322 
THE RURAb NEW-YORKER 
May 18, 
PRACTICAL ENGINEERING TALKS. 
Substitute for Sawdust in Icehouse. 
B. W. G., Watertown , N. Y. —Is there 
anything that will do to cover ice except 
sawdust? I have an icehouse filled with 
ice, but am bothered to get sawdust. 
Ans. —In place of sawdust, the use of 
planer shavings, hay or straw gives 
good results, if clean. In fact, clean, 
fine hay is preferred by some experts 
as a covering for the ice. In some 
localities where the other substances 
cannot be easily secured, dry moss is 
used with satisfaction. 
Coal Oil Engine. 
G. N., Licking, Mo. —Is there an engine 
made especially to use coal oil in place of 
gasoline, and is it a success? I have never 
seen one. I have circular from several 
companies that make them. 
Ans.— Coal oil or kerosene is a pe¬ 
troleum oil just as gasoline is, but it is 
a heavier oil and harder to vaporize. It 
can be used in many gasoline engines if 
the engine is started on gasoline and run 
until warmed up sufficiently to make the 
vaporizing of the kerosene easy. En¬ 
gines designed particularly for kerosene 
oil as a rule have the oil and air sprayed 
together into the cylinder and there it 
is changed into a gaseous state instead 
of in the carbureter as with gasoline. 
Otherwise the engines are very similar. 
Kerosene engines have been on the mar¬ 
ket since about 1870. They are very sat¬ 
isfactory, have been widely and success¬ 
fully used for a great many years, and 
are made exclusively by a large number 
of reliable concerns. 
Constructing a Filter. 
E. A. B., Lakeville , Mass. —I wish to 
construct a filter for my brook water. The 
situation is as follows: An eight-inch 
Acron pipe runs from the brook to a well 
from which the water is pumped to my 
house. Surplus water runs back again to 
the brook. The brook, although unfailing, 
is at times so shallow as not to cover more 
than one-half the entrance pipe. My idea 
is that some kind of sand filter can be 
constructed at the entrance pipe, but I 
do not know how to go about it. 
Ans. —A sand filter may be con¬ 
structed at the brook end of the pipe, 
or the well may be made into a filter, if 
it is now used merely as a storage res¬ 
ervoir. The idea of the filter is to allow 
the water to run through sand for a 
distance, thus cleaning the water. It 
was thought that merely the solid matter 
and particles in suspension were re¬ 
moved in this way, but a very careful 
investigation has shown that bacteria is 
also removed to some extent, making 
the sand filter a most efficient and sat¬ 
isfactory device. 
The usual procedure is to feed the 
unfiltered water to the top of the sand, 
allow' it to sink through and at the 
bottom take out the filtered water. A 
good way of doing this is to make a 
concrete storage receptacle perhaps five 
feet deep and possibly four feet in diam¬ 
eter. If, as stated above, you wish to 
use the well, lay a concrete bottom and 
concrete sides—that is, make a water¬ 
tight basin. Divide the basin by a ver¬ 
tical partition through the center. At 
the bottom of the partition a pipe 
should go through, connecting the two 
parts of the basin. Now, in one part 
put four or five layers of gravel, each 
layer finer than the one beneath it, and 
each layer three or four inches thick.. 
Then on top of the gravel put a layer of 
clean, sharp, coarse sand about a foot 
thick, and level it off well; then a sec¬ 
ond layer a foot thick and a third layer, 
leveling each layer independently before 
putting on the next. At least three feet 
of sand is desirable. The sand musr 
be clean and free from dirt or loam. 
It may be necessary to wash the sand 
with water before using it. After the 
filter is completed as described, the 
water from the brook may be allowed to 
flow on to the top of the sand, care 
being taken not to disturb the sand by 
the flow. The water will slowly sink 
through the filter and rise in the other 
half of the basin from which the sup¬ 
ply to the house may be taken. Occa¬ 
sionally (perhaps two or three times a 
year) the top three or four inches of 
sand should be very carefully scraped 
off and replaced by a similar amount 
of fresh sand, as the upper layer of 
sand will collect various impurities. In 
place of a divided concrete basin two 
clean, watertight barrels may be used, 
one barrel being filled with gravel and 
sand as directed and a pipe from the 
bottom of the filter barrel to the bot¬ 
tom of the other barrel. Then allow 
the unfiltered water to flow in to the 
top of the filter barrel and take the 
house supply from near the top of the 
other barrel. 
Cleaning Drains. 
R. O., Bluffs, III. —What will dissolve and 
remove the soapy deposit that forms in 
drain pipes from sinks? 
Ans. —Stop up the sink and pour in 
plenty of strong ammonia and then lots 
of boiling hot water, unstopping the sink 
immediately so that the ammonia will 
not evaporate. Usually the pipe will be 
cleared out at once. Then, if the sink 
is always washed with ammonia instead 
of soap, the pipe will remain clean. An¬ 
other method is to slake a quantity of 
lime and pour it down the pipe at night, 
letting no more water run that night. 
Then ill the morning pour down several 
quarts of very hot water. 
Difference in Nitrogen and Phosphate. 
G. F. H., Idaho .—1. Are the fertilizing 
elements in blood and bone as available 
as those in nitrate of soda and superphos¬ 
phate? 
E. A. M., Massachusetts. —2. In what re¬ 
spect is ground bone superior to plain 
superphosphate for the phosphoric acid? 
Ans. —1. Dried blood contains nitro¬ 
gen and a small amount of phosphoric 
acid. This nitrogen is in the organic 
form and must first decay before it be¬ 
comes available as plant food. This it 
does quite rapidly in a warm moist soil. 
As a rule the organic material which 
contains most nitrogen will decay most 
rapidly. For example, clover hay will 
rot or “spoil” very much faster than 
wheat or rye straw. Nitrate of soda 
carries nitrogen which is at once soluble 
in water, and can be used at once by 
the plant. Thus suppose we put nitrate 
and blood together on a field of grass 
or grain in April, or on a potato crop. 
The nitrate is dissolved by the first 
rain and the plant roots may use it at 
once. The blood, on the other hand, 
must first be made available through 
decay, and this will require heat as well 
as moisture. Thus the nitrate will feed 
the plants at once—the blood will be 
ready later. The theory upon which 
our high-grade mixed fertilizers are 
compounded is to use three or more 
sources of nitrogen. First comes nitrate 
of soda and sulphate of ammonia, then 
blood, then tankage and bone. This 
gives a succession through the growirfe 
season. This is really an imitation of 
good stable manure, for when that is 
used the liquids act like the nitrate and 
the rest of the manure becomes avail¬ 
able at different periods through the 
season. 
2. Fine ground bone is an organic 
substance which will decay in the soil 
more or less rapidly in proportion to its 
fineness. A “superphosphate” is phos¬ 
phate rock ground fine and treated 
with sulphuric acid. The difference be¬ 
tween fine ground bone is that when put 
in the soil it decays and becomes more 
and more available, while the phosphate 
rock ground to equal fineness will re¬ 
main in the soil with little change. Put 
a large bone in the ground beside a 
vine or tree, and after a time the roots 
will find it and etch out marks upon it. 
Put in a chunk of phosphate rock of 
equal size and no visible impression will 
be made upon it. When the ground 
rock is made into superphosphate its 
phosphoric acid becomes soluble—more 
so than in the fine ground bone. This 
phosphoric acid, however, as it remains 
in the soil, becomes less and less avail¬ 
able, since it makes combinations with 
lime and other minerals. On the other 
hand, the fine bone becomes more and 
more available, since, being an organic 
substance, it decays in the soil. 
Frightening the Crows. 
As It is getting about time of year for 
.Tim Crow to com men ce his depredations, 
I will tell the readers of The R. N.-Y. how 
I fool the gentleman. I take an old suit 
of clothes and make an image, and. by the 
way, it needs to be a good: one, a fair imi¬ 
tation of “Farmer Corntossle.” Fasten 
some pieces of glass or bright tin in va¬ 
rious places on the clothing, get a false 
face at the five-rent store, put a stick 
through the shoulders to tie a string to. 
suspend him to a wire on which is a small 
pulley between two high stakes or trees. A 
little breeze will cause him to move back 
and forth on the wire and turn one way 
and another. The principal object is to 
have something that will move. I also 
fixed one by a tree at one side of the field, 
so that the slightest breeze would cause 
it to swing in such a manner as to look 
like a man peeping out from behind the 
tree, then dodging hack. A small wind¬ 
mill with a clatter to it is also very good 
Anything stationary they soon become ac¬ 
customed to, but when they see an object 
moving they are suspicious that there is 
something wrong. a. l. s. 
Pennsylvania. 
Fun with Crows. —Take some grains of 
corn and fasten horse-tail hairs in the 
grains with a needle, drop few grains where 
rise crows, then watch crows. I think 
Hope Farm would stop eating baked apples 
to laugh at crow’s antics. o. C. c. 
Thomasville, Ga. 
R. N.-Y.—And then eat some more baked 
apples! 
TANNERY REFUSE AS \ FERTILIZER. 
Part I. 
Refuse and Ashes.— The refuse of tan¬ 
neries that is available for agricultural 
purposes may be roughly divided into refuse 
material from the beam house, where the 
hides are prepared for tanning, and the 
ashes from the steam plant. There are 
three methods of preparing hides for tan¬ 
ning, but from only one, namely, that where 
the hair of the hide is loosened by submerg¬ 
ing in strong lime water, is there a big 
product useful for agricultural purposes. 
Hides are submerged into large pools or 
vats with a large quantity of lime put in 
them. This lime, after being used for a 
certain length of time, becomes fouled with 
manure, hair and ammonia. When this 
condition arises the water is pumped out 
and the residue of solids in the bottom of 
the vats is thrown out of doors into large 
piles. These piles of lime are about as 
valuable per unit of lime as is lime in any 
form that is usually purchased commer¬ 
cially. Of course, it contains considerable 
moisture even after being exposed through 
a dry season, but to offset the mois¬ 
ture the refuse contains enough animal 
matter to the extent of three-quarters of 
one per cent to two per cent nitrogen. This 
material is very valuable to apply as a 
top-dressing to grass lands, as most grass 
lands need lime, and the available nitrogen 
can be utilized readily by the growing 
plants. If this refuse lime is applied to 
small grain, frequently the grain lodges, as 
there is an abundance of nitrogen and a 
lack of phosphorus and potash. On the 
other hand, when it is applied to land for 
corn, the nitrogen is utilized to good advan¬ 
tage and the lime remains in the soil for the 
grass or grain that may follow. 
Tannery Ashes. —The other residue from 
tanneries is the ashes. Leather is tanned 
with a liquor that is made by running 
boiling water through finely ground baric 
of various trees, particularly hemlock and 
oak. When the tanning strength of the 
bark has been exhausted, this spent bark 
is used as fuel. In addition to this spent 
bark, it is usually necessary to use some 
coal, so that the ashes are not purely spent 
bark ashes, but also often contain coal 
ashes. Pure bark ashes analyzed show 
from three-quarters of one per cent to 114 
per cent potash and half of the quantity of 
phosphorus. On the other hand, the lime 
contained in the ashes is very high, run¬ 
ning from 30 to over 50 per cent. The 
value of these ashes is reduced in propor¬ 
tion to the amount of coal ashes mixed in 
with them. A few tanneries do not use 
coal where hard wood is cheap, and, of 
course, these ashes are more valuable than 
the average. The reason why these spent 
bark ashes are so low in phosphorus and 
potash is because of the leaching, which 
removes the fertilizing value with the tan 
ning value. Spent bark ashes are, like 
lime, best applied to grass or growing 
grains. A very convenient time to do this 
is in the Winter when the teams are idle 
and the ground frozen. The ashes may 
then be cheaply hauled and spread upon 
the land. I should say that if ashes can 
be spread upon the land at a cost of $1.50 
a ton, a profit could be made by their use. 
The spent lime is, of course, valuable in 
proportion to the cost of lime at the farm 
where it was used. 
Experience in Pennsylvania.— I know 
of one farm in Northern Pennsylvania 
which was purchased by a man interested 
in a tannery. He bought a year’s produc¬ 
tion of the refuse lime and ashes from a 
large tannery for loss than $100. In the 
Spring he purchased a team of horses and 
hired one man to start hauling lime and 
ashes from the tannery to his farm, which 
was so run down that hardly anything grew. 
These were spread broadcast, and as soon 
as a field was completely covered, it was 
plowed and sown to grass, sometimes with 
a crop of small grain and sometimes with¬ 
out. He used clover, and the results ob¬ 
tained from this procedure were very aston¬ 
ishing. Many people who visited the farm 
could not believe that so great a change 
could take place in such a short time. The 
growth of grass and clover was well over 
two tons per acre in one cutting. This 
treatment has been carried on for a period 
of two years. Each Autumn the man was 
discharged and the team and wagon sold, 
and another team bought and a man hired 
the following Spring. The growth of grass 
the second year beat all expectations, and 
it is thought there will be larger profits 
as the era of improved land increases. 
In addition to this there is the profit of 
the increase in the value of the land. 
Whereas it was worth but $5 or $10 an 
acre two years ago, the improved land is 
well worth more than $50 an acre now. 
A Georgia Farm.— At another tannery 
located in Georgia, there is a large farm 
on the premises. It has been the practice 
at this place to spread the ashes on the 
field as fast, as they are accumulated, and 
to run the lime water through troughs like 
irrigating ditches. This farm is about 75 
acres, and has grown half of its area in 
corn every year. No fertilizer has been 
used except that produced at the tannery. 
The land is growing as much corn now as 
it ever did, the yield averaging about 60 
bushels per acre. During the last three 
years a portion of the land has been 
planted to Alfalfa, which thrives wonder¬ 
fully. although the land is level and the 
drainage apparently poor. From the use of 
so much lime and ashes during the past 
years, the texture of the soil is such that 
there is a natural drainage to the subsoil 
far below the surface, which carries awav 
the surplus rain water. Alfalfa in this 
section is cut five times a year and the 
total yield per acre is usually over five 
tons, and as this hay is sold in the neigh¬ 
borhood of $25 a ton, there is certainly a 
splendid profit. henry w. heart. 
It Pays 
to Clear 
Land 
WITH 
Red Cross 
Dynamite 
The tipper view shows how 
groups of big stumps are blasted out 
clean at one time, with all dirt off 
the roots and stumps shattered into 
kindling wood. At the same time 
the subsoil is thoroughly broken up, 
creating a fine home for the new 
crop. Lower view shows a celery 
crop worth $800 per acre ten months 
after stumps were blasted out. 
Booklet Free 
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cultivating fruit trees, regenerating 
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FUMA 
iiPBIII A 9J, kills Prairie Dogs, 
™ " m Woodchucks, Gophers, 
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“The wheels of the gods 
grind slow but exceed¬ 
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EDWARD R. TAYLOR, Penn Yan, N. Y. 
DRAINAGE ENGINEERING Greatly Increased 
Advice on drainage, soils and crops. 
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State Pensions in Pennsylvania. 
Is it true that Pennsylvania has a State 
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Pennsylvania does not have a law grant¬ 
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rYOUR IDEAS 
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Patent Obtained or Fee Returned 
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.Established 16 Years 
99* P. Street. Washington, D. C. 
