678 
September 16, 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
grain. Ordinary sized bundles as bound with us, yield 
about four pounds of thrashed oats or wheat. On this 
estimate one good bundle of oats each morning, one 
bundle of wheat at noon, and a peck of shelled corn at 
night would be somewhere near enough for 100 hens. 
1 doubt if 100 Leghorn hens would eat that amount for 
any length of time, but 1 have seen Plymouth Rocks 
that would do it and more too. If you can get some 
meat or animal food of some kind to add to the above 
you should get eggs. 
City or Country. 
There comes a time in the lives of most young men 
when it is “up to them” to decide whether they are to 
live and work in the country or the city. Examples of 
country-raised young men who long for city life are 
quite common. Examples of city-bred young men who 
long for country work are not so common. Here is an 
extract from a letter to me from such a young man. He 
is 23 years oh and asked that he might come and work 
for me for his board and lodging until I thought he 
could earn more: 
I have always been very tonfl of domestic animals and farm 
life but unfortunately have never had an opportunity of 
satisfying my desire. Whenever I mentioned the matter to 
anyone they simply laughed' at me and told me I must lie 
foolish to think of such a thing. It was rather discourag¬ 
ing to hear people talking that way, hut it did not daunt me. 
I don’t want you to think that because I can operate a type¬ 
writer I can't do anything else. I have always been accus¬ 
tomed to plenty of work and would have been quite happy 
could I have started right in at the chicken business or 
farming, but as my father needed all the money he could get, 
I thought it better to get out and' earn all I could for him. 
This explains why I commenced as a stenographer and type¬ 
writer, at which business I was able to make a pretty fair 
salary and in that way helped him out considerably. Dur¬ 
ing all these seven years, however, I never once lost my 
ambition to be in the country, in spite of all the discourag¬ 
ing sermons which I had heard. I even tried keeping a few 
hens in our hack yard, hut when I went to business in the 
morning my younger brothers and sisters didn t uo any¬ 
thing but feed until I returned in the evening, so I was 
rather unwillingly obliged to get rid of my chickens. Be¬ 
sides the neighbors made several complaints to the Board 
of Health. You may think when you first see me that I am 
too “citified” for country work; of course I can d'o nothing 
to offset this appearance which it has taken seven years of 
indoor work to acquire, but all I ask is a fair trial; don t 
count on my looks at all. I'll admit that I ve been wearing 
white collars and ties all mv life, but believe me I am a 
great deal more happy in a pair of overalls. 
After some further correspondence I arranged to have 
him come on September 1. 1 hen arose another diffi¬ 
culty that had been overlooked. His mother objected 
so strongly to his coming to the country to learn to be a 
farmer that he has given up the project for the present 
rather than displease her. I have two sons of my own. 
The older one when a young man was a great hand to 
be studying an egg. I have seen him have a long row 
of eggs in the shop, of differing ages, which he would 
examine and compare with great interest as they kept 
getting older, adding a fresh egg to his row each day. 
When his opportunity came to go to the city, he natur¬ 
ally drifted into the wholesale egg business, and is 
getting quite a reputation as “Mapes the Egg Man.” 
The row of eggs now passing through his place of 
business for examination and grading, has grown until 
it literally contains millions each year. My younger 
son Jesse, who has been my partner for the past four 
years, always has had a great eye for the fancy points 
of a hen. I have been more interested in the utility end 
of the business and but little attention has been given 
to the fanciers’ department. The older brother made 
Jesse a tempting offer to come to the city and help him 
in his business. 
After things had progressed so far that the city flat 
was selected, and a month’s rent for it paid in advance, 
an opportunity appeared for him to rent a farm already 
stocked with over a thousand head of White Leghorns 
that have been bred and advertised with special refer¬ 
ence to their fancy points. The question was “up to 
him” whether it should be city life or farm life. Partly 
out of consideration for his little children he soon de¬ 
cided to let some one else live in the city flat, and under¬ 
take the farm and the fancy stock. What sort of a 
lease should be drawn in such a case? 
The farm contains about 40 acres of excellent land 
in the Chenango River Valley, the owner's health mak¬ 
ing it necessary for him to take a rest. He was willing 
to turn it over to a reliable young man, fully stocked 
and equipped with all necessary tools, etc., including a 
dairy of ten Winter milkers, for a yearly cash rental, 
equal to five per cent of his investment. In this case 
one man furnishes all the capital and the other all the 
labor. A careful inventory is to be taken by two dis¬ 
interested men. of everything on the farm, taking note 
of its condition, etc. The tenant is then to have full 
possession and use. just as though he is the owner. 
At the end of the year or term of years, the same 
two men arc to inventory the property, the tenant to be 
paid the difference in case it has appreciated, and the 
landlord in case it has depreciated. Under this plan a 
young man can have a full opportunity to see what he 
can do at running a farm, provided the owner can be 
found who will place enough confidence in him to 
entrust the property in his hands, without investing any 
of his own money. 
In this case only one horse, harness and buggy are to 
be furnished by the tenant. Whether or not the choice 
between city or country was a wise one remains to be 
seen. Many of these fancy birds arc valued at $5 to 
$10 each by the owner. One cock has been recently sold 
for $100. If the tenant can sell any at such prices he 
has the privilege of raising others equally as good and 
replacing them. Seizing opportunities is an important 
PLUMBING TRAP FOR SINK. Fig. 288. 
See Page 081. 
part of our lines. Young men, and older ones too, 
should always remember that to-day’s opportunities 
cannot be seized to-morrow. 0. w. mapes. 
BIG STORIES MADE SMALLER. 
[Under this head’ we hope, from time to time to follow 
down some of the great and plausible stories which appear 
in the newspapers and which often deceive farmers.] 
The enclosed clipping is of great interest to farmers 
in this county and right in this locality, as this is a 
"pine stump” country for all that the term can imply. 
If such a concern as the one mentioned could be induced 
to locate here it would be a boon for the farmers and 
the business for the company would be immense besides. 
Do you know anything of this concern or their address 1 
We would like to be put into communication with them. 
Mecoster, Mich. F. p. w. 
The clipping follows:— 
All the region about the head of Lake Superior is or was 
covered with pine timber, and when this was cut 1 lie stumps 
have remained on the ground. Pine stumps do not rot as 
do those of hardwoods, and’ the presence of these stumps 
lias been a serious obstacle to the spread of farming in the 
region. And now comes the pine-tar company and offers to 
clear a farm of all its old stumps, or to pay the owner three 
dollars for every cord of them he will pull himself. For 
farmers throughout thousands of acres this is an inestimable 
boon, and it will open hundreds of thousand's more acres 
as fast as the stumps are got out. The company has in¬ 
vented. or applied existing processes of destructive distilla¬ 
tion of wood to the pine stumps, and is securing a combined 
product of great value. There is a large amount of turpen¬ 
tine in these dry stumps, a high grade of lubricating oil. a 
good amount of tar. and finally excellent charcoal. The dis¬ 
covery that lubricating oil was to be secured from stumps by 
carrying the distilled product to its last analysis is nnite 
new, and no machines for producing this have yet been in¬ 
stalled. hut they are to he placed at once in the company's 
plant, thus enlarging its facilities. 
It is easy to see how such a scheme would interest 
farmers in a pine stump section. At $3 a cord a -farmer 
could get from an acre several times the value of bis 
land ! So far as we can learn there is nothing in the 
scheme. Some chemist seems to have stated that those 
A FAMILY OF RENT PAYERS. Fig. 289. 
pine stumps contain oil and turpentine. He might also 
have said that the air contains nitrogen. To organize 
a company which will pay $3 a cord for pine stumps is 
about as sensible as to offer to buy the air which rests 
upon a farm in order to extract nitrogen from it. Very 
likely the stumps would yield a salable product, but no 
company can afford to clear a farm for the value of the 
stumps. What a chance this would be for one of the 
frauds who make money by selling stock. I le could 
offer $3 a cord for the stumps and make a condition 
that the farmer buy stock in the company. That farmer 
would soon be “up a stump.” 
The following statement appears in many of the 
papers. Rev. Dr. James W. Lee visited Luther Bur¬ 
bank’s place in California and in a recent sermon on the 
treatment of children is reported:— 
Dr. Lee inspected the work Burbank is doing with plant 
life and he says that, he saw a plant upon ’which tomatoes 
were growing at the top and Irish potatoes at the bottom. 
This has been accomplished by interbreeding the wild potato 
with the tomato, and regular Irish potato. 
This is a fair sample of the stuff that is printed about 
Burbank’s work. At least a dozen years ago we de¬ 
scribed a plant which we saw growing at Cornell Uni¬ 
versity. This had tomatoes growing above ground while 
tubers were forming at the roots. This was no more 
the result of “inter-breeding” than a wooden fence with 
an iron top would be the result of breeding a steel rail 
and a chestnut tree. The plant resulted from grafting. 
The top of a tomato plant was grafted upon the stem 
of a potato. The two plants are related and such 
grafting is possible and often done as a novelty. Such 
a plant was once exhibited at a county fair and “fakers” 
even sold seeds which were guaranteed to produce it. 
This extravagant advertising must be a great annoy¬ 
ance to Mr. Burbank. He is by nature a very modest 
and retiring man with a small personal estimate of the 
value of his own work. It evidently grieves him to have 
his name constantly paraded before the public in this 
way. He would much prefer to continue his work 
quietly—away from the public gaze. It is unfortunate 
that a man so constituted should be forced into public 
notoriety. _ 
THE MANURE SPREADER IN SNOW. 
Another machine to which many dairy farmers are 
giving thoughtful consideration is the manure spreader. 
Many would invest in the machine quickly were it not 
for one drawback, but that appears to be a serious one. 
We are fast coming to the conclusion that manure 
should be hauled daily and spread as made, in order to 
get the best results from it, and and at the same time 
keep the stable clean and save labor of rehandling. Will 
a manure spreader work well in snow, that is, if it is 
more than six inches deep? The greater portion of 
the manure is made while the snow is on the ground. 
Such problems as these we want pretty thoroughly 
solved by experience. I have seen in northern Ver¬ 
mont a great many spreaders, and there they have 
snows that can discount ours at a high rate. In their 
case they do not not attempt to haul manure till Spring. 
I have been advised to try the same plan, but that 
is bad advice. The manure should go out daily. This 
plan saves the manure, aids in making better milk, and 
saves a lot of labor when labor needs saving. Crops 
can be put in earlier if the manure is all out when 
Spring opens. We certainly want the spreader, how¬ 
ever, if we can use it. h. h. lyon. 
VENTILATION AND DAIRY PROBLEMS. 
Will you inform me how properly to ventilate my cow 
stables at small cost. The ceilings are hut seven feet high, 
and as we house 30 head I know more fresh air is needed. 
The fear that the water buckets will freeze prevents win¬ 
dows directly behind cattle from being partially open. Coun¬ 
try people, more than cityites, fail to realize value of fresh 
air. The cow manure at our barns (in Orange County, N. Y. 1 
is dumped out behind the barn, on the side hill. The sed'i 
ment (my language is not technical) seems to and does 
wash away and run down hill and is lost. Is that right? I 
can’t help thinking no. Why can't I build a retaining wall 
in the form of a large and d’eep pit and save that fluid? At 
the present time what percentage is wasted'? I want to 
use brewery grains this Winter, but am told New York 
health officials may object to milk fed on them. They won't 
dare curtail revenue of breweries, will they? Are grains 
wholesome and advisable? h. m. g. 
To secure ventilation you must provide insulation; 
that is, the ceiling must be tight and all openings for 
use be made to close. The side walls should have two 
dead-air spaces, or one space stuffed with a dry, non¬ 
conducting material, like straw or dry shavings; then 
put on double or storm windows. You are now pro¬ 
vided with a surface that will not be affected by the 
low temperatures outside, and hence condensation will 
not take place. Now build one or two flues from floor 
of stable to a point higher than ridge of barn, having a 
square foot of area to each six cows. Put an opening 
near the ceiling, nearly as large as the opening in the 
bottom, and arranged to open and close at will. Use 
the lower opening cold days, the upper warm days. 
Put in small flues four to six inches in diameter, tak¬ 
ing air down at least five feet below the ceiling, and 
letting it in just under ceiling; put these on all four 
sides of the room, and your system is complete. For a 
more detailed statement get Cornell Reading Course 
Bulletin No. 23, “Stable Sanitation.” The first opera¬ 
tion for saving the manure will be a cement floor, and 
an opportunity some way to handle the manure liquids 
and solids directly from stable to field. In my judg¬ 
ment it will not pay to build vaults or retaining walls. 
Use absorbents in the gutter, and let nature in the 
field act as her own retaining wall. No one knows just 
how much you are losing. Carefully conducted experi 
ments show losses from 10 to 50 per cent, according 
to conditions. A chemist only could determine. I 
would not bother with percentages. Stop the whole 
scheme and save practically all of it. I am not sure 
whether the questioner means wet or dry brewer’s 
grains. If the first, they are all right if sweet. The 
dry grains are now with modern drying methods uni¬ 
formly good. H. E. COOK. 
