236 
Vhe RURAL. NEW.YORKER 
February 7, 1920 
HEATS ALL THE HOUSE 
KEEPS THE CELLAR COOL 
* , • LA 
The Onepipe Furnace 
that NEVER Disappoints 
Simple Science 
By Dr. F. D. Crane 
With this wonderful heater you can 
burn any kind of WOOD or Coal (also Natural 
Gas) and HEAT your home BETTER and at LESS 
expense and with LESS WORK than in any other 
way. THIS is the experience of thousands of homes which have 
installed and are right now using the STEWART Or.epipe. 
The STEWART is a sturdy furnace 
—built for life-time service. It actually weighs 
200 to 300 pounds more than most other “Pipeless” 
or “Onepipe” furnaces—and most of this additional 
weight is in the firepot and grates where naturally the furnace has 
its hardest wear. This “overweight” means greater durability 
—longer service. Its OVERSIZE register is another reason the 
STEWART is so successful—produces such reallyremarkableresults. 
88 Years of successful stove and fur¬ 
nace-making experience is built into the 
STEWART ONEPIPE. Designed by Master Crafts¬ 
men—built by expert workmen—made of carefully 
selected and tested materials, this powerful furnace insures to every 
user that same dependable and satisfactory service which has made 
STEWART products famous since 1832. 
The STEWART ONEPIPE is easily installed 
in old or new buildings—usually in half a day. It’s 
EASY to buy and EASY to operate. It does away with the dirt 
and danger of stoves in several rooms—and insures an abundance 
of healthy heat throughout the house. SAVES FUEL, too. 
Never disappoints. 
WRITE TODAY FOR ILLUSTRATED BOOKLET—FREE 
FULLER ft WARREN CO.,TROY. NY. 
Since l83?.Hakers if STEWART Stoves Ranges Ftraces 
Anti-freeze Mixtures 
I noticed that a solution of baking soda 
which I had made did not freeze as readily 
as water. Could this be used in auto ra¬ 
diators as an anti-freeze? w. s. 
New Faltz. 
No; for two reasons. The first is that 
the baking soda changes automatically 
to washing soda, with loss of carbonic acid 
gas, as the solution reaches the boiling 
point, and washing soda is too alkaline 
for the purpose; the second is that the 
baking soda is not soluble enough to do 
much good, even if it were stable. Just 
about all the possible salts have been 
tried, from time to time, and the safest 
of the bunch is calcium chloride (not 
“chloride of lime”), but even, this will 
do some harm, since the fundamentals 
otf chemistry are not altered by the 
desires of the advertising man, in spite 
of what he says on the label. The 
one safe thing is denatured alcohol, and 
this has to be watched and replaced, since 
it will boil off. Some use glycerine alone 
or with the alcohol; this will work if 
there is no rubber anywhere in your cool¬ 
ing system. If there is, glycerine will not 
do, even though it does not boil off. 
More Cider Questions 
Kindly inform me what effect do rai¬ 
sins have upon cider? What effect does 
horseradish have on cider? What is the 
best method to use to get cider to as high 
a percentage of alcohol as possible? 
Navesink, N. J. w. o. B. 
Raisins carry into the cider a little 
more sugar and some grape flavor, but, 
most important, the natural wild yeasts 
which are found in raisin grapes which 
produce characteristic by-products as well 
as alcohol from the raisins and from the 
cider also. These products give a wine 
flavor to the cider, but much the same ef¬ 
fect can be produced by adding a little 
grape juice to the sweet cider. 
Horseradish has a reputation as a cider 
preservative, and mustard seeds are also 
often advocated. The volatile oil of 
horseradish is found to be the same as 
that of mustard, which is allyl isothiocy¬ 
anate. and it is possible that this has 
germicidal properties. 
With great care a liquid containing as 
much as 30 per cent of_sugar can be fer¬ 
mented, giving about 15 per cent of al¬ 
cohol. but this is the limit with yeast, and 
the latter part of the fermentation is very 
slow. It is of no advantage to get such 
a high alcoholic percentage, as it is too 
strong for the proper action of the vine¬ 
gar ferment, and the resulting vinegar 
would not be as satisfactory. With some 
ciders, however, a little cane sugar can 
profitably be added, and the fermentation 
then carried out without access of air, 
which will start the acetic action too soon. 
When the alcoholic fermentation is com¬ 
plete. the mother of vinegar is added, 
usually as a little old vinegar, and the 
acetic fermentation allowed to proceed. 
bonate and keep at it, for there is a rat 
as well as a sucker born every minute, 
and, even if you don’t raise them yourself, 
the neighbors will do it for you so you 
want to get co-operation. The carbonate 
and fluoride are both cheap, only a few 
cents a pound wholesale, and the chem¬ 
ical houses in town will mail them to you, 
or the local drug store ought to get them 
at a reasonable advance. 
Raising Bread with Ammonia 
Can you give me a formula for making 
bread with lump ammonia as the bakers 
do? mbs. R. J. c. 
Whippany, N. J. 
No; because we consider bi'ead so made 
to be distinctly harmful and likely to dis¬ 
turb the digestion. We did not think 
that this practice persisted to the present 
time, but if you know of any case we 
think the State or local board of health 
would be interested in that baker. 
Cleaning Tarnished Silver 
How can silver which is badly tar¬ 
nished be cleaned? MBS. E. T. 
Woburn. Mass. 
Just at present it is the fashion to 
place in an aluminum pan or in a bright 
tin pan on a piece of aluminum, and cover 
with warm water iu which a little salt 
and baking soda have been dissolved. The 
action is eleetro-ehomical, and all the 
color is removed from the silver, includ¬ 
ing that which the manufacturer intended 
to remain, and the silver comes out with 
a very tinny look, which can be removed 
by going over it with an ordinary silver 
polish. The silver suffers no serious loss 
in weight if watched and removed when 
clean. A chemical method is to give it 
a bath of warm, fresh made photograph¬ 
ers’ “hypo” (thiosulphate of soda) ; here, 
also, a certain amount of watching is 
needed. The solution works a little better 
if a few drops of ammonia are added. A 
(better and rather dangerous chemical 
method is a 25 per cent solution of 
cyanide of potash, also with a little am¬ 
monia added, which may be applied with 
a swab tied on a stick or by immersion. 
In the latter case use stick to put in and 
take out the articles and do not use m 
metal dish as container. When through 
with the solution destroy it; it is one <>f 
the worst poisons known, and even woi k- 
ing with it will probably give you a !>:<1 
headache. A good rinse will remove every 
trace of it from the silver. 
Benzoate of Soda in Butter Substitute 
Do you think substitute butter iu which 
is one-tenth of one per cent benzoate of 
soda is a safe food? J. B- 
Durham, Cal. 
We must positively Tcfuse to be drawn 
into this benzoate of soda controversy, but 
in the case you mention we think the use 
of the butter substitute is inadvisable, 
not on account of the benzoate of soda, 
which we think practically harmless, but 
because the maker of the substitute thinks 
it necessary to put it in. There are sev.- 
eral substitute butters on the market, at 
least in the East, which are free from 
benzoate, and which keep perfectly when 
treated as butter. If the maker puts in 
benzoate he must think it is needed, and 
that means that he thinks his product 
would spoil without it. and that means 
there are germs there which, without ben¬ 
zoate, would grow and spoil the stuff. 
That is the real argument, against ben¬ 
zoate ; the fact that it is used shows that 
the maker will not trust his product with¬ 
out it, and as there are makers who do 
not have to use it. either the raw ma¬ 
terials or the process of the benzoate user 
would appear to be inferior. 
Barium Carbonate as Rat Poison 
What do you think of the enclosed ar¬ 
ticle on the use of barium carbonate to 
kill rats? Where can it be obtained? 
West Point Pleasant. N. J. c. R. 
The article is typical newspaper stuff, 
but is based on fact. I have had a lot 
of trouble with rats myself, and barium 
carbonate works as well as anything. Of 
course the big thing is to keep them from 
nesting and breeding, but with many farm 
buildings that is hopeless. The trick 
with carbonate is to get them to eating 
something at a given spot regularly and 
then mix carbonate with It. one time only. 
Those who get a partial dose will never 
touch that sort of food at that place 
again, and you have to change the bill 
of fare and move the table, but those who 
get a fair dose cease to trouble. Next 
time feed them along a few days and then 
provide an arsenic addition, then try 
sodium fluoride, then go back te the car- 
Form of Frost Crystals 
What is the cause of frost figures on 
windows, and why are some windows fig¬ 
ured and some plain? . c. F. G. 
North Point, Pa. 
The exact cause of the appearance of 
ferns, pine trees and various fanciful ob¬ 
jects on frosted windows is not known, 
since we do not yet know exactly why 
crystals form to begin with, merely t-hat, 
once formed, they tend to grow as long 
as supplied with material. 
In general, the first crystals form along 
lines of disturbance of surface, and this 
may be a line of some other material, as 
dust or a line of whak in ignorance, we 
may as well call a line of electrical stress, 
or disturbance. You can easily test this 
by going to a cold, dry. unfrosted window 
in an unused room, for instance, at a time 
when other windows are frosted, making 
some marks on the glass with a hit 
of stick and breathing lightly on the 
glass. Of course, the experiments may 
fail from local causes, but you are nearly 
certain to see the frost crystals follow 
the lines you have made on the glass. 
Then, as you cautiously supply a little 
more water vapor, you will see other lines 
start, here and there, and finally you 
will frost the whole pane, if you take 
care to breathe on it only as fast as the 
cold in the glass can freeze the vapor. 
If you brush a fresh pane very lightly 
with a bit of wool or slik, you can prob¬ 
ably cause fern-shaped forms to grow as 
yon wish. It is probable that the rather 
general formation of fern-like figures is 
due to the fact that windows are often 
dried with a rotary motion, and very mi¬ 
nute tracks of'soap suds, or even water, 
are left on the glass. 
Large windows washed with a rubber 
squeegee are apt: to frost evenly, but the 
principal reason for even frosting is that 
it is heavy frosting, and that the fancy 
figures which first form are submerged in 
the heavy coat. Windows which are 
frosted very rapidly will also frost evenly, 
without figures, as will very clean glass. 
Vaccine Treatment for Catarrh 
What is your opinion of the catarrhal 
vaccine treatment for eatrrhal affections, 
bronchial asthma, etc., and must it be ad¬ 
ministered by a physician? B. K. 
Burdette, N Y. 
Our opinion is that this treatment is 
still very much in the experimental stage, 
and that it must certainly be administered 
by a physician, and, more important, by 
one who has made both a special study of 
the case and of this method of treatment. 
