Sawdust in Concrete; Drainage in Ice- J 
house 
1 . Do you know anything about using 
sawdust in concrete for flooring under 
cows? Is it practicable or durable, or 
better than clear sand and cement? Do 
you advise using some other material for 
the cow platform? 
2 . I would like advice as to the best 
way to build an icehouse, especially the 
bottom, to save the most ice. Do you 
know if it. works out well so to build the 
icehouse and milkhouse that the drainage 
from the icehouse will run into the milk- 
house water vat? I have heard that it 
did. a. R. A. 
Triangle, N Y. 
1 . I have never heard of sawdust be¬ 
ing used in the manner described, and 
without satisfactory proof to the contrary 
would advise against its use. Concrete 
does not make a good union with wood; 
neither does a good concrete result from 
the use of dirty sand. The strongest 
concrete is made from clean sand, sand 
that has its particles well graded in size, 
so that the smaller' tend to fill the voids 
between the larger sand particles. The 
above statement is not intended to bar 
gravel or crushed rock from the mixture, 
but refers to the cement mortar alone. If 
sawdust were incorporated in the mixture 
I would expect the resulting concrete to 
be weak and porous. 
It is probably desired to add the saw¬ 
dust to secure a warmer floor beneath 
the cows. This can be done in other 
ways. If the surface upon which the 
floor is to be laid is carefully graded and 
drained and a fill of cinders placed and 
tamped firm, with the floor laid upon 
this, much of the trouble from dampness 
and cold will be done away with. An¬ 
other method is to lay a coating of tar 
paper and tar in the floor beneath the 
standing platform of the cows. This also 
tends to insulate the floors. As to other 
materials for the standing platform, cork 
brick is in good favor, also specially 
treated wood blocks have been used, but 
not with entire success. The blocks do 
not seem so well adapted to this use as 
do the cork bricks. I would caution 
again against the use of sawdust in tin* 
concrete. Do not use it until you have 
seen it thoroughly tried out. 
2. In regard to the icehouse, get Bul¬ 
letin No. 62fl, “Icehouses and the Use of 
Ice on the Dairy Farm,” from your Con¬ 
gressman at Washington. This, I think, 
will give you the information desired. 
In regard to building the icehouse so as 
to conserve the drainage water, it is 
somewhat of a question whether the re¬ 
sults secured would justify the extra 
trouble in building. Two tons per cow 
is a liberal allowance, aud more ice than 
is stored on the average farm. Suppos¬ 
ing, however, that 50 tone were stored 
for a 25-cow herd, and that one-half of it 
melted during the four hot months of the 
Summer. This is another very liberal 
allowance, and any icehouse that will 
not store ice any more efficiently should 
be rebuilt. Even vith this extremely 
high rate of melting only about 50 gallons 
of water would be furnished every 24 
hours, should all the melting take place 
in the four hot months referred to. and 
this,will be water at .‘>2 degrees, and will 
have nowhere near the cooling power of 
ice in the same amount. The values 
given have all purposely been made high, 
aud in actual practice much less water 
would be received, making it seem scarce¬ 
ly worth while to build to conserve this 
drainage water, although the house should 
he so constructed that it is removed from 
the base of the ice pile. R. n. s. 
A Four-ox Team 
Your editorial on page 104S on going 
back to ox power on our farms emboldens 
me to give a littlo experience of ours. 
We have two yokes, one of two six-year- 
olds. and one of two three-year-olds, and 
our boy of lfi has done nearly all of the 
breaking and driving of both yokes. He 
has plowed and worked on the land, 
broken roads and hauled out the manure 
m Winter with the older team. When 
the weather is not too warm they can do 
about the same amount of plowing, etc., 
as the three-horse team, aud are much 
more economical to keep. This Spring 
the work seemed to go a little slow to the 
boy, especially as he could look around 
and see some of our neighbors buzzing 
along so lively with their tractors. So he, 
with a little help from his “daddy,” rig¬ 
ged up an evener and two sets of harrows 
and put the four oceai abreast. He called 
it his four-cylinder tractor. M. E. V. s. 
Montgomery Co., N. Y. 
WANT TO KNOW 
Horse Power to Remove Watercress 
I have a brook that runs through a 20- 
acre field, and this brook is completely 
choked up with watercress. Can I get 
this out without pulling it out with hooks, 
which, with present prices of labor, is too 
expensive? Could it be pulled out with 
horses, and. if so, how? Or enu you sug¬ 
gest any other way? g. w. d. 
Massachusetts. 
R. N.-Y.—We have sent this to several 
readers, but no one has had experience. 
Is there any answer? 
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