5 • <"• Ji. 
June' 4, 
condition of the trees has much to do in the case. 
“Time is money” with trees as well as otherwise, 
and those that have been nourished and cared for to 
bearing age are worth more than those just planted 
or past their prime. A tree just beginning its useful 
fruit-bearing stage is a greater loss to the owner in 
case of injury or death than one at any other age 
provided he has reared it and means to keep it. It 
has been an expense only so far, and its loss then 
means a loss of all that it has cost to care for it 
and the greater part of the rental value of the land 
for several years included. With but little further 
expense it will yield an income for all its future life, 
and that must be reckoned into the loss account. 
This valuable age with an apple tree is from five to 
15 years, according to the variety and the country 
where it stands; because there is considerable variation 
in both these respects. A Wealthy or Winesap tree 
in the famous apple regions of the West will begin 
to bear good crops even before it has been set five 
years, while a Baldwin or Northern Spy in New York 
may not begin before it has been 15 years planted in 
the orchard. In actual cash, such a tree in good, 
healthy condition is worth at least $10 at a moderate 
valuation. It will yield a good revenue on that 
amount, clear of all expenses, then and from that 
time on, for from 20 to 50 years with increasing 
ratio, provided it is well cared for; and it is not 
fair to reckon it will not be properly care for, in 
estimating its present, no more than to suppose that 
a watch might be put out of order. When a railroad 
is made to pay damages for a man killed or crippled 
for life in a wreck, his future earning capacity is 
considered and not simply what he may have earned 
that day or year. The railroad company has to pay for 
future earnings, and it should be so with the fruit tree. 
In reality, such an ideal apple tree as we have con¬ 
sidered is worth, as a loss, more than $25 and $50 to 
$100 would not be too much for some of them. A 
peach tree would not be worth half so much, but a 
pecan tree that lives and bears for 100 years or more 
and yields far more annually, is worth 10 times these 
figures. We have one pecan tree in Louisiana now 
that is annually yielding 10 per cent on more than 
$1,000. and -there are many more like it in the country. 
Such values must be considered in damage cases. 
One inquirer asks about the proportionate damages 
to trees burnt or scorched one-quarter, half, three- 
fourths, and all around. From the standpoint of a 
practical orchardist who has been critically observing 
fruit trees for over 40 years and in all sections of 
the country, damaged and healthy. I would think an 
apple tree or almost any fruit tree of bearing age 
ruined that was scorched all around its trunk. I 
would rather have a new one and plant it. One that 
is scorched three-fourths around is as bad as if it had 
been scorched all around; if half around it would be 
almost worthless, and if but one-fourth around, it 
might be saved and would be damaged about half its 
value. Fruit trees are rarely able to recover from such 
injuries to their trunks as marry forest trees do. They 
cannot overgrow the wound entirely and when the 
strain of bearing a load of fruit comes, they are almost 
sure to break down. In any case their usefulness is 
seriously impaired, and usually for all time to come. 
H. E. VAN DEMAN. 
BUILDING A WOODEN HOOP SILO. 
Will you inform me how to build a silo made of 
wooden hoops? I want a silo 11 feet in diameter by 
26 or 28 feet in height. I have plenty of red elm for 
hoops and pine for boarding. What width should the 
boards be sawed for boarding and how should I make 
the hoops? In fact give me complete instructions. 
Brandon. Vt. D. w. A. 
The subject of silos is one that has become of na¬ 
tional interest and wide discussion as a factor in eco¬ 
nomic feeding. For many years the public press argued 
as to its fitness in storing food for animals, some 
going so far as to say that silage was unfit for food 
and stock only ate it from sheer hunger. In some 
instances, this may have been the case, but only where 
the silage was cut and stored when too green or too 
ripe, or possibly neglect in tramping it well while fill¬ 
ing silos. Spoiled hay or grain is not palatable, nor 
is it wholesome, and many times farm animals eat 
it only in the absence of something better to subsist 
upon. In some cases, owners of cows have been 
persuaded that silage would be just what they want 
as a substitute for pasture during Winter months, 
but the cost of constructing one lias delayed such a 
departure in their economy of food supply. The cost 
of a 100-ton silo may rate from $1 to $4 per each 
ton of capacity. Some would discourage the construc¬ 
tion of the cheaper one, and say it would pay better 
to put up the expensive one. There are at least four 
grades of silos, the cheaper wooden-hoop kind with 
Georgia pine, -costing $1 per ton capacity; the stave 
iron-hooped structure, costing $3 per ton capacity; 
the concrete circular structure, costing $3.50 per ton, 
and the vitrified lock block silo, the best and most 
satisfactory of them all. which will cost completed, 
labor all told, $4 per ton capacity. All of these ex¬ 
cept the last one have their faults. The wooden hooped 
affair cannot be beaten if well and carefully con¬ 
structed in holding and keeping silage, but, of course, 
will not last so long as the stave iron-hooped one, 
but that takes freaks, and either hursts its hoops from 
over-swelling, or shrinks and blows down when too 
much wind blows. The concrete structure often has 
not proven satisfactory because of its porosity, and 
unless carefully and positively floated on the inside 
and possibly on the outside, too many of them have 
moldy silage many inches away from the walls. The 
vitrified one is the best, and airtight if laid up with 
tight joints with cement made up from fine gritty 
sand, and will keep silage in fine shape when properly 
packed. 
Some who need silos most delay building on ac¬ 
count of the heavy expense of the more costly struc¬ 
ture. I would not do this, but would put up one of 
the modern hoop structures at the nominal cost of 
$1 per ton capacity, and have just as much good 
silage as my neighbor who is rich, who has the high- 
priced one that will last forever and a day after. It 
is possible that one of these silos will pay for itself 
in one year, especially if hay sells for the price it 
has been the past Winter, $19 per ton loose. Fig. 
25G will give a good idea of the construction of such 
a silo. This silo was built about eight years ago, 
and is 13 feet in diameter and 33J4 feet high ; it will 
hold very close to 100 tons of silage, and cost, with 
material and all labor, from foundation to peak of 
roof, $83 in cash, or $G3 without roof. It is made of 
two sections of 16-foot Georgia pine, and enough 
wall to make it the depth mentioned. The wall is 18 
inches deep in a 16 inch trench, with one foot of 
A WOODEN HOOP SILO. Fig. 25ti. 
broken stone in bottom with wai reaching out of 
.ground high enough to protect the wooden structure 
from the ground, with the wall battened from the 
outside to six inches toward the bottom hoop. The 
wall should be made in a perfect inscribed circle, and 
air-proof by cementing, or of solid cement. One thing 
is sure, an impervious clay bottom is the best known, 
if it is possible to keep rats out of the silage; that is, 
from burrowing under the walls. Otherwise it may be 
necessary to cement out from wall two or 2)4 feet. 
Hoops were made of good tough young oak, sawed 
in 14-foot strips % inch by three inches, and made 
up on a round form with regular broken joints in 
three thicknesses. Each hoop was marked at the 
same point on the form, so as to make them conform 
one above the other in alignment endways, which will 
make the structure perfectly perpendicular when com¬ 
pleted. The first hoop was cemented solid to the 
wall after making it level. Six studdings at regular 
intervals cut so as to make the first and second hoops 
come 22 inches apart from center to center toe-nailed 
to the first hoop; then the second hoop toe-nailed on 
the studs. The next hoops 24 inches apart, and the 
next 26 inches, and on up until 30 inches is reached; 
then run on up to top with the same distance. 
While it .might make a little more substantial struc¬ 
ture to break joints at intervals it is much easier to 
make joints at the top of the last hoop on the first 
section, allowing the union to come just half way of 
the three-inch hoop, nail each board and another back 
of that, nail driven in the lining, to make it stand 
strong at each hoop. Bevel the first 3)4 inches lining 
and nail on perpendicular and run all the way round 
to within two feet of the starting place, and bevel 
the last board the same way, so that the doors will 
force in tight. The doors should be made continuous 
joining at center of each hoop. This silo was not 
weatherboarded. It does not need to be for good 
reasons, as it makes it expensive. It would be well to 
saturate the boards full of linseed oil on the inside, 
say up 10 to 12 feet, to protect the lining from the 
moisture and heat from decaying the boards. This 
is the cheapest silo that can be made that will keep 
silage safe and good, which it will do. Silage has 
been kept in this one for nearly three years, and came 
out as good as any one season old. This silo should 
be tightly anchored to the barn to hold it in a safe 
condition against wind. It will not shrink in years of 
use but what it will tighten up and hold water when 
new silage is put in it. This is “the poor man’s silo,” 
and it’s a good investment. geo. e. scott. 
Ohio. 
REPLANTING A WIND-BLOWN TREE. 
If the wind blew down an apple tree on your land, 
would you pull it up? We found only one large apple 
tree when we came here to live, and the first Fall 
the rain came and the wind blew and over went our 
apple tree. We felt sad indeed when we viewed the 
destruction, and saw our apple tree flat on the ground. 
What apples were left the wind blew off in this 
storm, and we picked them up and hurried them to 
the cider press, and had a small barrel of vinegar 
for our trouble. I wondered why our lone apple tree 
had to be the one to be blown over. I found the 
explanation in one of our pastor’s sermons. He told 
how the trees in an old uncultivated orchard had to 
work to push their roots through the hard ground, 
and as a consequence they were strong and stood firm, 
but a tree (like ours, for instance) standing in a 
garden, where the ground was cultivated and no sod 
to protect the rain soaking in and loosening the roots, 
would be easily blown over. Of course, the preacher 
made an application to human character. Our tree 
did indeed rest and sleep all Winter, and in the 
Spring it was pulled back, and has been doing duty 
each season since. Fig. 258 shows its restoration to 
duty. CORA JUNE SHEPPARD. 
FIGURES FROM AN OHIO SCHOOL DISTRICT 
I have read with interest the report of the cost of 
maintaining the school of your Pennsylvania sub¬ 
scriber. I am pleased to submit to your readers a 
report of Bethel Township schools. Clark County, 
Ohio. Our taxable property is a little over $1,500,006. 
We support 11 district schools, five of which have 
two teachers each; the remaining six have each one 
teacher. In addition, we have a central high school 
with three instructors. The superintendent of the 
high school has direct supervision over the 11 dis¬ 
trict schools, and is expected to visit each at least 
once each week. In addition, we have a special in¬ 
structor in music, drawing and writing, who also 
reaches each school once a week—thus occupying her 
entire time in the township. We pay our district 
teachers $50 and $55 per month, superintendent $100, 
principal $80, assistant $70, music and drawing teacher 
$90 per month. We have a nine-month district 
school, eight-month high school. The work is ac¬ 
cepted in any of our colleges, and our graduates enter 
freshman year. 
Bethel Township was the pioneer, or at least among 
the first townships, to establish the rural high school, 
and we consider our system equal to any city or coun¬ 
try school in the State. The cost is as follows: 1902 
to (including) 1909, eight years, which is the time 
required to complete the eight grades in the district 
school, our average cost has been (for the eight years) 
$135.82 for each pupil enrolled. For the four years’ 
high school course the cost for each pupil enrolled 
(for the four years) is $104.44, or a total of $240.26 
for each pupil taking advantage of both district and 
high school privileges. Our tax rate for school pur¬ 
poses has been 8.2 mills to 9.2 mills; but this levy is 
also paying at the rate of $2,000 each year for our 
new high school building, erected in 1907. In ad¬ 
dition to levy, we get a little State aid, also some 
revenue from adjoining townships, which send their 
pupils to our high school. 
Our new high school building is a model for con¬ 
venience, utility, ventilation, light, beauty, etc. Built 
of glacier boulders, which furnish a wide range of 
colors, the mortar is raked from the joints and the 
contour of each boulder is clearly shown. Above 
this is a rough finish or pebble coat of cement. A 
red tile roof makes the combination a very pleasing 
sight. There are four large class rooms, a superin¬ 
tendent’s room, laboratory, library and a large audi¬ 
torium in the center, seating about 450 people.' Each 
of the rooms has entrance to the auditorium by rolling 
doors, also outside entrance. The auditorium is fur¬ 
nished with opera chairs, a stationary stage, curtain 
and everything necessary for entertainments, graduat¬ 
ing exercises, lectures, etc. You will see that we have 
radically diverted from the old-style, two-story build¬ 
ing. We have perfect ventilation, perfect light, no 
steps to climb to second story, a building pronounced 
by everyone who sees it an ideal one. Fig. 257 shows 
the high school building. w. n. scarff. 
Ohio. 
