230 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
take long to rinse out the water bucket, (using a 
little broom-corn brush) fill it and replace; then put 
in some grain, scraps, grit and shells, where neces¬ 
sary. Speak to the horse and pass to the next,bouse 
and repeat, finishing each house on the one trip, and 
this job will be all done by nine o’clock. This leaves 
three hours before dinner and the only chore at noon 
is to feed the horse. You take plenty of time to eat 
and roll on to the couch and have a good nap, getting 
out to work by 1.15 to 1.30, which leaves three hours 
more before chore time at night, 4.30. At 4.30 to 5 
o’clock you will go through the henhouses again with 
one bag of grain only, and pick up the eggs, feed the 
horse, turn the eggs and fill and trim the incubator 
lamps. I can turn the eggs and take care of the 
lamps to the eight machines in less than 30 minutes, 
so that you will be ready for supper before six o’clock, 
and this makes not over 10 hours of actual labor per 
day. The above arrangement leaves six hours per 
day for the next three weeks, in which time you can 
clean out the brooder houses if you have not already 
done so, and spread on the grass land, fill up again 
with fresh sand. This will take four days, and allow¬ 
ing for a few stormy days there will be ample time 
to clean out and fill all of the empty colony houses 
before the brooder will have to be started, also to 
clean off the dropping boards once a week and spray 
the roosts, and give the hens some green stuff at 
least twice a week. 
STARTING THE BROODERS.—Now we will 
start one of the brooder houses and bring what chicks 
you have hatched, and until you have more than one 
house will hold, there will only be one fire to attend 
to, and the pens, as fast as you are able to fill them 
with chicks. We will have the grain room between 
the two brooders and to feed with take a bucket of 
mixed grains and a small scoop; walk right along 
throwing the proper amount according to age, num¬ 
ber, etc., all over the pen, and coming back pick up 
the dead ones, then take another bucket of dry mash 
and scraps. Keep moving right along, throwing this 
on to the feed board placed on the floor just beyond 
the pipes, so the feed can be put on it easily. Then 
take a bag of cut clover and go up through the pens 
this time, putting a little in each pen, and opening 
the slides for the chicks to go out of doors on the 
same trip. If your partitions are too high to walk 
over you will have to have self-closing gates. You 
will remember that these are all watered automatic¬ 
ally, so that this takes care of the brooder in the 
morning excepting shaking down the fire and putting 
on some coal, and 20 minutes will take care as above 
of both brooder houses, 2,500 to 3,000 chicks, with no 
worry about the heat. After all of the morning 
chores are done, say about 9.30, come back to brooder 
and giye the little chicks less than two weeks old a 
little grain to scratch for, and sift your ashes, putting 
the screenings back into the heater; time 15 minutes. 
You now have two hours before it is time to feed 
the two kinds'of grain again and fix the fire at noon, 
and there are three hours in the afternoon before 
beginning the night chores, with the exception of 
about five minutes at 2.30 to feed those smallest 
chicks, and about twice a week give them a little grit 
and charcoal in boxes for the purpose within reach 
of the walk. Clean out under the pipes about three 
times while the chicks are in the brooder, time two 
hours each time, and then have a thorough cleaning 
between each lot; time refilling and all 20 hours. 
PREPARING FOR WINTER.—Now the above 
figures are based on both brooder houses being full, 
the work in the incubator cellar begins to decrease 
and finally stops by October 15, so that there will be 
nearly five hours daily on the average in which to. 
clean out and fill up the balance of the colony houses, 
clean and refill the henhouses, whitewash (with a 
spray pump) and make the necessary repairs for 
Winter, and haul into the barn cellar or some suitable 
place 30 to 40 loads of sand to be used here and there 
during the Winter. If all of the above work is not 
quite done by October 15, there is still another month 
before Winter sets in, and there will be plenty of time 
to finish it, although the “plot begins to thicken.”' 
During the past month or so you have been selling 
off the old hens as fast as they stop laying, and 
crowding together the remaining ones, so as to empty 
the pens as fast as possible, and as soon as ready pick 
your most forward pullets and put into these pens. 
As soon as the incubators are set that are required 
to fill the brooders, sell off all of the old hens and 
put in the remainder of the pullets as soon as you can. 
Then as soon as the chicks in the brooder are feath¬ 
ered out enough, say eight to nine weeks old, they go 
out to the colony houses and as soon as you see that 
one of the brooders will be empty, cleaned out and 
refilled, in three weeks you start up the incubators 
again, this time on the pullets’ eggs, throwing out the 
small ones. henry d. smith. 
Massachusetts. 
GASOLINE ENGINE WATER HEATER. 
How to Construct It. 
Since writing the articles “The Gasoline Engine on 
the Farm,” pages 59 and 79, I have had numerous in¬ 
quiries about the water-heating device of which I 
spoke. The illustration, Fig. 102, I trust will give the 
reader the mechanical arrangement of the device I use 
for heating water. The tank in the cut holds about 
six pailfuls of water, and can be heated to the boil¬ 
ing point in about 30 to 40 minutes, when the engine 
is running, under a full load. The governing device 
on gas engines is so arranged that the fuel is taken in 
and fired in proportion to the load it is carrying; that 
WATER HEATER FOR GASOLINE ENGINE. Fig. 102. 
is, the heavier the load, the more heat is generated in 
the cylinder, for the reason that the engine is burn¬ 
ing more fuel. Most two to four horse-power gas 
engines are constructed so that the water has a 
gravity feed from the cooling tank to the cylinder 
jacket, but with the device 1 use we do away with 
the gravity feed system, and place a small pump at a 
convenient distance from the engine and operate it 
from the line shaft that runs the different pieces of 
machinery. This pump must be so arranged as to 
draw the water from the bottom of the water tank, 
and force it through the cylinder jacket back into the 
water tank. 
Place the water tank as close to the exhaust port 
on engine as possible. The connection is best made 
CUTTING A FIELD OF TEOSINTE. Fig. 103. 
by using a right and left-hand nipple the size of the 
exhaust port-hole. Now screw into this nipple in¬ 
side the tank a reducer coupling, that is, if the nipple 
is l l /i inch pipe, the coupling should be large enough 
at the other end to receive at least a two-inch pipe, 
the larger the better. Let this pipe pass through the 
entire length of the tank with a lock nut on either 
side of the wall of the tank. Also put a lock nut on 
either side of the wall of the tank where the nipple 
passes through from the port-hole in the tank. By 
thus passing the exhaust pipe through the water you 
utilize a considerable portion of the heat that passes 
off in the burnt charge, and by using a larger pipe in¬ 
side the tank it gives a larger surface for the heat to 
March 14, 
radiate from. Be very sure that all pipe joints are 
tight in the water tank, so that no water will leak back 
into the exhaust port. 
If the engine is to be run beyond the time required 
to heat the water to the boiling point, it is best to 
draw off a part of the water and replace it with cold, 
as the boiling point is too high a temperature for the 
engine to run any very great length of time; 160° 
to 170° F. is considered about the maximum tempera¬ 
ture for the proper running of the engine. 
In Fig. 102, A is the water tank; B, engine; C, 
exhaust inside tank; P, pump; D, discharge from 
pump; S, pump suction; E, exhaust; X, circulation 
pipe; Y, line shaft; Z, tank connections, packed. 
Jefferson Co., N. Y. f. d. squiers. 
COLD WATER ON BIG APPLE STORIES. 
Some Experience from Rhode Island. 
Some of the stories you have been printing of late 
about the profits of apple culture are so bright and 
glowing, and so little is being said about the other 
side, that I fear a good many people who have not had 
the dearly bought moderator of enthusiasm, called ex¬ 
perience, will be led to believe that there is no other 
side, and all that is necessary for the attainment of 
affluence is the purchase and holding of a fruit form. 
I am a firm believer in the future of fruit growing, 
but it will seldom prove the gold mine that so much 
of the present literature would lead us to suppose. 
You speak of some very profitable crops on the Hil¬ 
ton trial orchards, but you fail to say anything of 
the large number of orchards, well cultivated, well 
fertilized and well sprayed, that have yielded nothing 
or next to nothing this year. I would not be under¬ 
stood as desirous of depreciating the value of their 
experiment in this orchard, for my own experience 
is fully in accord with it, but I do not want The 
R. N.-Y. to join the ranks of the people and papers 
that print only good stories, and keep silent on the 
failures. It is all right to encourage us by telling of 
what care and hard work will accomplish, but we 
must also acknowledge that the crops are more or 
less at the mercy of influences over which we have 
little or no control, and that the utmost skill and de¬ 
votion will not always insure a crop. Take a season 
like the last: My potatoes received less than half an 
inch of rain from the time they came out of the 
ground till they were ready for digging. Do you 
think the good care I took of them secured me a good 
crop? It doubtless kept my loss from being as large 
as it otherwise would have been, but even good care 
will not take the place of water, and my crop was 
only 25 per cent of the usual. 
I would like to sprinkle a few drops of wholesome, 
though cold water, on the exuberant fancy that is 
being led to think of orcharding as even more profit¬ 
able than stock watering or rebate getting, and less 
hazardous. The first year that I began planting 
apple trees largely, there was an early and severe 
drought, that lasted until July, and as a result over 
50 per cent of the trees planted that Spring and the 
preceding Fall died. The plantings of the next two 
years had to endure the rigors of the Winters of 
1902 and 1903, and over 50 per cent of the apples 
and 90 per cent of the pears gave up the fight, and 
The R. N.-Y. has many readers whose losses from 
the same cause amounted to thousands. Moreover, 
many of the trees that were not killed outright, were 
so enfeebled that they have not amounted to any¬ 
thing, and were the same condition to confront me 
again, I should pull up every tree that showed frost 
injury and start all over. 
I have another orchard that beside the above 
troubles has had to contend with the appetite of deer 
for young apple wood, and after replanting three 
times, building an eight-foot wire fence four miles 
long, which by the way was not high enough to keep 
the interesting creatures out, this orchard is very 
much in the position it was eight years ago, though 
I am a good deal poorer thereby. There are a few 
trees that have survived the browsing, but it will be 
necessary for me practically to replant the orchard 
again. These are some of the difficulties I have met 
with, in my attempts to secure a successful fruit plan¬ 
tation, and I do not suppose that my experience has 
been peculiar or worse than many of The R. N.-Y. 
family can equal or surpass, and its only value is 
to the man who is contemplating the embarkation 
into the untried sea about which he only hears of the 
lucky voyagers who succeed, and hence has no idea 
of the many difficulties that lie between him 
and the desired haven of a large, thrifty orchard, 
which always bears enormous crops of splendid fruit, 
which always commands prices that enable the fruit 
grower to snub a trust magnate. Keep on telling 
us big stories. We like them. But in fairness to 
the man who doesn’t know, tell the other side also. 
Rhode Island. h. w. heaton. 
