Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1916-06-23
Ingenuity and Foresight
Glue McGregor Man
Model Farm, Home

| McGregor, June 23.-By merely Civ
| ing forethoug'ht to the relative loca
ton of residence, outbuildings and
We'll, John Bernhard, who is farming
500 acres of fine land near McGregor,
has reduced about 80 per cent of the
work of feeding and watering stock
and caring for milk and poultry. The
highest place on the farm was selected
as a building site. The house and we'll
were placed on top of this high ground
and the barns and stables on the slope
below. BY this sidehill arrangement
| gravity is made to do much of the
work
Built on Hillside.
The ten-room modern house pro-
tected from the winds by dense
cedar grove stands on the crest of
the knoll. Within few feet of the
back door of the house stands a big
tank. A pipe extends from the els
tern to it and out of the tank run some
dozen other pipes down the hill to the
barns stables hog pens, poultry yard
and out into the pastures.
A watering tank is at the end of
every pipe and in every tank a float
valve bobs up and down. AS it bobs
il alternately opens and shuts the
valve in the inflow pipe by pulling the
lever which is attached to it, thus
regulating the height of the water in
each tank.
Wind and Gravity Do Work.
Wind and gravity and the animals
do the rest, the wind pumping, gravity
distributing. and the stock keeping
the water running. The scheme is
simple enough. The water is pumped
out of the we'll and into the cistern by
the windmill. From the cistern it
flows to the tank in the basement OF
the house and thence to the stables
and in summer out to the pastures.
Kerosene oil heaters. Mr.. Bernhard's
own invention are kept burning in the
tanks during the winter maintaining
the water at a comfortable tempera-
ture, so that the year roud, winter as
we'll as summer the several hundred
horses, sowS and hogs on the big farm
are watered without 1.-The lifting of
d hand"
AS they consume en- enormous
amount of water. the supply in the
tank in the basement of the house is
constantly changing. thereby accom-
pliShing a second big labor saving.
The running water is cold at all times.
so the tank serves as convenient
cooling receptacle for the milk and
cream. Beside the tank is a gasolene
engine which pumps the water from
the tank thru pipes to every part of
the house. The same engine, by the
way does the family washing. oper-
ates the cream separator furnishes
gas lights for house and barns and fills
the tank in the attic from the rain
water cistern supplying the house with
soft as we'll as hard water.
Gravity Important Factor.
Because of the relative position of
the buildings gravity does another i'm
portant work. In the kitchen is a
cement trap for wet garbage. A big
pipe runs downhill from it to the hog
pens. terminating there in cement
troughs. The farmers wife at feeding
, time lifts up the cover Of the trap and
pours in the food. Gravity does the
rest and pigs though denied the luxury
of being kept in the parlor as in
former days are literally fed in the
kitchen. They get their corn by way
Of Gravity too. The corn crib is the
second story of the hog pens. Several
chutes extend down from the floor of
the crib to the pens below. They are
fashioned in the shape of perpendicu-
lar boxes with a sort OF platform a.
the lower end. The pressure Of the
column holds the corn packed in the
chutes except when the column is
started moving by pushing a shovel