1900. 
i9 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
ICE STORAGE FOR FAMILY USE. 
Almost any building and almost any covering will 
keep ice, but if J were going to build for family use, 
and not for cold storage, I should build as follows, as 
near as convenient: On the north side of some larger 
building or trees, so as to be protected from the sun 
(although not necessary), a building not less than lOx 
12. with eight-foot studding, boarded on the outside 
only, and open at the gables; boarding simply square 
edge lumber, one thickness, md laid as close as possi¬ 
ble. Cut ice when 10 to 12 inches thick, and 12 x 24 
inches in size. Tools needed are pair of ice tongs, one 
common cross-cut saw, with one handle taken off; a 
straight-edge board to mark by, and a broken fork tine 
in a fork handle for a marker. Pack in icehouse as 
close as possible, with a foot of sawdust under and a 
foot space all around; put in four to six layers of ice, 
120 to 180 cakes, and cover with a foot or more of 
sawdust, and keep the edges well tramped down 
through the Summer. Do not try to store less than 
100 or so cakes, as the larger the amount and the nearer 
a cube the pile the better it will keep. Do not try to 
fill spaces between the cakes, only the larger ones, 
as it is time thrown away. Use sawdust for filling, as 
snow will freeeze the cakes together and cause bother 
in getting out. Do not att-ch icehouse directly to an¬ 
other building, as they will rot out in a few years. 
Around here we get our ice out for about one cent 
per cake. Often two farmers store ice together, as 
you only get about one-half the waste two lots would 
make. G. M. H. 
Charlotte, Vermont. 
SILOS AND SILAGE HANDLING. 
One great feature in the feeding of silage is to have 
the silo handy to the feeding floor, and in building the 
silo sufficient thought should be given to this, as it takes 
time to feed silage, and although perhaps but a small 
amount daily during the whole feeding season, it 
amounts to considerable. When one has good feeding 
alleys and a good many cows to feed the wheel truck is 
certainly the handiest, but the man with the feeding 
fork must use brains, or some little cows will get 30 
to 40 pounds, and the large ones perhaps only 15 to 20. 
Bushel baskets are commonly used, and when one has 
not too many cows work well, as it is easy to see that 
the cow gets the right 'amount; they are not too heavy 
to handle easily. For our use we have a truck holding 
about 20 bushels (sketch of which is shown in Fig. 14, 
page 26), mounted on two larger wheels in center and 
smaller one at each end. The center wheels are not as 
large as we wish they were, and the truck doesn’t run 
itself. If you are building one get the center wheels 
plenty large enough. The truck is wider and longer 
at the top than at the bottom, so that wheels do not 
project over side or end. 
One of the best planned silos for handy feeding we 
saw this Summer on the farm of D. Fairchild, Fairfield 
Co.. Conn. A picture of two of the three triplet silos is 
shown in I'ig. 10. Mr. Fairchild feeds silage practically 
the year around; two of the silos are nine feet in diam¬ 
eter and the other 10 feet, I believe. They all open 
out at the same point right at the feeding floor. A 
ground plan sketch of silos and barn floor is shown in 
lug. 15, page 26. There is shed roof over the silos 
which is cheaper and better than a roof over each 
silo. H. G. MANCHESTER. 
THE MODEL FARM BUSINESS. 
While too much cannot be said in praise of the meth¬ 
ods employed by the Rev. J. D. Dietrich on his model 
farm near Philadelphia, we must remember that his 
great success in paying off a $7,200 mortgage in six 
years was mostly due to the high price he obtains for 
his milk. If some of us who are selling milk in the 
New York City wholesale market where it nets us 
only about an average of 10 cents per gallon for the 
year delivered at railroad station could find a market 
where it would average us 25 cents a gallon we might 
pay off a mortgage as easily as tjic owner of the “model 
farm.’’ I tell you. it makes quite a difference about a 
man’s getting ahead in the world whether he must 
sell what he produces in the general market for about 
the bare cost of production, or whether he can find a 
special market at 2 1 /. times that cost. And also let 
anyone who is thinking of going into such an intensive 
style of farming remember that while dairy cattle will 
give increased yields under such methods the extra 
amount of labor involved adds considerably to the 
expenses as compared with ordinary methods. From 
practical experience during the past five years, I am con¬ 
vinced that a combination of pasturage and soiling 
crops is the best method for the average farmer. The 
average cow never really does her best, because she 
never has enough to eat except a few times during 
the year. When pastures arc depended upon alone for 
Summer feed there is ordinarily about a month or six 
weeks of the fresh June and July grass when the 
cow really gets all she needs. Jf a good succession of 
soiling crops is planted and used right through the 
season to supplement the pasture a herd of cows will 
keep up their milk flow from the start, and will not 
only give much more right through the season, but will 
keep up a large milk flow much longer for not being 
allowed to shrink early in the season. 
Westchester Co., X. Y. merritt m. clark. 
UME AND SULPHUR FOR FRUIT DISEASES 
In regard to the use of lime and sulphur as a fungi¬ 
cide I think it has value in those cases where the fungus 
lives over the Winter in the branches, and especially 
where these furnish the chief or only source of infection 
early in the Spring. Apparently leaf curl of peach 
furnishes the best evidence of its value as a fungicide 
and Pierce of the U. S. Department of Agriculture in 
California and others have found that it gives results 
approximating Bordeaux on the dormant twigs and so 
may supplant the first treatment with Bordeaux (which 
is sometimes the only one given for leaf curl) when one 
wishes to spray for the. scale and leaf curl at the same 
time. Brown rot of peach also carries over Winter in 
the twigs and in the mummies on the tree and so a 
treatment on the dormant tree in the Spring might have 
a slight or temporary effect in retarding the development 
of this fungus. But since infection also takes place 
from the mummies buried in the ground and as the dis¬ 
ease is easily introduced and spread in moist weather at 
harvest time, it is doubtful if the treatment has any 
permanent value, unless followed up with later treatments 
with fungicides on the foliage and fruit. In this State 
(Connecticut), at least, these later treatments apparently 
do more harm than good, since they usually cause de¬ 
foliation. Scab of peach and of pear are also carried 
over Winter on the twigs and 1 have heard and seen 
some evidence of good resulting from the Spring spray¬ 
ing with lime and sulphur, but without later treatments 
with Bordeaux or other fungicides I think the good re¬ 
sults will often be largely lost, especially in years favor¬ 
able for the development of these diseases. 
Connecticut Experiment Station. g. p. clinton. 
EXPRESS EXTORTION AND PARCELS POST 
Jerusalem Ahead of New York. 
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the “Story of an Ex¬ 
press Package,” and I sincerely hope this express busi¬ 
ness may be kept up before the people until our law- 
DWARF CHINQUAPIN IN FRUIT. MUCH REDUCED. 
Fig. 13. See liuralisras. Page 24. 
makers see the importance of having the parcels post. 
The exorbitant charges, especially upon small packages 
and short distances, and the delays in delivery in coun¬ 
try places, have been very annoying to us. The Sultan 
of Turkey, under whose government it has been mv 
privilege to reside during the past year, and whom we all 
consider several hundred years “behind the times,” has 
much better postal laws, in relation to packages, than 
our boasted land. There are four post offices in the 
city of Jerusalem, the Turkish, Austrian, French and 
German, and in any of these packages may be sent at 
one quarter the price of American post. We used the 
Austrian in preference to the Turkish, as they never 
opened our letters. I have seen olive-wood tables, 
packed, weighing from seven to to pounds, mailed to 
London or New York, at ordinary packages rates. 1 
noticed an umbrella had been sent from London to Jer¬ 
usalem for 10 cents, and a suit of clothes from London 
to Jerusalem for 12 cents. The rural delivery is a great 
blessing to the country people, and now we ought to 
have the package post to complete our comforts. 
TIMOTHY B. HUSSEY. 
All Hands Together 
We are with you for what little we are worth to se¬ 
cure a sensible and useful parcels post regulation. We 
certainly have been bled long enough by the express 
companies and the more they get the more they want. 
They arc hardly satisfied with blood now, but want the 
hide and tallow. Suppose it does call for a larger postal 
appropriation for a few years. We might as well pay 
it in taxes to Uncle Sam as to pay it in express charges 
that are two to five times as high as they should be, and 
in two or three years I believe it would bring revenue 
instead of deficit. If not it would be a good way to 
spend some of the surplus we read of, being such a 
temptation to officers and menace to good government. 
I saw a little wooden box made of inch lumber and 
not over 4x4x7 inches, containing a small casting for 
some machine repairs, which came from Batavia (not 
over 100 miles) and the express charges were 70 cents. 
There would be a profit at 10 cents. Let us ask Uncle 
Sam to give us a parcels post for a New Year’s gift 
during 1906. w. s. SMITH. 
Jo Daviess Co., Ill. 
Keep Up the Demand. 
That man’s pepper plants recall an instance which hap¬ 
pened near here one time. A box of several hundred 
strawberry plants were sent by express for some one, 
but nobody by that name lived around this vicinity and 
no one called for them. The express agent turned the 
plants into the hands of another man who paid the 
charges on same, which was about equal to the first 
cost of the goods. Bulky orders like this could not 
be carried by parcels post, but thousands of litttle items 
could, and the postal service revenue doubled by the 
Government taking up this line, from the overcharging 
express companies. The parcels post will surely come 
finally when the rural population and general merchan¬ 
dise dealers get the cobwebs out of their eyes, come to¬ 
gether and demand it so strongly that Uncle Sam will 
have to establish this kind of service in connection with 
rural free delivery. We are a great nation, but Ger¬ 
many is about two strides in our lead, for she has par¬ 
cels post, also a law that compels all tramps, and hoboes 
to work and earn their grub, just like other folks. 
Ohio. g. w. s. 
Express Companies and Eggs for Hatching. 
Your experience with those pepper plants and the 
express companies has led me to wonder if any way can 
be devised to make them pay for eggs broken in transit. 
A letter from a customer in Massachusetts says that 
II of the last 100 eggs I sent him were broken; and a 
lady in Massachusettts wrote me that 36 of the first 100 
1 sent her were broken, though they were nicely packed. 
I at once sent her 36 to replace those broken, and after¬ 
wards sent her several hundred at different times which 
all arrived safely though packed in the same manner. 
A customer in Pennsylvania wrote for two sittings of 
my best eggs. They were from stock that 1 was proud 
of, and I determined that those eggs should go safely. 
I made a box four inches deeper than the pasteboard 
fillers, which held the eggs, and two inches longer and 
wider. Putting two inches of excelsior in the box and 
covering it with a sheet of strawboard, I placed the 
fillers on that, put the eggs in them, filled around each 
egg with dry sawdust and packed the inch space between 
fillers and box with sawdust packed tight, then another 
sheet of strawboard and two inches of excelsior on that, 
pressing all down tight 1 screwed on the cover. 1 re¬ 
member saying to myself. “They can play football with 
that box all day, and they can’t break an egg.” Imagine 
my surprise when my customer wrote me that “eight of 
those eggs were broken.” How the expressmen could 
do it I cannot possibly sec. That box ought to have 
gone around the world without breaking an egg, and 
there is no possibility of any redress as things arc now. 
If the customer should open the box in the express of¬ 
fice and refuse to receive the package if any eggs were 
broken, bringing suit for damages, the companies would 
refuse to transport them without a clause absolving 
them from liability, in the contract. I am inclined to 
think light baskets with high handles would compel 
more care in handling and be better to ship eggs in than 
boxes. From the fact that 1 seldom have any breakage 
of market eggs sent in flimsy eeg cases costing 10 cents 
each and holding 360 eggs, it would seem that express- 
men take particidar pains to handle roughly boxes 
marked “Eggs for hatching.” One of my customers 
wrote me not to put any such notice on the box. Evi¬ 
dently he had the same idea. Of course the expressmen 
have to handle a good many packages, and do it very 
rapidly; and tossing them from one to another occa¬ 
sionally a box will fall, but the company oir lit to reaL 
ize that, and be willing to pav for the damage done. 
Connecticut. r.EQ, a, C 03 <Jkove. 
