1914. 
THE R.UBi.A.1* NEW-YORKER 
s«e 
Farm Engineering. 
Foul Water. 
C OULD you advise what can be done 
as to the following? We have a dug 
well about 30-32 feet deep, in which 
we have a pump. Each year about this 
time the water seems to become con¬ 
taminated ; at any rate it develops a very 
bad, foul taste. Could you suggest what 
can be done to remedy that? What can 
be done to purify, etc? J. s. 
New York. 
It is possible that the fertilizing of the 
fields at the Spring time of year is re¬ 
sponsible for the contamination of your 
well, particularly if the well is not walled 
up and plastered so as to positively pre¬ 
vent any water getting into the well with¬ 
out sinking through 20 feet of soil. Even 
then, if the fields or your barnyard are 
above the well or near to the well, the 
water may become contaminated. I 
would suggest that you send a sample to 
the Agricultural College at Ithaca for an¬ 
alysis. b. p. c. 
A Cistern Filter. 
1 WISII to secure information in regard 
to the construction of a cheap cistern 
filter. Can you give me any assist¬ 
ance? G. M. T. 
Monroe, Me. 
The cheapest and best cistern filters 
are sand filters, described frequently in 
The R. N.-Y. The whole object is to 
cause the water to sink through clean, 
fine sand. Usually, the bottom layer in 
the box or barrel used for a container, is 
six inches of coarse gravel, then a layer 
of lump charcoal about two or three 
inches thick, then a four-inch layer of fine 
gravel, a similar layer of coarse sand, a 
second layer of finer sand and a top layer 
of still finer sand. The sand and gravel 
must be washed free from loam and dirt. 
Each layer is laid individually and packed 
before another layer is put on. No ex¬ 
tremely fine sand should be used, and the 
filter should not be disturbed more than 
perhaps twice a year, when the top layer 
should be carefully scraped off and re¬ 
placed by a layer of clean sand. The 
water should be caused to flow into the 
filter without great force so that the sand 
will not be disturbed. r. p. c. 
Fixed Oils in Concrete. 
W IIAT about mixing “fixed oils” with 
concrete? Will it make water¬ 
proof walls and floors warmer or 
colder? Will such mixed cement on wire 
lath make a waterproof wall? Will it 
alter the rot-producing tendency on wood 
in contact with such? Ordinary concrete 
is said to rot wood. s. n. s. 
Deposit, N. Y. 
We have been unable to determine 
what is meant by your term “fixed” oils. 
Many soap or oil emulsions are added to 
cement to form a jelly in the pores, plug¬ 
ging them up. Surface coatings of para¬ 
ffin diluted in gasoline or xylol are fre¬ 
quently used. The effect on floors as re¬ 
gards heat or cold is not appreciable. Of 
course, a damp floor would appear to be 
colder because of its greater heat-con¬ 
ducting power. Wood imbedded in con¬ 
crete does not, but it is usually dry rot. 
I should expect any waterproofing might 
increase this tendency slightly. B. p. c. 
Raising Water With Ram. 
1 WISII to use a ram in a spring for 
half-inch pipe, 500 feet from house 
to spring, a three-foot fall. I would 
like to raise the water 15 feet upstairs for 
a bath room. w. h. r. 
Tyler, Pa. 
You can use a ram with a fall of three 
feet and readily raise the water to a 
height of 15 feet with even a small ram. 
A No. 4 standard ram will require three 
or four gallons a minute from the spring, 
and will deliver to a storage tank placed, 
say, 20 feet high, about 20 gallons per 
hour. The pipe from spring to ram 
should be 25 feet long (at least) and 1)4- 
inch diameter. The pipe from ram to 
tank can be !/>-ineh. The ram will cost 
about $7.50. The pipe (galvanized) will 
cost about 10 cents per foot for the large 
and five cents per foot for the small size. 
The ram will work constantly day and 
night as long as there is a flow of water, 
so a storage tank will be needed. The 
water can flow from the storage tank to 
the house faucets by gravity. Place the 
ram in a pit a few feet deep'and 25 or 30 
feet from the spring. Lay a tile drain 
from tlie pit to take off the waste water 
thrown out by the ram. r. p. c. 
Porch of Cement and Cobblestones. 
W E intend to. build a new porch 22 
feet long, turning at corner and 
running 16 feet to side entrance; 
porch as planned to be eight feet wide 
•and at least seven eight-foot columns 10 
inches in diameter, which cost us about 
$3 each. Cobblestones are very plentiful 
with us. We wondered if we could not 
build a wall across front of porch using 
stones and cement, then build up from 
top of wall the columns of cobble and 
cement. Which would be cheaper? How 
much cement is required? Would eight 
feet wide be all right, or would you make 
it 10 feet? Would you use cement floor 
or matched flooring? We do most of the 
work ourselves. s. 
Chenango Co., N. Y. 
The wood floor will suit you better, 
and the cost will not greatly exceed the 
cement, if it exceeds it at all. The cob¬ 
blestone-cement column would be very at¬ 
tractive and undoubtedly cheaper—how 
much cheaper it is not possible for us to 
figure. Eight feet is a good width. The 
extra two feet are not worth the extra 
cost. r. p. c. 
CROPS 
In a recent electrical storm (July 10- 
11), a large number of acres of corn, po¬ 
tatoes and buckwheat were badly cut up 
with the hail. In the bottom lands the 
large creeks were overflowing their banks, 
covering with gravel and sand crops of 
all kinds. This will make a shortage in 
this section. Otherwise everything will 
be about 30 per cent, better than last 
year. a. w. l. 
Richmondville, N. Y. 
The ground is very dry; rain is very 
much needed. Farmers have finished 
sowing buckwheat, and are now busy 
haying. Corn, potatoes and oats are 
looking well. The bulk of the hay crop 
is light; the average run of old meadows 
will cut only a little over half as much 
as in years past. New seeded meadows 
are fair. Farms are in good demand in 
the vicinity of Chautauqua Lake, a great 
many have been disposed of the past year. 
Mayville, N. Y. p. s. s. 
I note in your issue of July 11 that the 
peach crop is “spotted.” The little spot 
around this town is full of peaches, the 
trees already bending nearly to the 
ground, and as there have already been 
sold 400.000 half-bushel peach baskets, 
prospects are that there will be nearly 
700 cars shipped from this station. Room 
on the trees being limited, many double 
peaches have been formed. We need help 
to pick and pack this fruit, and most of 
all to reach as many consumers as possi¬ 
ble. A. L. T. 
Smithburg, Md. 
June 29.—Pastures are better than in 
several years at this season, and showers 
are frequent so will probably continue 
good. Milk, which is the main money 
product in this section, is 10 cents per 
can of S5 pounds below the price of a 
year ago. The Holstein is kept almost 
exclusively, many purebred ; 90 per cent, 
of the farmers using purebred sires. One 
sale has just been made by a neighbor of 
five cows and six yearling purebreds, for 
$28. Many cows, both pure and grade, 
are bought here and shipped West. There 
is great interest in llolsteins here, one 
boy of 19 years having a four-year-old 
grade giving 97 pounds, a day, last Jan¬ 
uary. The soil is limestone and much 
Alfalfa is grown, the first cutting being 
well taken care of now, a heavy yield, 
but not quite so good as last year, some 
raising nothing else. Oats and corn are 
looking fine. Prospects for apples are 
poor, worms of different kinds injuring 
the trees; small fruit plentiful. j. c. 
Mannsville, N. Y. 
July 13.—We are having a dry Sum¬ 
mer here in Hillsdale Co., Mich. Our 
early potatoes are very small and few in 
a hill. I planted one acre, and a larger | 
or a finer growth of vines I never saw, 
but no potatoes. They were on heavy ! 
gravel land, used for a hog lot for ten 
years, and very rich. They are Early 
Rose, very free from weeds or bugs. The 
ground is fine and loose and seems to be 
moist enough. Our oat crop is short 
straw, and thin on the ground. Hay is 
about one-half crop. Small fruits plenti¬ 
ful ; apples, peaches and pears scarce. 
The scale has killed most of our apple 
trees. People here have commenced 
spraying their orchards, and this seems 
to check the scale. Stock of all kinds 
here is high and scarce. The automobile 
craze has taken a large amount of money 
out of the country, so it bothers the farm¬ 
ers to get enough to do general business. 
Labor is high and hard to get on the 
farm at any price, especially in the house. 
Our young men are going to the cities 
and leaving the farm. What the result 
will be is hard to tell, but I believe that 
the boy who stays on the farm will win 
out. The best proof of this is our bank 
deposits, which are largely made by the 
farmers. The only remedy I know of 
is to use more brain and muscle and be 
a producer instead of a kicker, j. a. p. 
Camden, Mich. 
There will be practically no fruit through 
the Schoharie Valley, due to the cold wea¬ 
ther that prevailed through the latter part 
of April and the first part of May. Hay is 
the lightest crop that can be recollected, 
due to the drought through April and 
May. Rain came May 20, which was too 
late for hay, as it was nearly matured. 
Farmers have had a very poor catch of 
seeding for the past seven dry years. 
Corn came up very uneven, but the late 
rains have benefited it as well as oats, 
buckwheat and garden truck. A very 
small acreage of rye has been sown the 
last few years on account of the dry 
seasons that prohibited plowing. Much 
of our soil is clay or a sand loam with a 
heavy clay subsoil. Many farmers have 
turned their, attention to dairying; most 
of the milk is sold to Bordens. They re¬ 
ceived $1.10 for June for a 3.S test, with 
a premium of 10 cents for good stable and 
milk conditions. The creameries for¬ 
merly were mostly co-operative, but Bor¬ 
dens have succeeded in buying nearly all 
of them. The farmers at Schoharie have 
become dissatisfied with selling to Bor¬ 
dens because they formerly got their 
skim-milk back, and have to have better 
stables and milk conditions. They called 
a meeting July 8 for the purpose of erect¬ 
ing a co-operative creamery. There was 
a small attendance because many of the 
farmers are busy in harvest; neverthe¬ 
less a meeting will be called soon. It is 
reported nearly all are in favor of a co¬ 
operative creamery. Cows are selling 
from $50 to $75; calves, nine cents, live; 
eggs, 20 cents; butter at local stores, 25 
cents. There is a shortage of farm labor¬ 
ers this Summer; wages range from $20 
to $30 with board. Schoharie County has 
been a great hop country for years, but 
the percentage of yards now is small, due 
to the blue mold that gets all that are not 
sprayed several times with brimstone. 
Prices prevailed around 38 cents last Fall 
and Winter. Farm machinery sales have 
been small this season, due to the early 
drought, which discouraged the farmers. 
The bee-keepers report a light crop of 
honey, due to very little clover and bass¬ 
wood, but the prospect for buckwheat 
looks good to them. Farm sales are 
scarce, prices from $20 to $90 per acre. 
Schoharie County is the only county in 
the State that has no city. The tax rate 
is high on account of the numerous 
bridges on the Schoharie River. A. b. 
West Kansas on the Boom. 
The abundant rainfall which extended 
over the western third of Kansas from 
April 1 to July 15, has brought about 
the biggest crops known in the history 
of the State. The soil throughout this 
section of the country is remarkable for 
its natural richness (no fertilizers ever 
being used), and its capacity for retain¬ 
ing all the moisture received for long 
periods of time. Rainfall since April 1 
has averaged 2 */% inches per week. The 
potato crop is immense and a large per 
cent, of the farm folks are enjoying vege¬ 
tables from thrifty home gardens. There 
is a large acreage of feed—cane, milo, 
millet and kaffir. Late rains have as¬ 
sured a large yield of these. Wheat har¬ 
vest is on, the average fields making 30 
bushels per acre. But little rye was 
sown. Oats made 40 bushels. Thousands 
of acres of corn are in tassel and with 
one more rain in early August will go 50 
bushels to the acre. p. c. 
Jennings, Kansas. 
Everjet is a lustrous black carbon 
paint that combines low cost with 
durability. It will not rub, peel or 
scale. Never becomes brittle; 
cannot crack. Absolutely water¬ 
proof and acid proof. Best for 
all exposed metal and woodwork. 
Booklet on request. 
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Send for catalogue. Established 1872. 
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312 West Water Street, Syracuse, N. Y. 
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Acetylene Ranges For Quick Cooking 
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