8io 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
November 3, 
BRINGING WATER TO THE HOUSE. 
Part III. 
Tanks and Reservoirs. 
I wish to add a few lines about tanks or reservoirs. 
These may be of earth, board, metal, brick or concrete. 
Earth tanks or ponds cannot be easily kept clean, and 
are hardy admissible except for stock or irrigation. To 
keep them from leaking line them with clay thoroughly 
puddled. Many people object to wood in water on 
account of the taste. Wood and metal need protection 
from both heat and cold. Brick tanks, if plastered with 
cement mortar, are good, but must be protected from 
frost, for the bricks will absorb moisture, and when 
frozen the plaster will chip off. Freezing does not affect 
concrete. Cement mortar for plastering either brick or 
concrete tanks should be mixed equal parts of good 
clean sand and cement, and thoroughly troweled down. 
It is hard to get cement mortar that is entirely im¬ 
pervious to water, but this will be all right for the farm, 
though it might not do for a city water plant to be used 
under pressure. So far as I have observed, it is custo¬ 
mary to place the overflow pipe at the surface of the 
water. When the tank is full the fresh water simply 
flows over the surface, and does not mix with the water 
at or near the bottom of the tank, unless the flow is 
larger and the tank small. A better method is shown 
in Fig. 346. The water enters the tank at A, and the 
waste passes through the pipe b, c, thus insuring a cir¬ 
culation through the tank at all times. The pipe leading 
to the house is shown at d. At e is a tee to which is 
connected a blow-off pipe, which discharges through the 
valve f, which will be found very convenient foi clean¬ 
ing the tank. A very small stream of water flowing 
constantly will be sufficient for home use. A flow or 
one quart per minute will give 360 gallons per day, 
which is more than will be needed in the family. Sup¬ 
pose your wife has to draw half of that amount 
from a well 20 feet deep, and carry it 20 feet to 
the kitchen. Just think what that means, very 
nearly three-fourths of a ton, and it is a never- 
ending job. Surely it is well worth a mighty 
effort to get that quart or pjnt of water per min¬ 
ute delivered at the sink in pipes, thus relieving 
her of that enormous amount of labor. I'was at 
one time showing an old lady my water tank, 
when she remarked: “We have got a good place 
to fix like that, but it will cost too much money.” 
I questioned her as regards the distance their 
spring was from the house, and found that an ex¬ 
pense of $40 would put in a very satisfactory 
plant, not counting labor. 1 hat old lady had 
pulled water out of a well over 20 feet deep for 
a big family for over 20 years, and is doing it yei. 
Just think of it, and before you forget it while you 
are still penitent get busy and stop that drudgery 
for your wife. Of course if you are able to put 
in a complete water system, toilet, bath, laundry, 
etc., they are all well worth the expense, but if 
you can only get it to the kitchen sink do it by 
all means. If you have the water you will be sur¬ 
prised how cheaply it can be done. 
On this subject a neighbor once said to me: 
“I would like that, but it would take too much pipe. I 
would need nearly 1,400 feet.'’ When I told him that 
useful labor can be performed at home with little ex¬ 
pense. If one has a high head there is a chance to do 
something with a small stream, but without the head 
there is not much to be done. But don’t let the water 
run to waste, for if you have a head of even two or 
three feet you can put in a ram and pump water for 
your wife, which will beat any investment you can make. 
E. J. H. 
SOME TRUTH ABOUT SQUAB RAISING. 
We have heard it said of those who go into any busi¬ 
ness enterprise that only 10 per cent are successful. 
of dainty dish, and suited more for invalids or fickie 
stomachs, and too expensive for the hard-working or 
middle class, who need more hearty and substantial 
food. I think if I were to give any advice to the be 
ginner, I would first like to know whether he had a 
good organ of firmness and another one called com¬ 
bativeness, the one to make him determined, the other 
to help him fight against the many enemies that will 
beset him, not necessarily human ones. Start with a 
few pairs, learn their characteristics, and make your 
knowledge of them intuitive and clear. Flave order 
and method, study your nearest market and cater to it. 
Be honest and square with your customers, not for¬ 
getting to "do as you would be done by,” not “as others 
would do you.” w. t. wallts. 
Massachusetts. 
SEEDING CLOVER IN CORN. 
“Reader,” of Massachusetts, seems desirous of learn¬ 
ing the exact modus operandi of seeding clover in corn. 
TANK; INLET AND OUTLET. Fig. 
340. 
From information gleaned from different papers, and 
our personal knowledge, we should say that the business 
of squab raising was no exception to the rule. I he pig¬ 
eon and squab part of our plant was taken up by the 
wife and daughter, with the object in view of helping 
to raise the means to give our daughter at least one 
year at the normal school. As a nucleus to a flock 
they bought four pairs of Homer pigeons from a man 
who was closing out his stock on account of poor health. 
That was two years ago last June. As the seller de- 
MILLER’S SEEDLESS APPLE. Fig. 347. 
his place was not over 500 feet wide he was surprised. 
We measured his ground and found that he only needed 
250 feet. Don’t do as that man did, look at the ground 
and guess it was more than he could afford, but go and 
measure the ground. If you haven t any better way 
pace the distance and get a definite idea. It may not 
be half so big a bear as you think. 
Many people want to use water for power, and now 
we have to use larger figures, for that flow of a quart 
per minute would be next to nothing for power. It is 
customary to estimate water power by the horse power, 
which is that power which is sufficient to lift 33,000 
pounds one foot in one minute, or 560 pounds one foot 
in one second. To estimate the power of a stream we 
must know the amount of flow and the head. I he flow 
for power is usually estimated in cubic feet. One cubic 
foot of water weighs about 62)4 pounds, and contains 
about 7 y 2 gallons. One gallon of water weighs about 
8)4 pounds. To find the horse power of a stream mul¬ 
tiply the head in feet by the flow in pounds per minute 
and divide the product by 33,000. Suppose we have a 
flow 500 cubic feet per minute and a fall of 50 feet. 
Five hundred cubic feet equals 500X62)4, or 31,250 mul¬ 
tiplied by 50 equals 1,562,500, divided by 33,000 equals 
47.3, theoretical horse power. If one uses so much 
power as this he ceases to be a farmer and becomes a 
manufacturer, so we will take a farmer s problem, and 
consider a flow of, say, 60 gallons per minute, and a fall 
of 40 feet. We will have 60X814X40 = 19,800 -f- 
33,000 = 0.6 horse power. In both of these problems the 
result is theoretical. In practice, like the ram, we cannot 
figure on much more than 75 per cent of that amount. 1 he 
farmer generally does not want to use power contin¬ 
uously, in which case he can build a reservoir and store 
his power, and use it as he needs it. In this way much 
dared that there was “good money in squab raising,” 
we all thought that for such fine birds $1 per pair was 
very cheap. I fixed up a small loft in the scratching 
shed that would hold 10 or 15 pairs, and another later 
in the next shed, to take up increase. We decided that they 
would need at least 100 pairs in order to have a suffi¬ 
cient number to market, so that expressage would not 
eat up all the profit. So they decided not to sell many 
until they could reach that number. '1 hey have sold a 
few pairs, and but for the loss, through one cause or 
another, they ought to have nearly that many by this 
time. 
In the Winter lots of the young squabs get chilled and 
die. Some get killed by squabbling males. Once when 
the wife was away I cleaned them out (she usually does 
that at least once a week). I put some coarse pork salt 
in salt boxes, and you can imagine my consternation the 
next morning to find five of the finest birds dead, and 
three more ailing, which finally died. I his Spring rats 
found their way in, and before we could catch them or 
shut them out they killed a dozen or more of fine young 
squabs three weeks old. We have a pigeon now with 
one eye, the -other having been destroyed by rat bite. 
There seem to be plenty of ways to cut into the profits 
by making those we do raise costly. However, we put 
up a new'house this Spring 12x16 to accommodate 100 
pairs. As we have these pigeons now, and have fed and 
cared for them two and one-fourth years, we fear that 
if we sell they would hardly pay us. We both have 
English blood and we hate to- give up as beaten. There¬ 
fore, from our experience we would hardly be able to 
speak with entire confidence for or against the proposi¬ 
tion : “Are Squabs Profitable?” We entertain the idea 
that with proper handling they could be made profitable. 
There seems to be more or less demand, and although 
the prices at times are quoted low, they hardly ever 
leave market quotations of poultry. 'I hey are a kind 
Here is our experience this season, and it has been to 
us a highly gratifying experience. We pulled the trees 
in an old scale-killed peach orchard. The ground was 
full of rocks and loose stones, the very roughest 12 
acres on our farm. It is too rough for cultivation, so 
we were anxious to get it seeded to Blue grass for 
grazing. It was plowed in the Fall of 1905, thoroughly 
harrowed in the Spring of 1906, and six acres seeded 
in the oats in April, as follows, three-fourths bushel of 
clover seed, three-fourths bushel of Timothy, and two 
bushels of Blue grass. The catch of seed was fairly 
good. The remaining six acres were planted to corn 
on the fifth or sixth day of May, after being thor¬ 
oughly harrowed with a spring-tooth harrow. Early 
in J u ly—the exact date -we do not recall—immediately 
after cultivating each way with Planet, Jr., cultivators, 
this being our last cultivation of the field, wc 
sowed by hand just in the same proportion as 
noted above in our oats sowing. 1 his, of course, 
was a very thin seeding of clover, as. we usually 
sow a bushel to about four acres. What we 
wanted, however, was Blue grass, not clover, and 
the latter was sown only as a nitrogen gatherer. 
An ordinary weeder was next put on, and with 
the corn almost up to the back of the horse, the 
seed was lightly covered." When the weeder 
was started it looked as though the corn would 
be entirely destroyed, but with us the corn was a 
secondary consideration, and the weeder went on 
its way, covering two rows of corn at a time, the 
weeder being seven feet wide. Now as to result--. 
We have just finished husking the corn to-day, 
and have harvested 510 bushels of ears from the 
six acres, a fairly good yield under the existing 
conditions. But the clover catch? Well, if 
“Reader” could see that catch he would say, we 
arc sure, clover can be sown in corn evenly, and 
if some of the seed does lodge, enough reaches 
the ground to "bring forth an hundred fold. 
This is our first experience in seeding clover and 
Timothy in corn, but it certainly is not our last 
if our lives are spared and conditions warrant. 
Sussex Co., New Jersey. Stackhouse & son. 
THE MILLER “SEEDLESS” APPLE. 
On September 10 we received the following note 
from D. J. Miller, of Millersburg, Ohio: 
“1 forward a sample basket of the large so-called 
seedless and coreless apple. The apples used to be 
almost perfectly free from core and seeds on the orig¬ 
inal tree, but it seemed to degenerate and partake of 
other stocks when top-grafted. While some apples 
from top-grafted trees* have more or less seeds and 
core, the apples I sent you are all taken from a top- 
grafted tree, except the two that are wrapped in green 
netting, which are taken from the original tree. I h 
tree is between 75 and 100 years old. and is on the ck- 
cline, only two good specimens could be got from it. 
but top-grafted trees are loaded with large, fine fruit. 
It is a great bearer, but will not keep long after ripe. 
The flat specimens with large cavities at both ends are 
always the ones that have no seeds and cores. 
We cut a fair specimen of the apple—the result 
showing at Fig. 347. There were a few seeds in every 
apple we cut open, but not as many as in the ordinary 
standard varieties. 1 he “core,” that is, the uneatabk 
part of the apple, is about as large as one would find 
in varieties like Baldwin, Northern Spy or King. d his 
was also true of the specimens of the Spencer Seedless 
which we have examined. Mr. Miller’s apple has a 
pleasant, sweet flavor, but appears to have no superior 
qualities which would justify any large sale. ^ It cooked 
well, and seems a nice apple for baking. A he fact L, 
as we have said before, the absence of seeds is of vei • 
little importance, compared with other qualities needed 
by a market apple. 1 lie 'color of this apple is a bright 
clear green, without any stripes or flush of red or yel¬ 
low, more attractive than other seedless apples. 
