1912. 
Q-49 
FARM ENGINEERING NOTES. 
Wiring Against Lightning. 
ir. II. P., Mumford, N. Y .—Give me the 
size and number of brass wires required 
to extend from the galvanized iron roof to 
the ground, on barns 36x90 feet and 36x60 
feet, in all about 90 squares of roofing. The 
object of wires is to guard against damage 
by lightning. Would you advise running 
wires to ridge or to eaves only? 
Ans. —It would be advisable to erect 
plain, vertical, sharp points about six 
inches long and at intervals of two or 
three feet all along the ridge pole, and 
connect them well to the galvanized 
roofing, preferably by soldering. Then 
run wires from each end of the ridge to 
the ground by the straightest, shortest 
and most direct path—drop them verti¬ 
cally, if possible. From each corner of 
the eaves drop wires directly to the 
ground and it would be advisable to 
drop other wires to the ground from 
the eaves in the center of each long side. 
The wires in every case must have per¬ 
fect electrical and mechanical connection 
with the roofing, and this is best done 
by soldering. Fasten the wires directly 
to the building and do not use insula¬ 
tors. A braided or twisted quarter-inch 
cable may be used. r. p. c. 
A Problem in Water Supply. 
L. H,. Mayfield, Mich .—Can I siphon 
water from lake to run a ram? There 
would be 18 feet rise, from lake to top of 
hill, 225 feet, from top of hill to ram 
250 feet, from ram to tank 320 feet, fall 
from top of hill to ram, 52 feet, rise from 
ram to tank 80 feet. Is this plan possible? 
Water supply abundant. What size pipe 
for siphon to ram and size from ram to 
tank? What would be the probable cost 
of the outfit? IIow start siphon? I 
would only use water in Summer. 
Ans. —The plan you describe is per¬ 
fectly feasible. Use a one-inch supply 
pipe from lake to ram, and keep the 
joints airtight. Then use a half-inch 
pipe from ram to storage tank. Larger 
pipes would give more water, of course, 
and would be much more expensive. 
This size under the conditions you give 
would furnish at least a gallon of water 
per minute. The cost of the ram, 475 
feet of one-inch pipe and 320 feet of 
half-inch pipe would total up to nearly 
$40 if you use black pipe, and a little 
f TANK 
over $50, if you use galvanized pipe, 
which is advised. The usual way of 
starting a siphon is to pump the water 
from the lake to the ram, thus filling 
the pipes. Then the pump is discon¬ 
nected and the ram allowed to operate. 
If, however, you have no pump conven¬ 
ient, you can follow this method. Have 
a valve under the water in the lake so 
that you can close up that end of the 
pipe. Then have a pipe extending ver¬ 
tically up a foot or two from the top¬ 
most point of the siphon pipe and have 
a valve in this vertical pipe. Then you 
can close the valve under the lake and 
fill the siphon through the vertical pipe, 
then close that valve and open the lake 
valve, whereupon allow the ram to start 
and the water should flow without 
trouble. r. p. c. 
Gravel Indications; Removing Rocks. 
A. G. T.,Willimantic,Conn. —1. What may 
be the surface indications of sand and 
gravel for cement concrete use? I have 
land covered with bushes and rocks that 
has not been cultivated for many years, and 
wish now to start in on poultry raising on 
a considerable scale, constructing all the 
necessary buildings with cement. This land 
is situated on a high hill, a dark soil, and 
many ledges cropping out, with so far as 
I am able to see, no apearances of sand or 
gravel to be seen with which I am familiar. 
2. At the same time I would like to clear off 
the rocks and would like some advice about 
how it may be done most economically in 
the use of dynamite. Can they be blown to 
pieces without drilling, say rocks three or 
four feet across the top? Hand drilling is 
expensive, but of course I expect that with 
rocks five feet and upwards that will be 
necessary. How to handle stone too large 
to dig out and load on to a stoneboat with¬ 
out great strain on both men and team is 
what I wish to to get at. 
Ans. —1. Unless you are an expert the 
simplest, quickest and surest way to find 
out if there is sand or gravel on your 
THE) RURAL, NEW-YORKER 
land is to bore small holes in the ground j 
at intervals and examine the borings 
from the different strata. The chances 
of there being either sand or gravel in 
a very rocky field are slight. Moreover, 
a sandy soil is usually, if not always, of 
a fairly light color. 2. A large rock can 
be blown to pieces without drilling, but 
it takes considerably more dynamite for 
a satisfactory job. Remember that dy¬ 
namite “blows down” because of the 
suddenness of its explosion and the in¬ 
compressibility of air by a sudden blow, 
so that a trough on the top of the rock 
with a large charge of dynamite will 
shatter the rock. It would probably cost 
less to sink the large rocks than to 
handle them in any other way. This is 
done by digging a deep hole near to the 
side of the stone and then dumping the 
stone into the hole and covering it up. 
This is a common practice in clearing 
land, and it is satisfactory and saves 
considerable hard strain and lots of 
time. Care should be taken to brace the 
rock, if need be, so that it will not fall 
into the hole unexpectedly. r. p. c. 
Dry Well. 
•/. H. R., Oakdale, Conn .—I have a well 
five feet in diameter, 10 feet deep, located 
right near wall of the house, that is dry. 
There is a solid ledge on bottom of it, and 
in this ledge some one, previous to my resi¬ 
dence, drilled three boles ready to put in a 
dynamite charge. My older neighbors think 
there would be a good supply of water if 1 
go deeper. Will you advise? Gan I blast 
that ledge, not caving in the old stone wall 
that rests on same ledge? Will there be 
any damage to the house wall wall near the 
well, provided I use 60 per cent special 
dynamite sticks? After done with blasting, 
how should I put in the lower part of stone 
wall? 
Ans. —With the facts as you state 
them it would certainly be risky to dy¬ 
namite the ledge, and it would be ad¬ 
visable not to try it. If you want to 
get to the water underneath the rock, a 
drilled well would be as satisfactory, 
and no risk would be incurred in the 
drilling. r. p. c. 
The Smuts of Wheat. 
W. F. G., Reisterstoicn, Md .—What 
causes wheat smut? IIow will it affect 
the thrashed out grain? To what extent 
will it lower its market value? Will it 
affect its milling qualities? Can we remedy 
the trouble in any way? If so how? 
Ans. —There are two kinds of smut 
attacking wheat, the loose smut, which 
attacks the entire wheat head as a 
whole, and the stinking smut, which 
affects the grain, converting the kernels 
into dirty, stinking masses of spores. 
The stinking smut is less noticeable 
than the loose smut, which is apparent 
at blossoming time and later. Wheat 
smuts are propagated by spores which 
live over Winter and are carried on the 
seed wheat, straw, chaff, etc. Loose 
smut is not noticeable in thrashed wheat, 
but the stinking smut is a serious mat¬ 
ter and if it exists beyond a very small 
percentage it renders the wheat unsala¬ 
ble because unfit for food. Smutty 
wheat can be ground, but only for 
stock feed. A preventive given in an 
Ohio Experiment Station bulletin is 
the formalin treatment for the seed 
wheat. Sprinkle a pile of the seed with 
a solution of formalin and water, one 
pint of 40% formalin to 40 or 50 gal¬ 
lons of water, using one gallon of the 
solution to each bushel of wheat. Make 
three or four sprinklings and shovel 
over the pile several times. Leave three 
or four hours, or over night, and spread 
out to dry. Remember that manure, 
straw and the soil may carry the spores, 
and that the spores are the dark mass 
which is the visible portion of this fun¬ 
gus disease. w. e. duckwall. 
Ohio. 
Tiie “Curse” op Sorree. —In looking 
over "Hope Farm Notes” I notice about the 
“curse of sorrel.” I think it is one of 
those cases where the “curse,” which I 
doubt it to be, does not come without a 
cause. The first and best remedy for sorrel 
is to make conditions favorable for other 
plants, and then the sorrel, not being 
needed, will not take such a prominent part 
in the work old Mother Nature needs it 
for, in keeeping the ground covered. 1 
have no patience with the belief that sorrel 
is a “curse.” I believe that it has great 
value in fitting the land for other plants, 
and in covering the soil when it has been 
robbed and skinned and cheated year after 
year by the skin game system of farming 
that is so largely practiced in many sec¬ 
tions. It is true that it comes in, even in 
new land that has never been plowed be¬ 
fore, and this jumping to the conclusion 
that because sorrel is sour the land must 
be sour, and needs lime, is only making 
matters worse, like a poor man with only a 
little money in bank hiring some one to 
help him spend what little he has and be 
poorer than ever. Lime in such cases is 
simply a help to continue the skinning pro¬ 
cess, and make more and more need for the 
sorrel. Let the people who have sorrel 
stop the skinning, get something back on 
the land, pay back some of the debt of 
plant food of which they have been robbing 
it, get humus, humus, humus, j. c. r. 
Livingston Co., N. Y. 
Simplest and Strongest 
John Deere Spreader 
The Spreader with the Beater on the Axle 
**0£- 
rtfiftSaLL 
SAST MOLU 
•JOHN ’DEEHE! ' 
Roller Bearings 
Easy to Load 
as much of an improvement in 
manufacturing as the self-binder was 
^reaper. It is made along entirely new 
lines from any other manure spreader. 
spreader 
over the old 
and different 
No Adjustments 
No Clutches 
No Chains 
The Greatest Improvement in 
Spreaders Since Their Invention 
very 
No Adjustments > 
No Clutches—No Chains 
I MAGINE a manure spreader without 
any of the chains; with all the clutches 
and adjustments removed; one that 
has no extra shaft for the beater, no stub 
axle or counter shafts; one on which the 
parts that drive the beater all surround 
the main axle and are within a distance 
of twelve inches from it; and one that, 
besides being of much lighter draft than 
any other you have ever seen, is so low 
down that i t is only necessary to lift the 
manure as high as your hips when load¬ 
ing. Imagine all that and you will have 
some sort of an idea of what this new 
John Deere Spreader —The Spreader with 
the Beater on the Axle —is like. 
It is absolutely the simplest and strong¬ 
est manure spreader ever invented. It 
has from one hundred and fifty to two 
hundred less parts than the simplest 
spreader heretofore made. 
Easy to load. It is always ready for 
business. It cannot get out of order. 
There are no adjustments to be made. 
The Beater on the Axle 
It is a fact that most of the trouble ex¬ 
perienced with the ordi¬ 
nary manure spreader 
has been with the parts 
that make up the beater 
driving mechanism. 
On the John Deere 
Spreader all the shafts 
and chains necessary to 
the old style of mount¬ 
ing the beater have been 
done away with. 
All of the driving 
parts are mounted on 
the main axle within 
the beater. 
The strains and 
stresses of spreading are borne by the 
main axle—the strongest part of the 
spreader—and are not transmitted to the 
side of the box or frame of the spreader. 
Power to drive the beater is taken from 
the rear axle and operates through a 
planetary transmission (similar to that 
used on automobiles) mounted on the 
rear axle. ,. . „ _ 
Light Draft 
There are at least two main reasons 
why the John Deere Spreader is thelight- 
i est draft spreader made. 
You can readily see how decreasing the 
number of working parts on a manure 
Bpreader will reduce the draft correspond¬ 
ingly. That is one very essential reason 
for the light draft of 
)the John Deere 
Spreader. 
Four sets of roller 
bearings con- 
v* wr*"——-v stitute 
The Beater on the Axle 
the other reason. There are two In the 
front wheels and two between the main 
axle and beater. They reduce the draft 
materially. 
When the John Deere Spreader la out 
of gear it is simply a wagon. 
Easy to Load 
It is easy to lift manure the first three 
feet when loading a spreader. The real 
hard work is from this height to the top 
of the ordinary spreader. 
It is only necessary to lift each forkful 
these first three feet when loading a John 
Deere Spreader. The hard work is done 
away with. 
Besides, it is possible to see inside the 
spreader at all times. Every forkful is 
placed exactly where it is needed, insuring 
an even load. 
xVo Adjustments 
On the John Deere Spreader no adjust¬ 
ments are necessary. On the simplest 
spreader heretofore made, there are from 
ten to twenty adjustments that have to 
be properly made before spreader can be 
used. Any one of these 
adjustments, if not 
made exactly right, will 
either put the machine 
out of business or in¬ 
crease the draft, which 
necessarily means un¬ 
due wear. 
Positive Non-Racino 
Apron 
Even spreading is 
necessary for an even 
seed-bed and an even 
seed-bed is necessary to 
insure an even stand of 
the crop. The apron on a John Deere 
Spreader cannot race when spreading up 
hill or over exceedingly rough ground. It 
is positively controlled by a simple and 
effective locking device within the ratchet 
feed apron drive. This insures even 
spreading under all conditions. A feature 
that is not used on any other spreader. 
Steel Bridge-Like Frame 
Like the modern steel railway bridge, 
the frame on John Deere Spreaders is 
made of high-carbon steel—the strongest 
known mechanical construction. 
Both the side sills are of channel steel 
with the channels or hollows turned to 
the inside. Into these channels are fitted 
four large wooden cross sills. Being 
bolted, these sills can be kept tight, insur¬ 
ing the rigidity and alignment of the 
frame at all times. 
The John Deere Spreader frame will 
not become loose and out of alignment, 
as the frame on ordinary 
manure spreaders 
often does. 
Ll V. 
Roller 
Bearings 
Easy to Load 
v amaoie spreader rSook rree bodk eoutai s ns cc vaiu R rbi!f 1n- 
formation concerning the reasons for using manure on the land, how it should be 
applied, now to store it and the benefits of using it in various ways. 
In addition there is a detailed description of the John Deere Spreader, with illus¬ 
trations m coior of this new spreader working in the held. 
To get this book free, post paid, ask us for it as Package No. Y 33 
John Deere Plow Company, Moline, III. 
