1912. 
THE PiURAX* NEW-YORKER 
703 
Cultivating Potatoes when in Bioont. 
H. H. 8., St. Albans, Vt .—Could yoti tell 
me whether cultivating or hoeing potatoes 
when they are in blossom will injure them? 
I have been told that stirring the ground 
in any way after the potatoes have begun 
to set would cause them to set more and 
yield a lot of small potatoes. If there is 
no danger of injuring the crop, cultivating 
the field might help retain moisture in the 
ground in dry weather. 
Ans.— It depends upon the soil and 
the weather. When the potatoes make 
their bloom they are at the critical point 
of growth. The tubers are forming 
and they demand an abundance of mois¬ 
ture. If the soil is dry and hot, culti¬ 
vation at this time will break off too 
many feeding roots and prevent the 
formation of the tubers. If, on the 
other hand, the season is wet, the 
ground moist, and there is no danger 
of drought, a light cultivation will do 
no harm, it may really do good by 
stimulating the root development and 
thus help the development of tuber. The 
tuber of the potato is not a root, but 
an enlargement of an underground 
stem; but the plant must depend upon 
its roots for moisture, and these should 
not be ripped up or cut off in dry 
weather just when the plant needs them 
most. Many farmers adapt the rule 
of stopping culture as soon as the 
bloom forms, yet we have known cases 
in wet seasons where cultivation was 
kept up to the end of the growing sea¬ 
son with line results. 
FARM ENGINEERING NOTES. 
Plant Food in Foundry Sand. 
I would like to know the chemical prop¬ 
erties of molding sand. I am told by the 
foundry people that they use a small 
amount of molasses, but no chemicals at 
all. I have used some in my garden and 
find that it contains quite a lot of plant 
food. Before burning it is a poor yellow 
sand taken from the bank, but after being 
burnt it has a dark coior with considerable 
iron in it. I am close to a carwheel foun¬ 
dry and can get all I want of it. and ex¬ 
pect to use it extensively when I learn its 
worth as a fertilizer. b. f. m. 
Huntington, W. Va. 
Foundry sand differs very little in its 
properties from any other sand. It is really 
nothing but finely powdered rock mixed 
with a little loam. The loam sometimes 
contains a small amount of lime. Bocks 
are more or less complex in their com¬ 
position and so, of course, is the sand made 
from them in nature. The analyses of a 
great many molding sands and core sands 
show that their chemical composition aver¬ 
ages about As in the following table, al¬ 
though sands in various parts of the coun¬ 
try differ appreciably : 
CHEMICAL COMPOSITION. 
Molding Sand. Core Sand. 
Silica. 
88.5% 
86.0% 
>’lay . 
6.2% 
2.2% 
Iron oxide. 
2.0% 
0.8% 
t’alcium oxide.... 
0.88% 
0.0% 
riarbonate of lime. 
0.0% 
2.7% 
Magnesia . 
0.5% 
4.3% 
Koda . 
0.0% 
0.04% 
Potash . 
0.0% 
0.04% 
Organic material. 
0.10% 
1.00% 
Water . 
1.82% 
2.92% 
100.00% 
100.00% 
In use as molding sand a small propor¬ 
tion of coal and charcoal dust is often 
mixed in. The fresh sand is never used 
alone, but a large proportion of used sand 
is mixed with it and, of course, that con¬ 
tains some iron due to contact with the 
molten metal. The core sand is, as you 
say, often mixed with molasses as a binder 
while the core is baking. After baking 
and using the cores, the molasses is mostly 
carbonized. From the above, you will see 
that there is very little plant food in the 
sand, and its value would be due to its 
lightening up a thick, clayey soil. R. p. c. 
A Pipe in a Well. 
1. I have a well 21 feet deep in sandy 
soil that goes dry part of the year. It is 
under my house and has not been in use 
for 10 or 12 years. I wish to drive a pipe 
10 or 12 feet in the bottom of it. Will it 
be necessary for me to clean it out before 
I drive? It has been covered up for the 
time not used. How large a pipe and 
what kind do I need? What kind of a 
pump shall I need? Shall I need an extra 
box in the well ? I think I may find some 
quicksand. 2. Is water that is running 
through a lead pipe 2,000 feet harmful to 
drink? o. c. 
Laconia, N. II. 
1. By all means clean the well out thor¬ 
oughly before driving your pipe. Not only 
the well itself should be cleaned but also 
all the surrounding soil, and it should be 
kept scrupulously clean. It is entirely a 
wrong idea that water draining througli 
the soil is necessarily purified. On the 
contrary, if there is anything in the soil to 
pullute the water, the water is sure to take 
it up. For that reason all the surround¬ 
ings of the well must be kept absolutely 
clean, as any impurities on the surface 
may in time sink into the soil. 
It is not apparent where you intend to 
locate the pump nor what disposition is 
to be made with the water. If you desire 
merely a hand pump and want the water 
for general kitchen use, use a 1%-inch gal¬ 
vanized iron pipe. This will cost about 10 
cents a foot. As the water will have to 
be raised more than 30 feet, you will have 
to have the pump cylinder extended, be¬ 
cause the water cannot be lifted more than 
30 feet to the pump cylinder. If you 
want the water only at the pump spout a 
lift pump may do, but if you desire to 
force the water around the premises at all, 
you will need a force pump which both 
lifts and forces the water. As you expect 
to find quicksand, it is advisable to have 
your drive well point covered with very 
fine mesh brass gauze—about No. 100 or 
even finer. As your well is dug for 21 
feet and you are going to drive the rest 
of the way, there is no need for an extra 
box. Just clean out your well, put the 
drive point on the pipe and drive it down. 
You can buy a good outfit from any supply 
dealer with drive point, wire covering, pipe 
cut to size, extended cylinder and pump 
all ready to install at a probable cost of 
from $15 to $20. 
2. Lead is a cumulative poison. That is, 
the effect of continually taking small 
amounts of lead into the system is as dan¬ 
gerous as a large amount taken at one 
time. The continued drinking of water 
tlowing through 2,000 feet of lead pipe is 
likely to be very harmful. If the water 
stands in the pipe for any considerable time, 
it is dangerous to drink it. R. p. c. 
Quicksand in a Well. 
Can you tell me what to do with a well 
about 16 feet deep where the rubber bucket 
pump brings up a quantity of quicksand 
in each pail of water? The well was 
stoned up on a plank platform, cut out in 
the center; pumping out sand leaves it 
hollow under planks and I fear the stones 
will cave in. j. h. s. 
New Paltz, N. Y. 
Possibly your buckets go too near the 
bottom of the well and stir it up so that 
considerable sand eddies up into the tub¬ 
ing and is raised by the buckets. You 
can readily find out if this is the difficulty 
by temporarily propping up the whole 
pump outfit a foot or two higher than it is 
now, thus raising the buckets in the water. 
After allowing a sufficient time for things 
to settle, see if the pump brings up sand. 
It is not probable that the stones will 
cave in if they are cemented together and. 
the ground is packed hard around them, 
as the ends of the stones projecting into 
the earth will probably cause enough fric¬ 
tion to support them even if the" planks 
fall. However, if the well continues to 
give trouble in this way it will have to be 
stoned or bricked up all the way to the 
bottom. 
To enable you to get clear water you 
can make a tight box as thick as the chain 
tubing and as wide as from the outside 
of the chain on one side to the outside of 
the tubing on the other. Fasten this box 
over the lower end of the chain tubing. In 
this way the water can flow in through the 
top of the box, which is left open, and the 
buckets will go down into the box on one 
side and up the chain tubing. The top of 
the box should bo well above the bottom 
of the tubing. This, of course, will not 
prevent the sand falling from the sides into 
the bottom of the well. r. p. c. 
A Damp Potato House. 
I have a cement sweet potato house, all 
of cement. The north 'side of it is always 
damp and wet. I keep a coal stove in it. 
The three other sides are all dry, only the 
north side. I thought maybe plastering 
that wall would help it. R. M. 
Milmay, N. ,T. 
Plastering the wall on the inside might 
help a little for a short time, but the 
plaster would soon fall off. The real rem¬ 
edy is to get at the outside and give it a 
good coating of asphalt or some other 
waterproofing material. If the wet side is 
wholly or partly under ground drain fit on 
the outside by putting a layer of gravel, 
sand or ashes at the bottom/ of the wall or 
all the way up. The trouble is that the 
cement is full of little pores or tubes that 
suck the water up. To stop it you must 
plug the pores. If you plug them up on 
the inside the wall remains full of water 
and your wall will always be damp. The 
stove will merely dry the inner ends and 
the moisture will dampen them again and 
so on. If you plug up the outer ends and 
dry the wall out once, it will remain dry. 
Neat cement used on the outside is good, 
but some waterproofing is better, r. p . c. 
Horse Power of an Engine. 
What is the horse-power of the steam 
engine described below : 11x15 foot, single 
cylinder, 180 revolutions per minute, boiler 
pressure 80 pounds to square inch? 
Brown Station, N. Y. p. w. k. 
There are two values which are known 
as the “horse-power” of an engine. One is 
called “indicated horse-power” and written 
I. II. P. while the other is “brake horse¬ 
power” and written B. II. P. The “indi¬ 
cated horse-power” of a steam engine is 
the work done in a certain time by the 
steam acting on the piston, but some of 
that work goes to run the engine itself, 
so that only part of it can be given by 
the engine at the pulley wheel. The work 
delivered at the pulley in a certain time is 
the “brake horse-power.” This “brake 
horse-power” is what you are most inter¬ 
ested in as that is what the engine can do 
for you. 
The most convenient way. if not the only 
way. of finding the brake horse-power cor¬ 
rectly is that given in The It. N.-Y. Feb¬ 
ruary 17, 1912, page 186. That method is, 
of course, as satisfactory with a steam 
engine as with a gas engine. It is impos¬ 
sible to calculate very closely the brake 
horse-power from any information you can 
ordinarily obtain, as it involves the design 
of the engine, the temperature and dryness 
of the steam, etc., etc. 
The “indicated horse-power” is usually 
obtained with what is known as an indica¬ 
tor, by means of which you may obtain an 
“indicator card.” that is, a little diagram 
giving the length of piston stroke and the 
steam pressure in the cylinder at each point 
in the stroke. In order to calculate, with¬ 
out an indicator, what the I. H. P. is, it 
is necessary to know the average pressure 
iu the steam cylinder during the entire 
stroke. This average pressure is known as 
the “mean effective pressure.” It cannot 
be obtained accurately from the boiler 
pressure, as there is a loss in the pipe 
from boiler to engine and after the ad¬ 
mission of steam to the cylinder is cut off, 
the steam expands and the pressure be¬ 
comes lower. How much lower the pressure 
becomes depends on what part of the stroke 
you cut the steam off. Ordinarily the 
drop in steam pressure from boiler to en¬ 
gine is not over five to seven per cent and 
for a short pipe it is less. With your 
boiler pressure 80 pounds therefore, your 
initial pressure at the engine may be taken 
roughly as 75 pounds. If the engine was 
a “standard engine” in accordance with 
the report of the American Society of 
Mechanical Engineers, the mean effective 
pressure for a simple engine without a 
condenser and with cut-off of steam at one- 
fourth stroke,, would be about 39 pounds. 
As a matter of fact, practically, it might 
not be over 28 pounds. With that mean 
effective pressure the I. H. P. would be 18 
H. P. The brake horse-power might be 85 
or 90 per cent of the I. IT. F. or about 16 
II. P. unless the engine is in real good con¬ 
dition. This calculation is based entirely 
on average conditions, and is little better 
than a rough guess, as should be plain 
from the explanation first given. 
u. p. c. 
Killing Live-Forever. 
Is there anything that can be used to 
kill live-forever by spraying? I have killed 
it years ago by planting some diseased live- 
forever among the healthy, but I do not 
know now where I can find any that is 
diseased. I wish I did unless it can bo 
killed by spraying; perhaps some of The 
B. N.-Y. readers can tell me where I can 
get some. l. m. l. 
Cortland, N. Y. 
We shall have to call for reports on 
spraying “live-forever.” Some years ago a 
farmer in central Now York sold diseased 
plants which were claimed to introduce the 
disease and clear the live-forever out of the 
farm. Some experiments with this disease 
were tried at the Cornell Station. The 
people there may be able to supply the 
plants. 
Lime and Alfalfa. 
I have been experimenting with Alfalfa. 
A field that was seeded two -years ago. 
about the 20th of June, looks quite good 
now, and the adjoining field seeded last 
June shows a quantity of sorrel. About 
1.000 pounds of slaked quicklime per acre 
was used before seeding. Do you advise 
more lime, and if so' when should it be 
applied, and when and what fertilizer 
should be applied? The land was heavily 
manured before the Alfalfa was sown, but no 
fertilizer of any kind has been used since. 
New York. h, l. a. 
You did not use enough lime at seeding, 
but we doubt if more lime used now on 
the sod will help much. We have never 
heard full results from putting lime on 
top of a sod. The lime should be worked 
into the ground. It will help somewhat, 
but is not an economical way to use lime. 
We should use a mixture of three parts 
fine lime and one part sulphate of potash. 
Limb and Sulphate Rock. —A bulletin 
from the Ohio Experiment Station on the 
maintenance of soil fertility gives some sen¬ 
sible conclusions in regard to lime and raw 
phosphate rock. The figures show that 
neither ground limestone alone, nor the 
ground phosphate rock, should be regarded 
as a substitute for manure or complete 
fertilizers. The grouud limestone should 
be used only as a supplement to liberal 
manuring or fertilizing. That is a sensi¬ 
ble conclusion to which most observing 
farmers will come after fair experiment. 
The same is true of the grouud phosphate 
rock. It should be used only as a rein¬ 
forcement for manure. It gives best re¬ 
sults when used with manure, or with a 
clover sod plowed under, but cannot be ex¬ 
pected to act as a complete fertilizer. Some 
of the advocates of phosphate or ground 
lime stone are apt to let their enthusiasm 
run away with them, and claim too much 
for these materials. In the end farmers 
will find the truth of the above statement, 
and they would better accept them as true 
now, rather than to spend the time and 
money on a false track. Both the lime and 
the phosphate have certain values when 
properly used, but they do not represent 
the entire story anywhere. 
When you write advertisers mention The 
R. N.-Y. and you'll get a quick reply and a 
“square deal.” See guarantee editorial page. 
^ -\ 
In the Growth 
of Corn 
there's a period when the kernels 
are plumped out with a vegetable 
milk, most nutritious. 
As the corn ripens the " milk ” 
hardens, and finally becomes almost 
flinty. 
Post 
Toasties 
Are made from this hard part of 
choice selected corn. 
It is carefully cooked ; treated 
with sugar and salt; rolled into 
thin bits; then toasted to an 
appetizing brown—without a hand 
touching the food. 
It has been said that Post 
Toasties are the most deliciously 
flavoured particles of cereal food 
yet produced. 
One can render an opinion upon 
trial. 
“ The Memory Lingers ” 
Sold by Grocers 
Postum Cereal Company, Ltd. 
Battle Creek, Mich. 
V_„_ 4 
Master of 49 Jobs 
on your Farm and 
around your Home 
is this 2 h.p. Engine. 
Pumping, spraying, running a dozen 
and more kinds of mills, shredders, etc., 
giving fire protection, helping you, your 
wife, the boys and girls—there is not a 
man or any other piece of 
machinery around the farm 
that will do as much work 
or do it as well as this 
Sturdy 
Jack 
Let us 
send you 
convincing 
facts. 
2 H. P. Engine 
A small engine built on the same plan as a 
big one, and it will do four-fifths of the work 
a big one does. For one cent’s worth of 
fuel, will pump enough water for a day’s 
use on an ordinary farm. Runs on a gallon 
a day. Runs equally well in cold and hot 
weather. Air- or hopper-cooled. Truck- 
mounted. Easily moved from one job to 
another. Does not have to be propped up— 
it is not the lean-to kind. Send and get 
information about the engine that is making 
a revolution in gas engines because of its 
completeness and all-round usefulness. 
JACOBSON MACHINE MFG. CO. 
Dept. D Warren. Pa. 
The Waterloo 
is built of the best 
material through¬ 
out. It is so simple 
a 10-year-old boy 
can run it. Starts 
easy in any weath¬ 
er; always depend¬ 
able. Willdevelop 
more power for 
its rating, at less 
cost, than any other 
engine. 
Rons with 
either 
gasoline or 
kerosene. 
5 
Has reliable fly- 
ball governor and 
fuel saving regula¬ 
tion; patent mixer 
does away with 
pomp; patent ignit¬ 
er th at neve r m i sses; 
lever to change 
speed while run¬ 
ning. All parts inter¬ 
changeable. 
Write for Catalog. 
WATERLOO GASOLINE 
ENGINE COMPANY. 
184 W. 3rd Ave. 
Waterloo, 
Iowa. 
Frost 
Proof 
Price 
. . 
USE GASOLINE, KEROSENE 
OR DISTILLATE 
Develop more thon rated power Uniform speed 
Governor adjustable while running: Force feed 
oiler Sight feed fuel supply. Auto muffler 
Steam engine throttle giving 
THREE ENGINES IN ONE 
Many other features. Sent on 30days’Free Trta) 
with freight prepaid, no sole until satisfied 
Ten year guarantee Big new catalog FREE. 
ELLIS ENGINE CO., 61 MuJIetl St, Detroit, MicJb 
I f Biiif m 
^ I?b s|Hp 
WE BUY OLD BAGS 
Sound...3—4—5 Cents 
Torn.2—3—4 Cents 
We Pay the Freioht 
IROQUOIS BAG CO. 
725 BROADWAY, BUFFALO, N. Y. 
MANLOVE GATE 
Automatic. Always in order. Opened or closed with¬ 
out assistance or stopping. Adds beauty, value, safety 
anu convenience to any home, and ia approved by Gov¬ 
ernment for Rural Routes 
Manlove Gate Co., 29 West Huron St., Chicaao. III. 
