1912. 
THE RURAE NEW-YORKER 
676 
DIRECT POWER FROM THE SUN. 
I once saw printed in some paper (have forgotten name 
of it) a statement that some man had made an arrange¬ 
ment consisting of 10,000 small mirrors each one inch 
square, so that they focused the light from the sun upon 
a space six inches square, developing some 7.000 degrees 
of heat. How did he arrange them, and is it patented? 
Are they manufactured and for sale? Can you give me 
any information along this line? If anyone can make 
them how would one go to work to arrange the mirrors? 
Pennsylvania. p. w. s. 
Such a sun motor has been built and operated. 
There was a large wheel or disk like an “inverted um¬ 
brella,” with mirrors all over it so arranged as to 
focus the sun’s rays at the center, where there was 
put a small steam boiler. Every school boy knows how 
the sun’s rays can be focused in this way so as to burn 
the hand. Cases are reported where bright tin milk 
pans put out to sun in the back yard have started 
fires by concentrating the sun’s rays upon a pile of 
dry brush or chips. The sun motor of mirrors really 
developed heat enough to operate the steam boiler, but 
it proved little more than a toy—even when operated 
in Arizona, where the sun shines all through the day. 
It is not a practical source of power. 
Other experiments have been reported in the En¬ 
gineering News which seem to promise more. These 
seek to utilize the sun’s heat on the principle of a hot¬ 
bed. Shallow boxes contain water in which runs a 
coil of steam pipe. The 
box is covered with a 
double layer of glass 
like a hotbed. On a 
sunny day the water un¬ 
der this glass is heated 
to the boiling point and 
above. The water in the 
pipes generated enough 
steam to run a small en¬ 
gine. Such an engine 
was operated success¬ 
fully on sunny days—de¬ 
veloping power enough 
to pump water, but in a 
humid region where rain 
and clouds obscure the 
sun of course such an 
engine could not run 
continuously. Under such 
conditions it was like 
the reflectors, possible, 
but a “scientific toy.” It 
is now planned to at¬ 
tempt this same plan 
upon a much larger 
scale in the desert, where 
the sun is fierce and con¬ 
tinuous. The scheme 
may be possible, but do 
not buy stock in such an 
enterprise! 
A TRADE IN SILAGE. 
I have noticed some 
discussion in your paper 
about selling and han¬ 
dling silage. I found 
myself short of feed 
this Spring and had a 
chance to buy some si¬ 
lage. I draw home 
about a ton to a load 
put up in bags that weigh from 40 to 60 pounds. I 
lay the bags down on their sides and turn them over 
each day, being careful not to let two bags touch each 
other. In this way I can keep it a week in good 
shape and not get sour or heated. I call its value 
(hay being $18 to $20) not less than $4 a ton, and $5 
would not be a bad price, depending on the kind of 
corn and condition of silage. The man I am buy¬ 
ing from left it to me to decide what it was worth; 
he said it cost him $3 a ton. w. w. miller. 
R. N.-Y.—We certainly believe that it is possible to 
develop a business in selling silage. It ought to come 
first in places where there are a good many family 
cows. Silage would be excellent for such cows, and 
it could be bagged and delivered as Mr. Miller de¬ 
scribed. Some one will make some money at this 
business. For years it was claimed that silage could 
not be handled in this way. We can remember when 
there was practically no silage. A few years ago 
who would have believed that dried beet pulp could 
be sold as it is now? Before the Civil War Southern 
planters threw their cotton seed into the rivers in 
order to get rid of it. We have known corn to be 
burned for fuel in western towns. The world is mov¬ 
ing on, and what seems impossible to-day may be com¬ 
mon experience to-morrow. 
CANNING FACTORIES IN FLORIDA. 
Would you furnish me with some information regard¬ 
ing the operation of canning factory promoters? I under¬ 
stand that a few years ago farmers and growers of 
many northern communities were induced to embark in 
the canning business, and that canning factories were 
erected and machinery installed in a number of places. 
Can you tell me how the plan worked? Do you think it 
would pay for farmers and growers to invest money in a 
company that would start a canning factory? The state¬ 
ment is made that a canning factory would use up some 
of the surplus fruits and vegetables, thus providing a 
revenue, besides distributing profits to the stockholders 
from the sale of the canned goods. j. e. williams. 
Florida. 
Canning factories and creameries are favorite prop¬ 
ositions for promoters, since they give a chance for 
very plausible arguments. A promoter usually comes 
into a neighborhood where farmers have been unable 
to organize among themselves. He usually employs 
some “prominent citizen” to play the part of a local 
Judas. This man usually receives a share of the 
money or some shares of the stock. He goes around 
with the promoter, and they tell fairy tales about the 
great profit in canned goods. They usually plan to 
organize a “co-operative” company to buy and equip 
a factory. The promoter gives them “the benefit of 
his long experience.” They get farmers to take a few 
shares of stock each—usually at $100 per share, and 
strange to say, pick up $3,000 or more where no local 
resident could obtain $500. The stock is sold, the 
building put up and equipped, the money paid, and the 
promoters move on. The farmers find that they have 
paid $1,200 or above more than the outfit should have 
cost them, lliey have no working capital, and as the 
outfit is heavily over-capitalized they cannot sell more 
stock, and usually cannot borrow on an untried busi¬ 
ness. The result is usually failure, as it would be in 
any business run on similar lines. Such a canning 
factory was put up a few years ago within three 
miles of our own farm. It ran feebly for a year and 
was abandoned and sold. The promoters made a rich 
haul. We exposed their game and called them what 
they deserved, yet to show the nerve of these fakers 
we give this incident: After we had shown them up 
properly one of them came quietly and suggested that 
we freeze out the other stockholders and take the 
factory. I he writer was to go around with this 
fraud and induce the farmers to grow crops which' we 
were to can and perhaps pay for. When I pointed out 
what we had said about this very scheme the rascal 
had the nerve to say, “All the better, for they will 
think it is all right.” 
There ought to be opportunities in Florida for 
small, local canning factories. The State lives on 
tin cans, and the food is brought from the North and 
West. Vast quantities of it could be grown and pre¬ 
pared right in the State. There are many orange 
packing houses which, with light expense, could be 
used in Summer for canning vegetables and fruits. 
It might not pay to make this an exclusive business, 
but the surplus could be worked up, and we think 
many vegetables can be grown as cheaply in Florida 
as elsewhere. Fuel is cheap, and so is unskilled labor. 
If a few individuals will start in a small way we 
believe a nice little business can be developed. 
PLOWINC OR DISKING OATS. 
I have been interested in reading the discussions 
regarding plowing versus disking stubble ground for 
Spring oats. Your correspondents seem to prefer the 
disking, as a saving in time from plowing. This may 
be practicable in their latitude, but here in Ken¬ 
tucky my experience and observation has been that 
plowing, or disking, generally means the difference 
between success or failure. Plowing consumes more 
moisture in dry seasons for the growing crop, also 
eliminates the chance of the weeds smothering the de¬ 
sired crop. With disked ground the annual white 
blossom usually takes it; we generally sow Orchard 
grass and clover with our Spring oat crop, and Tim¬ 
othy and clover with our Winter oats, and in either 
case we find we get better, much better, results, from 
both grain and grass, when ground is plowed. We 
drag our stalks down when a good hard freeze comes 
during the Winter so that 
they will snap off close 
to ground; in March, 
when the ground will do, 
we disk crossways of the 
stalks and thoroughly 
cut them up, then spread 
manure if we have it 
and turn all under; use 
a smoothing harrow or a 
drag to level and face 
the ground; then sow 
our oats and grass seed, 
fertilizing with about 
150 to 200 pounds of 
good commercial fertil¬ 
izer, using a wheat drill, 
and results are good. 
I raise registered sad¬ 
dle horses, and find no 
feed as economical or as 
efficacious for good 
growth as sheaf oats cut 
up and fed with ground 
rye meal and wheat 
bran, supplemented of 
course with a little corn; 
even with hay at $10 a 
ton and bundle oats at 
$3 per hundred (four 
pounds to bundle), and 
this is cheap for hay 
and high for oats. I un¬ 
hesitatingly recommend 
the use of the latter, as 
a more economical ra¬ 
tion, for growing stock. 
Fall-sown “Winter Turf 
oats,” if put in early and 
not seeded too heavily, 
say five pecks to acre, 
make a splendid Winter 
and early Spring pasture 
and a good crop of grain, but if not grazed they make 
too rank a growth and frequently lodge or rust. In 
Spring oats we sow the Northern White, and seed 
two bushels to the acre, planting early in March. 
Kentucky. chas. j. tanner. 
The State of New \ ork is in the real estate busi¬ 
ness to some extent. It will soon have farms for 
actual sale. 1 hrougli the Agricultural Department it 
has listed and helped sell over 2,000 unoccupied farms 
already. It is not generally known how these New 
York farms are being called for. As stated, over 
2,000 have already been sold—a large proportion to 
Western farmers. Since January 1 there have been 
2,023 calls for the bulletin describing these farms. 
Of these 574 came from the Central West. Canada 
sent 34, and 10 foreign countries were interested. A 
man in the Central \\ est may have seen his farm 
increase in value to $150 or more per acre. He can 
sell at that figure, buy twice as much land in New 
\ ork, buy stock and tools and have a comfortable 
sum left as reserve. In New York, on good land, he 
can raise as much grain or grass as he did in the 
West and get at least one-third more per unit for it. 
The thousands who are to locate in New York will 
need new outfits of tools and supplies and will have 
the capital to buy them. The country lying between 
the Ohio River east to the Atlantic is to see in the 
next 20 years the greatest agricultural development of 
any section of the country. 
