1914. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKEK 
43 
FARM ENGINEERING. 
Filling Floor Cracks and Holes. 
Will you give a recipe for filling up 
the niches in a wood floor? We live 
in an old house and it is very draughty. 
There are cracks in the floor half an inch 
■wide. j. w. s. 
Westboro, Mass. 
At any paint shop you can get prepared 
crack fillers very cheaply. It is some¬ 
what of a question whether or not it 
would be worth your while buying the 
separate ingredients and mixing them up. 
Better see what you can do at the paint 
shop first. A mixture of concrete, using 
sawdust in place of stone, is the cheap¬ 
est thing I can think of. It will prevent 
the drafts of cold air coming through 
but won’t look very well. Another cheap 
and very satisfactory filler which can be 
prepared, varnished, etc., is made by mix¬ 
ing up a good flour paste of proportions, 
say, three pints of water, half a Pound 
of flour and about three teaspoonfuls of 
alum. This should be thoroughly mixed 
together with care and boiled until pasty 
and smooth. Then thoroughly mix in 
with the paste enough torn-up news¬ 
papers to make a putty-like mixture. Fill 
the cracks tightly and the putty will 
harden in a short time. r. p. c. 
A Concrete Mixer. 
I have been trying to study out how 
to make a concrete cement mixer, to be 
operated by a two-horse gas engine, and 
would like to know if any of your read¬ 
ers have successfully used one. If they 
have, would you describe it? f. 31. ir. 
Rawson, O. 
There are five types of concrete mixers 
which might be used for any job. Each 
one has its own desirable features as well 
as more or less undesirable ones. You 
may have what is known as a batch mix¬ 
er, in which you shovel the proper pro¬ 
portions of cement, sand and stone to 
make a certain quantity of concrete. 
Homemade Concrete Mixer. 
This machine is then started, the mixture 
is well stirred and may then be emptied 
out by tilting the machine or by simply 
opening a slide and allowing it to fall 
out. The first is a tilting batch mixer, 
the second is a non-tilting batch mixer. 
Then there are the continuous mixers in 
which you place the materials and they 
are mixed by an endless screw which 
shoves them forward at the same time 
and out of the machine. These are also 
of two kinds. In one kind you may dump 
all the material you have in hoppers and 
they are correctly proportioned in being 
fed to the mixer In the second kind, 
vou must properly proportion the mate¬ 
rials yourself. 
The third class are known as gravity 
mixers. In this class of mixers, the ma¬ 
terials are deposited within the machine 
and near the top They then flow by 
gravity through the machine and out at 
the bottom. In one form the machine is 
merely a sloping trough which has numer¬ 
ous pegs extending into it from the bot¬ 
tom and sides. These mix up the mass 
as it flows by. In another kind, the ma¬ 
terials are dropped from one bucket into 
another, then into a third, being thor¬ 
oughly mixed in this continuous pouring 
back and forth much as you would mix 
milk and water oy pouring oack and 
forth from one pail to another. 
For a small homemade mixer I would 
suggest the arrangement shown in the 
drawing above. The main part is a 
barrel, either a strong wooden one like 
oil or molasses is shipped in, or a gal¬ 
vanized ash barrel. The stirrer can be 
made of pipe. The bottom of the barrel 
is hinged so that after the batch is mixed, 
the rope or chain can be loosened, the 
bottom dropped part way, thus allowing 
the mass to slide out into the wheel-bar¬ 
row standing underneath shown by tin- 
dotted lines. The engine can be mounted 
upon a standard at the same height as 
the pulley or a counter shaft can be 
placed up there and a belt run to the 
engine. After every batch is mixed and 
dumped, the whole machine should be 
washed out before the next batch is 
mixed. The distance the mass falls into 
the wheelbarrow should be small. 
R. P. C. 
An Irrigation Question. 
Would you advise me of the practica¬ 
bility of drawing water through 150 feet 
of pipe to an elevation of not more than 
10 feet by means of a pump for irriga¬ 
tion purposes? I, wish the engine to 
be at the barn so I can use it for other 
purposes, also to use the same pump to 
draw water from a well for house and 
barn use independent of the irrigation. 
The suction pipe would run according to 
diagram. I would connect the suction 
pipes with the water supply from tank 
for priming. Would there be any diffi¬ 
culty from air collecting in these pipes 
so as to prevent priming? r. r. l. 
Fallsington, Pa. 
A pump of almost any kind or make 
ought to draw water to a height of ten 
feet through 150 feet of pipe as small 
as half inch, although I should not sup¬ 
pose you had any intention of using such 
Ground / pv’ t>/ 
Barn 
f c ..rt/nn to Pond 
' Pit I 
- - 
§ 
JL 
"TLffl Oo ? 
Well 
Pumping For Irrigation. 
a small pipe. If you have both pipes 
connected to the suction side of the pump. | 
you would better have a tight valve in each 
pipe just before it reaches the pump so 1 
that when you are desirous of using the ' 
well, you can shut off the irrigation sup¬ 
ply and when you are pumping for irri¬ 
gation, you can shut off the well. As to 
priming, if necessary, remember that the 1 
air goes to the highest point and if you 
have an air valve at the highest point, 
you can always let the air out if it gives 
trouble. A simpler way would be to 
connect the Priming pipe to the topmost 
point of the suction pipe, if you can. 
Personally, I do not see any need of 
priming the suction pipe if your pump 
is tight enough to pump air. It is not 
as though you were endeavoring to siphon 
the water. r. p. c. 
Water in Cellar. 
I will tell you how I overcame the 
trouble of water, coming through cellar 
walls. My house stands on a slope and 
after a rain the cellar was flooded. About 
15 feet from back door I ran a pretty 
deep furrow making it the full width of 
house and filling it with coarse gravel 
and broken stones From this ditch at a 
point about midway of the house I ran 
two diagonal ditches beginning them at 
about three feet and ending at about 1 % 
feet, bringing one out at each side of the 
house and at least three feet from it. In 
furrow 
the bottom I put /Hk-inch tiles four inch¬ 
es apart, filling interspaces with gravel, 
and putting a layer of same on top, then 
filling up with dirt. Have had no more 
water in cella? since m. n. g. 
Stopping a Cistern Leak. —On page 
1301 R. L. II. wishes to know how to 
stop a leaky cistern. I can tell him how 
we did about 12 years ago, and our cis¬ 
tern has not leaked since. We tried ce¬ 
menting over the leaky places without 
any success; then we took the pith out of 
dry cornstalks, and with a blunt instru¬ 
ment forced the pith into the leaky places. 
The pith soon swelled and stopped the 
leak, and then we cemented over it and 
it has not leaked since. e. g. m. 
Good, absent-minded old Dr. Wilder 
was greatly dependent upon his practical 
wife. One morning Mrs. Wilder sent up 
an announcement after he had entered the 
pulpit, with a footnote intended to be 
private. “The Women’s Missionary So¬ 
ciety,” he read aloud, “will meet Wednes¬ 
day afternoon, at three o’clock sharp. 
Your necktie is crooked: please straight¬ 
en toward the right.”—Woman’s Journal. 
LOOK FOR THIS 
Keep their shoulders 
free from galls ! 
Be sure your collars fit— 
misfits cause galls, choke 
horses, hamper work. 
Be doubly sure your 
Cure galls—Lasts 1 to 2 years longer 
Under the working surface is a 
curled-hair cushion—it cannot tear, 
slip or wad. It keeps the surface 
smooth, round and springy. 
This collar prevents excessive sweat¬ 
ing and ventilates itself—neither 
straw nor stitches rot out. 
Made of best long straw—pre- 
^ vents breaking at throat, or 
^ pulling out of shape. 
Look for the Honest Wear Label. 
Hi ? AG \ 
CUT Pk'M&R 
SHOWS I 
\ \ 
of Ti CUB.E J 
Honest Wear Brand Harness 
Made of honest leather, won’t rip, 
stitching outwears two to one 
ordinary stitching. Look for the 
Honest Wear label. 
OUR GUARANTEE—Any defect of 
material or manufacture made good by replacement or money back 
Write for booklet and send your dealer's name 
OLMSTED CO., Inc., Syracuse, N. Y 
Successors to 
H. R. OLMSTED A SON 
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FARM FENCE 
41 INCHES HIGH 
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Write for our booklets, “ Soil Fertility ” and “The Grass Crop," and read 
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