‘Ibe RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
1775 
prevent contact with the box in which the batteries 
are contained, or with one another, as there is pos¬ 
sibility of short circuit, which also occurs when 
batteries are damp. Do not put the batteries in 
other than a wooden box, since danger of loss will 
be less. 
In Winter batteries apparently may be dead. I 
have been tempted to discard a series of cells as 
worthless when they were reduced to a very low 
degree of efficiency due to cold weather. Even 
though hot water is poured in the hopper of the 
engine. Very cold cells, though new, will not ignite 
the charge of gasoline. By warming the battery to 
about 95 degrees the batteries will work at their 
highest efficiency. Batteries will freeze, and in such 
condition the tester will show no amperage, but 
when thawed out the batteries seem to do normal 
service. 
I am a thorough believer in the magneto for firing 
the fuel charge. We have used a magneto on one 
engine for four seasons. This engine was used about 
two hours daily for a larger part of each year. The 
magneto failed to fire the engine properly, and we 
connected batteries to the engine. Later we shipped 
the magneto to the manufacturer, who cleaned it, 
placed a new lead wire and performed other service, 
in all costing $1.65. The magneto, which is one of 
the oscillating type supplied with many engines, 
gives as good if not better service than batteries. 
This type of magneto must be kept free from grease. 
I would frequently brush off with gasoline all parts 
which might become greasy from oiling, and I have 
at times noticed difference in the firing of the en¬ 
gine. A neighbor who used a magneto of this sort 
allowed it to become greasy. It failed to operate, 
lie thought he could fix it by taking it apart His 
tampering with the magneto apparently killed it, 
and destroyed his interest in this type of ignition. 
By all means leave the magneto alone: don't take it 
to pieces and attempt to overhaul it unless you 
thoroughly understand one and have had experience 
with them. If kept clean, if carefully oiled and is 
not tampered with a magneto should last the life of 
the engine. If it bothers it should be shipped to the 
manufacturer, or to one of the service stations which 
the manufacturer may maintain. w. J. 
Ohio. 
The Truck and the Farmer 
T IIE pictures at Figs. 5S2 and 5S3 show a three- 
ton truck on the Long Island farm of Charles 
S. Miller, ready to make the trip to market. This 
trip Horn Mr. Miller's farm is 70 miles, or 140 miles 
for the return. This is not unusual in these days of 
improved roads and big crops. The public would 
be astonished if the figures showing how trucks have 
taken the place of railroad freight service in carry¬ 
A Load of Early Sweet Com Ready for MarJcef. Fig. 582 
Preparing a Load of Peaches for the Wrack. Fig. 583 
ing farm crops were given. The reason why receipts 
from railroad traffic have fallen off is the (vast 
freight and passenger service performed by trucks 
and cars. And it is safe to say that there has been 
only a beginning made in this work. The develop¬ 
ments during the next 10 years will be wonderful. 
The Farmer’s 100% Dollar 
Eliminating the Middleman in Ohio 
T HE street or curb markets of Dayton, Ohio, en¬ 
able almost any nearby farmer who desires to do 
so to obtain more than the 35-cent dollar, in fact, 
all of it. The down-town streets in certain pre¬ 
scribed sections are practically given over to the 
retail farmers and fruit venders on the mornings 
of Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday until 11 o’clock, 
after which time no sales are permitted. These 
sections are marked, and there are 400 of them. 
The stalls are sold once a year to the highest bidder, 
at annual rentals ranging from $16 to $400 each. 
This money goes into the city treasury. The paid 
stalls comprise the one side of eight different streets, 
while ten blocks or sides are devoted to free markets 
where only producers are permitted to sell their 
own home-raised stuff. 
These street markets are largely patronized by 
the consumers, and certain interests have tried to 
abolish them, thus diverting the trade through the 
middlemen, but when the votes were counted they 
were largely in favor of continuation. Contrary to 
what one would expect, the downtown 
merchants, whose doors open right onto 
the curbs where the markets are. are 
opposed to their removal, as they state 
that their business is very much larger 
•than on other days. 
It would be hard to estimate what 
the aggregate curb sales would be over 
a given period, but they must amount 
to a good many thousand dollars a day, 
as during the best part of a season in 
certain lines many sales amount to 
more than $100. During the Winter 
months the street markets are not very 
active. It is not uncommon— in fact, 
it is not considered at all undignified 
or out of order—to see the wealthy 
and well-to-do . men, lawyers, mer¬ 
chants, bankers, manufacturers, with 
large market baskets, going from stall 
to stall, picking out the fresh fruit, 
meat and vegetables for Sunday dinner. 
Tuesdays and Saturdays are the 
best days, Thursday being the lightest. 
At times in front of some of the stalls 
on Saturday morning the streets are 
almost blocked by the people waiting 
to be served. A great variety of stuff 
is sold at these markets, such, for in¬ 
stance, as mush ready for frying, cot¬ 
tage cheese, fresh meats, sausage and 
pudding in season, homemade canned 
goods, sorghum, honey, pickles, sauer¬ 
kraut, mincemeat, to say nothing of 
eggs, butter, etc., which a farmer al¬ 
ways has for sale. Dayton’s street 
markets enable the farmer to get full 
value for his produce, the consumer 
prefers them to the local store because 
the stuff is always fresh: and certainly 
several hundred thousand dollars 
yearly are added to the income of the farmer which 
would otherwise go to the middleman. 
E. C. HENDRICKSON. 
Watch Your Engine Batteries 
A GASOLINE engine is no better than its spark. 
More engines have been torn down and reas¬ 
sembled when battery or magneto trouble was the 
real source of annoyance than from any other cause. 
A neighbor had trouble last Winter starting his 
engine. I tried getting a spark at the igniter by 
using a nail against the side of the cylinder. The 
spark was very weak. lie explained that he had 
not had the batteries a week. I inspected the bat¬ 
teries. They had been left in the battery box of the 
engine. During that time there had been several 
rainy days. The paper boxes in which the batteries 
were enclosed were soaked with water. This was 
the cause of the death of the batteries. The damp¬ 
ness in the cartons containing the batteries causes 
short circuit, and the batteries exhaust themselves 
quickly. It cost me several dollars to acquire this 
knowledge through experience. Batteries positively 
should not be left in or about a farm engine, par¬ 
ticularly when the engine is standing outdoors. I 
provided a box for batteries, and when through using 
them I take the batteries into the house, and they 
are left in a dry place until they are to be used 
again. It lias paid well in prolonging and perhaps 
doubling the life of the batteries. 
Be sure that the batteries have the pasteboard box 
and the bottom cap on them, or if they are enclosed 
in a square box that box is well folded so as to 
Remarks on the Wool Situation 
T HE wool subject is very quiet. There is pi*acti- 
cally nothing in the newspapers about it. It 
is a subject one might suppose was of no consequence 
to the wool growers or the common people On the 
other hand, it is a v:ry live subject among manu¬ 
facturers and traders of clothing- and every paper 
published in the interest of trade and of high 
finance gives it plenty of space. Northern newspapers 
are printed to entertain consumers and producers, it 
seems, and there is little in them regarding the busi¬ 
ness world, and nothing regarding the welfare of 
producers of food and clothing materials, except a 
prodigy of a calf or hog selling at an exalted figure. 
Southern papers carry reports of every business 
transaction that affects production of all kinds in 
their sections, and then devote a page 
or many pages once a week to rural 
doings; everything from cotton and 
peanuts down to the pigs the club boys 
and gii-ls are growing, and the Northern 
daily that looks after the interests of 
its readers will tie its subscribers, like¬ 
wise scoop its competitors. They act 
now as if their readers did not need 
to know anything about the business or 
productive world, and that is left en¬ 
tirely to the papers which circulate 
among the classes who secure and 
manipulate the product of the farms. 
Yes, wool is very quiet, and wool in 
relation to clothing is also, which ac¬ 
counts for present conditions. Wool 
will be low and people will pay high 
for clothing, also the sheep industry 
will languish until wool has publicity 
with the whole people. Notice going 
things for proof. Business exercises 
business sense by publicity, but wool 
growers and clothes wearers are quiet, 
as if ashamed of themselves, and make 
no demands for justice from news¬ 
papers or any one. 
A few of us are working for the wel¬ 
fare of our flocks and making a noise 
to awaken and drag others with us. 
We know a stable sheep industry can 
never arrive by care, breeding or feed¬ 
ing sheep, and that wool will be a 
nonentity in the business world unless 
it has respect. 
About all of the last clip is out of the 
growers’ hands, and the wool and cloth¬ 
ing trades are very busy, while the 
growers and buyers of clothing are 
comatose. No traveling salesmen are 
needed for woolens, but the jobbers and 
readymade men are going for it, standing in line in 
some cases to get any. I quote from a financial 
paper: “The sheep is bound to be a very busy 
creature for many years,” and I add that the leth¬ 
argy of his owner, and his pernicious habit of get¬ 
ting its fleece off his hands, at any price, as quickly 
as possible, has kept him from getting over half its 
worth. 
Eager eyes are looking for the 135,000,000 lbs. held 
by the Government, and friendly associates have 
shown England, who needs ready money, where to get 
it. There is an Australian shipment of millions of 
pounds on the way to auction here, with monthly 
shipments to follow. The sale will be in the hands 
of London wool brokers. The wool men of England 
and America are congenial, but what do you think 
this foreign wool will do to us? 
It is a “do-less” family that will not look after 
itself, and the American family wants to grow wool 
for itself. Our sheepmen of the great West, aided 
and abetted by organized growers over the East, are 
working at Washington to get an embargo, working 
to prevent the plains of the southern hemisphere, 
which are not worth as much per acre as we pay 
annual taxes on, from making a dumping ground of 
America. Besides, we have accumulated a debt on 
these farms and these home sheep, and need all the 
protection we can get. 
These foreign, free shipments are money-makers 
for the mill men, and they are protesting against 
our effort. They have shown no sign of cutting 
prices on cloth made from our undersold wool, and 
made no promises for reductions in future, and I 
