeding alley as 
possible,'Tun' w.huVJ K ”'h.l of wood, either using staves 
or, if lumber is reasonable in price, take 2 x \S" aruf- 
cut into lengths six or eight feet long; spike these 
together in the form of an 8 or 12-sided silo. With 
an adz cut out the inner edge of these planks, making 
a true circle on the inside. Make several of these forms 
and use them as hoops or stages to keep the silo from 
spreading. Put the forms about two feet apart, one 
above the other, at the bottom of the silo, and increase 
the distance towards the top. Line up the inside of 
these forms with good lumber and board up the out¬ 
side, and one has a good silo, all made of lumber and 
spikes. If in a section where good lumber is expensive, 
1 presume one of the readymade silos would be best. 
The silo has come to stay and no dairyman should be 
without some source of succulent food during the Win¬ 
ter months, and silage is the cheapest source of supply. 
Build the silo well, make a good, strong, air-tight box 
at least 30 feet high and from 12 to 16 feet in diameter, 
depending upon the amount of stock to be fed. Plant 
the corn 3j^ feet apart and give it thorough cultivation. 
Use a variety of corn which will be in the dough or 
glazing stage at the time of first frost, and when the 
crop arrives at this stage put it into the silo. Always 
feed in connec'ion with some hay, giving a cow only 40 
to 45 pounds (two bushels) per day, in two feeds. Do 
not feed just before or at milking time. Feed nitrogen¬ 
ous grains in connection with the silage; ground oats, 
bran, gluten, cotton-seed or linseed meal, and you will 
be pleased with results, and save a lot of labor and 
waste in harvesting the corn crop. R. J. weld. 
Pennsylvania. _ 
AN INEXPENSIVE BATHROOM IDEA. 
long, narrow kitchen 20 x 10 feet is divided by 
a partition five feet from the end. The ceiling is 
eight feet high. The partition we decided to have six 
feet high; this will allow the hot air from the kitchen 
to pass over and heat the bathroom. The door we ar¬ 
ranged directly in line with the stove, to furnish ad¬ 
ditional heat, and also to lessen the distance to carry 
the hot Avater for the bath, which will have to be heated 
by the stove. Our pump draws the water from the 
cistern. On one side a convenient arrangement for 
washing is shown in Fig. 177, a tight box fitted to the 
wall with wooden brackets, the seams well filled with 
putty and then painted with white enamel. A hole is 
made in the bottom of box, and a two-inch drain pipe 
fitted into same. The waste water from this and also 
from the bath flows into a flower bed, which is situated 
right at side of kitchen. The towel rack is made from 
a curtain pole painted white to match the woodwork. 
The walls, four feet high, are covered with blue and 
white tiled paper. A rug in front of the bath, with 
all the other toilet accessories, completes the thoroughly 
practical, convenient and artistic bathroom, the ex¬ 
pense for the comfort derived amounting to but little. 
The bath chosen is one that requires little water on 
account of the long, narrow end. Bath cost $6; pump, 
92 cents; plumbing, $6; other expenses, $1; total, 
$13.92. M. s. 
Long Island. 
