:es4 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
March 21, 
after the corn was planted, but before it came up. 
Never having had any experience in driving a heavy 
team and a still heavier loaded manure spreader 
over a newly planted field of corn, we awaited results 
with some anxiety. Our anxiety, however, was 
quickly dispelled, as the corn put in a marvelously 
prompt appearance, distancing and at the finish sur¬ 
passing all our earlier planted fields, and this in face 
of the fact that this field had been planted to corn 
the previous year. As far as we were able to note, 
no damage whatever followed the use of the 
spreader, and we shall surely repeat the experiment. 
All our experience along these lines impels us to 
say long live the manure spreader, the farmers’ 
friend. S. S. 
Sussex Co., N. J. 
The Quality of Manure. 
I have had no experience with a manure spreader, 
but agree with T. E. R., on page 167. I do not see 
that the compost heap and the manure spreader can 
increase the plant food in manure any more than the 
jobber and the retailer can add to the value of a 
roll of wire fence. The retailer makes desirable 
goods more available. So the composting process 
makes the nitrogen more available, and may waste 
some. This may be well for the gardener, but I 
prefer to have my farm manure decay on or in 
the soil, where all, even the gases, will be held by 
soil and plants. To this end I draw and spread as 
fast as made, except manure that is sheltered. A 
spreader could not be used here much of the time in 
Winter, when we have the most manure to spread. 
In late Summer, when preparing land for Winter 
wheat, I have wished for a machine to spread the 
crusty, flaky manure that sheep and cattle had trod¬ 
den during the previous Winter, and that had lain 
in the stables nearly all Summer. I would have a 
spreader if I had at that time of year enough of 
that class of manure to warrant the investment. 
Livingston Co., N. Y. w. a. 
Worked in the Snow. 
I am following the discussion of the fertilizer 
question with a great deal of interest. In fact, it 
has had a sort of fascination for me for several 
years, and I find it is a many-sided question, but one 
that the farmer should more thoroughly understand. 
What is good advice in one case is entirely wrong 
in another. For instance, on some of the land in 
this section ashes are the best thing that can be 
used to grow a crop of potatoes; in other places 
only a few miles distant they are worse than use¬ 
less, because they make the potatoes scabby. It 
seems to me that the best advice is to study tables 
which give the amounts of nitrogen, potash and 
phosphoric acid taken out by the crops raised; then 
study the analysis of the manures you have. used 
and now have on hand, and the needs of the crop 
to be grown. This may not always prove good, but 
seems to me to be at least good sense. I find that 
many of the farmers have no idea of what their dif¬ 
ferent crops take out of the soil, nor what their 
manures contain. There is a vast difference in the 
make-up of hen manure and stable manure. Some¬ 
times it is not necessary to buy a complete fertilizer 
for a crop because of what manures have been used 
and the crops grown. Stable manure is deficient in 
phosphoric acid and potash, for some crops, but fits 
others nicely. Of course if you have plenty of 
manure on the farm—which you haven’t—you can 
get along without buying, but too many simply buy 
because it is a “bag of fertilizer” and have no idea 
whether it will fit their crop, nor if it is applied in 
the best manner to get results. Lime is all right as 
a corrective to sweeten the soil, or for a renter who 
is anxious to “skin” the farm, but contains prac¬ 
tically no plant food. Some of our farmers are using 
German kainit with good results. I know farmers 
who use their manure spreaders right through the 
Winter here where it is sleighing all through the 
Winter and have no trouble to use it in snow at 
least one foot deep. They consider their manure 
worth much more spread right from the stable on 
lands not too steep. We are about 1,600 to 1,800 feet 
above sea level. J- D - s. 
Delaware Co., N. Y. 
POWER FROM AN ARTESIAN WELL. 
I have an artesian well that runs 65 gallons of water 
per minute, and as it is now it falls four feet four inches. 
I can have it run six feet higher hut it will not run with 
so much force. By digging 25 yards from the well I could 
give the water three feet more fall, hy going 10 yards 
farther the fall could be increased eight feet. Can I get 
enough power with so little water even to run a churn, 
washing machine, etc.? If so, please tell me what I need 
and where it can be had. w. .o. p. 
Mississippi. * 
The power which can be developed from so small a 
flow of water as 65 gallons per minute, even with 
the maximum head of 12 feet, is relatively very 
small. An effective fall of seven feet, allowing no 
waste of power, could yield but .11 horse power, and 
one of 12 feet, less than .2 horse power. We think 
there is no standard water motor on the market 
which could make effective more than half of either 
the stated amounts of theoretical horse power. A 
thin overshot waterwheel could be constructed on 
the ground, allowing it to turn either in a pit near 
the well, which discharges its water through a drain, 
or the water could be led to the lower ground and 
used there in the same manner, having the wheel 
constructed with thin buckets on a rim of wood, at 
a comparatively small cost, but with the wheel turn- 
HENRY D. SMITH, TIIE ROASTER MAN. Fig. 108. 
ing in a pit three feet deep at the well, not more than 
seven feet of fall could be effectively used, and this 
would give somewhat less than the smallest horse¬ 
power stated above. The wheel itself would have to 
have a diameter of not less than seven feet, and if 
it were given a thickness of six inches it could carry 
21 buckets 10x4x6 inches, each holding about a gallon 
which, with 65 gallons per minute, would allow the 
wheel, under its maximum load, to make about seven 
revolutions per minute. Not to sink the wheel in a 
pit at all and use it at the wheel, one four feet in 
diameter could be used, carrying 12 buckets with an 
average weight of five gallons of water to turn the 
wheel, which would give its rate of revolution about 
13 times per minute. Of course the wheel could be 
made thicker and the capacity of the buckets thereby 
doubled, reducing the rate of revolution to about six 
per minute, and giving the power to turn the wheel 
that due to a weight of some 10 gallons of water act¬ 
ing on a mean radius of some 15 inches. The maxi¬ 
mum power would be got out of the water by con¬ 
structing the buckets so that they carry full through 
nearly the half revolution, and. so that the wheel 
turns slowly, enabling the water to leave the wheel 
without much velocity. A wheel four feet in diam- 
etereter, however, would give but 4-7 of the power 
of the wdieel seven feet in diameter, and its ability 
to do work could not exceed .05 of a horse power. 
One form such a wdieel could take is represented in 
cross section in Fig. 109. 
To carry the stand-pipe of the well to a greater 
height before it is allowed to discharge would prob¬ 
ably not materially increase the amount of work 
which could be done. It would be more likely to de¬ 
crease its capacity. If the well casing had been four 
inches in diameter instead of two, or six inches in 
diameter, and the underground water supply was suf¬ 
ficient to cause the well to discharge with the same 
velocity the four-inch well would yield four times the 
amount of water that the present well yields, and a 
corresponding increased power capacity, while a six- 
inch well, with the water flowing at the same velocity, 
would yield nine times the amount of w r ater and nine 
times the power. It needs to be remembered in 
developing power from artesian wells that very often 
the capacity of the well decreases with age, and some¬ 
times very materially, for various reasons which are 
beyond control. 
It would be possible to increase the power which 
could be developed in a given time from such a well 
by allowing the water to discharge into a reservoir 
during the whole time, and arranging the wheel so as 
to take water at a considerably more rapid rate for 
a short time, but if the whole water which the well 
discharges in 24 hours could be used in four hours 
under a fall of seven feet, the theoretical horse power 
which would be possible would be only .66; that is, 
machinery could be run at this rate of power con¬ 
sumption during four hours only, and the available 
horse power would probably not exceed .5; besides, a 
reservoir of too large a capacity would be required to 
make this worth considering. If the water was de¬ 
sired in the house a hydraulic ram could, readily be 
installed which would supply continuous running 
water there, and at a comparatively small cost. 
F. H. KING. 
TREATING SEED FOR DISEASE. 
As you are perhaps aware, I was the originator of 
the formaldehyde method of disinfecting seed grain, 
and of the corrosive sublimate and various other 
methods of treating potato tubers for the prevention 
of scab. It took nine or 10 years to get either type 
of work well introduced to the farmers. During 
this time, I recommended by newspaper articles, 
numerous press bulletins and other regular publica¬ 
tions of this Station, various ways to treat' seed 
grain, and of handling the tubers for the disinfection 
work. Not so much because one method is really 
better than the other, but in order to induce farmers 
of different ways of looking at work to undertake 
these disinfecting processes. Thus, for example, 
some men would gladly lift gunny sacks containing 
grain in and out of a tank of water all day, saying 
it was simple and easy; others demanded a machine 
on which a crank could be turned, and yet others 
objected to buying a machine at all because it cost 
too much. Some objected to wetting the seed grain 
at all. Our experiments have planned ways to please 
all these people, so that here in the Northwest flax, 
wheat, oats and all sorts of cereals, including grass 
seed, are treated for smut and other troubles in one 
way or another. 
There are expensive machines in which the grain 
is run down into the water and carried out by ele¬ 
vator. There are all kinds of dipping machines, from 
perforated pails to large tanks with screened bottoms. 
There is, however, very much more grain treated in 
this country by the use of spraying apparatus. After 
the seed is well screened and graded, it is thrown 
upon the barn floor and shovelled over while one 
man directs a fine, forceful spray from a force pump 
upon it. In this last described manner more grain 
is treated, and much more rapidly than by any other 
means, and if the workers are intelligent the work is 
well done. There have been no machines made 
especially for dipping potatoes, but many farmers in 
this region have constructed large tanks into which 
the tubers are thrown and soaked, so that when they 
are scooped out upon large drain boards the liquid 
may be used over and over again. Some of the ma¬ 
chines used for disinfecting seed grain are so con¬ 
structed that they may be used for this purpose also 
very satisfactorily. 
In regard to dropping the seed grain through long 
tubes by which sprays are applied to the bulk, Dr. 
J. C. Arthur, of the Indiana Station, has recommended 
this method. So far as I know it meets with little 
favor here in the Northwest, inasmuch as few farmers 
can afford to build a pipe or chimney 60 feet high to 
do the work that, can be done on the barn floor. 
Various attempts have been made by this Station to 
develop a formaldehyde vapor treatment, but as yet 
without success, for the reason that it is difficult to 
make a cheap apparatus which the different farmers 
can readily control. henry l. bolley. 
North Dakota Station. 
THE KENTUCKY TOBACCO REGION. 
The picture. Fig. Ill, shows a typical scene in the 
tobacco country of Kentucky where recently disturb¬ 
ances by night riders have taken place. Thousands 
of acres of such land as that shown in the picture are 
utilized in the cultivation of the plant. Some of the 
hills on which the finest kind of tobacco is produced 
are so steep that a man has great difficulty in sticking to 
the side while he urges along a single mule hooked 
to a small plow. There seems to be but one method 
of getting the crop away from such a mountain patch. 
A stout wire is stretched from a stake at the base 
of the hill to another at the upper edge of the field. 
The wire swings about three feet from the ground. 
The leaves of tobacco tied in bunches are placed 
astride of the wire, and by gravity they slide down 
the hill into the hands of the men who are loading 
them into a vehicle to be carried off to the drying 
sheds. In rich lands found on the mountain sides the 
tobacco growers plant their seed early in the Spring. 
The beds are covered by long strips of muslin to 
protect the tender plants. The covering is removed 
in sunshine, but is replaced at night. In the Spring 
one may see thousands of these muslin-covered beds 
dotting the mountain sides. The sight shows the pre¬ 
liminary step in producing the great staple crop of 
Kentucky over which a bloody controversy has been 
raging in the historic State for weeks. The picture 
was taken on Camp Pleasant Creek, four miles from 
the Kentucky River, and about 10 miles from Frank¬ 
fort. J. L. GRAFF. 
Illinois. 
