The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
955 
this building bfi without 
•T. A. G. 
Stone Brooder House 
T have boon thinking of building a stone 
brooder house. Would it be dry enough 
for chicks to run in if the 'brooder was in 
it? The location is a high slope, facing 
the south. j. j. n. 
Highland, X. Y. 
T think that there would be no difli- 
rnlty in keeping a stone brooder house 
dry if a brooder stove was operated with¬ 
in it. I know of concrete block brooder 
houses that are in use with entire satis¬ 
faction. The reason that stone buildings 
seem to draw moisture is that Stone is 
such a good conductor of heat that it per¬ 
mits the heat of the interior of the build¬ 
ing to escape readily through the walls. 
These walls, in consequence, become very 
cold and the moisture in the air condenses 
upon them. When the temperature is be¬ 
low freezing this condensed moisture 
freezes upon the walls as frost. There 
is not necessarily any more moisture 
within a stone building than in one of 
I think these lines can be made fairly 
serviceable by scraping the rust from the 
ends and making a new twisted splice, 
being careful to make the splice long and 
very tight. T doubt, if any other expense 
would be justified where the lines are old 
and rusted badly. Never used the sleeves 
except on the copper lines. Where the 
best grade of iron wire was used and the 
joints made long and carefully, there 
should never be any trouble from the 
joints. I’r.OYP Q. wiittr. 
wood under the out- , T 
side tempera ture^l^here appears to be -Jwoodjng. I.. would use 
more because it condenses upon cold stone or a 1> at,> tor ffrowln 
walls when it would not upon warmer 
ones of wood and so becomes visible. 
Tbeiv are two ways of preventing this 
condensation of moisture upon stone or 
concrete; one is to use artificial heat in 
the building, the other to ventilate the 
interior so thoroughly that the air within 
cannot become so saturated with mois¬ 
ture from the bodies of the occupants as 
to be unable to hold it in suspension. In 
practice, however, it is easier to keep a 
wooden building dry and comfortable 
than one built of stone, and I should not 
use stone for the walls of a brooder house 
if I could equally well use wood. m.b. d. 
Incubator and Brooder House 
Would you give me the proper dimen¬ 
sions for building a combined incubator 
and brooder house? My idea was to use 
it for hatching eggs and overhead for 
brooding the little chicks; cellar under¬ 
neath. I wish to use two 000-egg 
machines in this cellar and standard stove 
brooder to take care of the chicks over the 
cellar part of it. . Would, it be advisable 
to build in this way? When through 
t for laying pens 
place for growing stock. Also will 
it be warm enough to use incubator? M.v 
idea was to build it 12 ft. wide and 10 
ft. long, slope roof 0 ft. back and S ft. 
front, cellar to be 7 ft. high. I wish to 
make it large enough for the hatching 
of large numbers of baby chicks, about 
1,000 to 1,600, at one time. Can the 
chicks be successfully raised in this man¬ 
ner in the cellar underneath this build¬ 
ing, or in other words, why cannot the 
cellar be at one end and cement floor in 
other half of 
cellar? 
New York. 
There is no reason why a cellar be¬ 
neath a brooder bouse* should not be used 
for hatching purposes, and such a cellar 
may be of any size desired, 7 ft. being a 
good height. The building should be 
deeper than 'planned and as long as re¬ 
quired to give the desired floor space. A 
depth of from 10 to 20 ft. is more suitable 
than one of but 12 ft. The chief objec¬ 
tion to such a building is that, it is fixed 
and does not. permit of changing the loca¬ 
tion of the flocks from year to year. A 
portable brooder house accomplishes this 
purpose and facilitates the keeping of the 
chicks free from disease. Where space 
is limited, however, and the brooder house 
must always stand in the same spot, your 
plan is all right. 
A shed roof building 10 ft. deep with 
a front wall 8 ft. in height and the rear 
wall 5 ft. would be of suitable dimensions 
for a brooder house where coal-burning 
brooder stoves are to be used. Its length 
will be limited only by the amount of 
floor- «pnoc desired and the number of 
pens for baby chicks that are needed. 
The cellar may. of course, occupy part or 
all of the space beneath the building. 
The underpinning would be sufficiently 
high to permit of placing cellar windows 
in it for light and ventilation, and if in 
well-drained or naturally dry ground the 
cellar will need no floor. M. B. D. 
Advice About Pipeless Furnace 
I am thinking of installing a hot-air 
pipeless furnace in a four-room house 
with two attic rooms. There are about 
8,000 cubic feet to heat. There are two 
types of these furnaces. One takes cold 
air from the cellar and the other takes it 
from the floors of the house. Which 
type do you recommend as better? It 
seems to me that the one that takes the 
cold air from the floors causes drafts and 
cold floors. I wish to have warm floors. 
Will a furnace that takes cold air from 
the cellar heat it so that vegetables will 
not: keCp? M. F. M. 
.McKees Rocks, Pa. 
I do not think that a hot-air furnace 
that got. its air supply from the cellar 
would prove satisfactory unless provision 
were made to admit outside air freely to 
the cellar. I have used such an installa¬ 
tion with satisfaction. The ordinary 
“pipeless’* furnace takes its cold air sup¬ 
ply from the rooms heated and thus main¬ 
tains a circulation. With a modern, 
tightly buili M Ji^iMrnoit.w.iut4sige I should 
expect that some provision would have 
to be made for quite frequent admission 
of outside air to make this comfortable 
and healthful. Most old houses are so 
ventilated by the ravages of time and 
loose window and door casings in none 
too well-built walls as to make natural 
ventilation sufficient for a pipeless fur¬ 
nace. As to cold floors. I cannot see 
that there is any material difference be¬ 
tween pipe and pipeless- furnaces, though 
I-think that drafts of cold air sweeping 
back to the central register are more uo- 
ticeable with, the latter type. I cannot 
recommend either type as best, under all 
circumstances. I have used both, and 
am at present, heating an eight-room 
house satisfactorily with a pipeless fur¬ 
nace. Any hot-air furnace will warm the 
cellar in which it is placed. The pipe- 
less heaters do not give off heat from 
their outer jackets-, but all have a cast- 
iron front and more or less cellar smoke- 
pipe from which heat in considerable 
quantities is radiated. xr. n. n. 
Planning a Henhouse 
I have a chicken house, A-shaped roof, 
30 ft. long, 10 ft. wide and 7 ft. to the 
square. It is divided into three sections 
10 ft. square, a broad partition between 
eac-h section : two double sash windows, 
consisting of six panes to sash, each SxlO 
in each section, facing south, and each 
gable end contains a single sash. Win¬ 
dows on south side open every day. I 
plan to extend or add 12 ft. to east end 
during this Summer. The floor of this 
will have to be raised 2 ft.; otherwise it 
would extend into the hill. I propose to 
dig out and let hens in to dust during 
Winter. The whole north side to be wall 
made of sand, cement and field stone, also 
east side to floor. Will this plan be 
wise? J. F. F. 
Pennsylvania. 
I see no objection to this plan if sur¬ 
face water from the hill will not run into 
the proposed addition. It will probably 
be best to dig a ditch about the outside 
of the foundation of the new part and 
fill it with large field stones, giving it an 
outlet at a lower level. I am assuming 
that you intend to extend the house into 
the hill, as you speak of digging it out to 
let the hens in to dust. An earthen floor 
will in time become foul and will need 
to have the surface renewed occasionally; 
it will also give rats opportunity to bur¬ 
row beneath and through it. M. B. D. 
Drainage and Water Supply 
On a piece of land (20 acres) which 
is drained by a brook which is a feeder 
to the village water supply, how near can 
I build fo the brook without conflicting 
with the State law? Would a drainage 
ditch flowin' into the brook (now or in 
the future) be considered the same as the 
brook? Would this whole matter be gov¬ 
erned by the State or local health law? 
Ossining, N. Y. G. U. 
Under the health laws of the State, 
any municipality may bring an action in 
the Supreme Court to restrain any per¬ 
son from endangering its public water- 
supply by discharging sewage, or any 
other offensive matter, into the sources 
from which that water supply is drawn. 
The State Department of Health, how¬ 
ever, must be the judge as to whether 
the disposal’ of sewage complained of is a 
menace to the municipality. A ditch 
leading in to a brook would, under these 
circumstances, be considered a part of 
the brook. lit would be best, under the 
circumstances you mention, to write the 
mv I Tpnrtrnent of Health at Albany, 
N- Y., stating your plans for building 
and sewage disposal upon this watershed 
and asking for their sanction. Much 
subsequent trouble nud expense’ might thus 
be saved. m. j$, ]) t 
Repairing Rusty Telephone Wires 
Our rural telephone lines are getting 
"id and rusty, galvanizing is gone, joints 
•ire not soldered and transmission is get- 
uig poorer all the time. I would like to 
Know if there is any practical way to 
l,™* J°I uts 1,1 n, sty iron wire without 
,liaf would be as good as a soldered 
thought of using sleeve 
)irst cleaning off the rust, then 
<rL .. n ®’ a solution of copper-sulphate to 
t . copper surface inside the sleeve, 
in ^nS er *- e,,IUS l ike n Poor metal to use 
Weather W U i , w H h . iron out i« the 
anv nJpm'Vlu' 1 p ain « a <*oated iron rust 
nnv £* e sleeve joints? Is there 
< f lin v s< ? lu tnm, such as a metallic salt 
< I in,, Z V°’ . lut . wou, d make a good 
J-e ftov Mici' VUe ln t *“ 1 ' sleeve joints? 
Simple 
Alternating 
Action 
MILKER 
How It Differs From All Others 
“Why is the National Milker different from 
all others ? 
This is the question we are hearing from all 
sides in response to our challenge of other 
milking machines. 
The National milks alternately. 
And in milking alternately it uses only one tube 
from pail cover to branch connection. 
There is no other milker which combines these two 
great features. 
There are other milkers which milk alternately using 
two or three tubes between the pail cover and branch 
connection and two pipelines overhead. 
But the National Milker stands alone. 
It milks two teats at a time the way your cows are 
used to being milked. 
And at the same time it is the simplest milker ever 
designed. 
Don’t Let This Pass Unchallenged 
There are other remarkable features of the National 
Milker about which you should know. You should 
know: 
How the milk flow automatically regulates 
the squeeze and suction from moment to 
moment according to the exact flow of each 
cow. 
How the pulsator is located just above the 
branch connection, giving distinct, positive 
action. 
How the teat cups fit all teats and milk with 
a gentle squeeze and suction, and release. 
The National Milker marks a new era of simplicity 
and efficiency in milking machines. It combines all 
the best features of milkers already on the market 
with added improvements long wanted by dairymen. 
You should investigate. Write ua today for booklet. 
By return mail we will show you conclusively that the 
National Milker is the final milker which all others must follow. 
Make ui prove our claims. 
National Milker Company 
637 Washington Ave. So. Minneapolis, Minnesota 
