1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURIi 



435 



blood pointed out a eucalyptus-tree to me. It was 

 ciuite tall, and friend T. said it had made a remark- 

 able growth in a few years. I don't kncnv the spe- 

 cies. I am not familiar enough with the town to 

 know now what street it was on. I have just finish- 

 ed reading Terry's book on health. I have been 

 studying this question for several years, and in the 

 main I think Terry is correct, although there are. 

 .some things I am sure he is mistaken aliout. One 

 thing is in not getting any strength from our food. 

 We certainly get a large part of it from the food we 

 assimilate. 

 >f artinsville, O.. .June 20. E. C. Garner, M. D. 



It is now up to our good friend Triieblood 

 to stand up and explain. 



Poultry Department 



By A. I. r.iiOT 



" STICK-TIGHT FLEAS;" MORE ABOUT THEM, ETC. 



We have had and are still having an awful fight 

 with those chicken fleas. I think I can tell the 

 whole tribe of poultry-journals .something about 

 chicken fleas. I find their main lodgingplace is un- 

 der the bills of small chicks. You will find them 

 there when there is no sign anywhere else: and aft- 

 they have got a start and sapped the life out of the 

 chick, what will kill the fleas will be fatal to the 

 chick. They bore in so I have to take my watch- 

 tweezers to pull them out, and even then they 

 come hard. I have lost a good many chickens 

 from fleas. I made a whole washtubful of solution 

 yesterday, and used the sprinkler and sprinkled all 

 the floors and sides and roosts of the building. I 

 found the old nests down deep full of chicken lice 

 also. The way Wesley sprayed did not kill them. 

 It simply kept them off the surface. I am now go- 

 ing to get a bag of lime and slack it, and spread it 

 over all the different houses on tlie ground, and 

 keep the hou.ses clean. I think the do.se 1 gave 

 them yesterday will settle them. I went over to 

 Mr. Abbott's the other night, and he said he had 

 engaged a barrel of crude oil at 84.50 that they 

 sprinkle the streets with. With this he expects to 

 keejj his place free from vermin. I think if the 

 hou.ses were wet down with that for a while it 

 would make a hard and smooth surface in all the 

 houses .so that no vermin of any kind could live in 

 them. 



I get only about two dozen eggs a day now. Sev- 

 eral hens are wanting to sit. I have four hens sit- 

 ting now on Buttercups. The Buttercups lay very 

 well. One lien is clucking, but has not offered to 

 sit as yet. If nothing happens I shall have a flock 

 for you ue.xt fall. My wife .says, just as Sue does, 

 that those chickens keep one closer than any busi- 

 ness. I do not want to leave them at all. for if I do 

 something is sure to go wrong. 



The auto behaves splendidly. I think a great 

 deal of it. Once in a while it troubles a little to 

 start, but it is my fault in not watching when it 

 troubles. The roads have been fearful between 

 here and town : but the rain has helped .somewhat. 

 I like it better and better here. The summer so far 

 beats Arizona. I wear just my kakai pants and a 

 blue shirt, and go barefoot among the chickens— no 

 flies nor mosquitoes as yet to bother. I have got my 

 net for fishing, but do not have time to use it. I 

 mvist clean out the creek, as it is full of snags and 

 stones. 



Your front yard is pretty well dried up, and Mr. 

 Rood's is more so than ours: but I think the last 

 rain will help it. Most of the trees are doing fairly 

 well. Those that blossomed .so full fell off most. I 

 am putting palmetto roots around those in the 

 back yard, and protecting them from the chickens. 

 They scratch the dirt away if I do not. 



Bradentown, Fla., June 14. J. H. Root. 



tion to it. Now that I am writing to the firm I will 

 enclose report of it from the Kerieir of Jierieus for 

 May. last year, which will explain. It has been on 

 sale here for the last six months. A great many 

 believe in it, and some of my family do; but I can't 

 bring myself to believe that the animal magnetism 

 of each sex in an egg can be detected by such a 

 simple instrument. 1 can't get it to work to my 

 satisfaction. We had a setting of nine, and got six 

 pullets. We sent the sexaphone to a party who 

 believes in it, and who had a good strain of poultry. 

 It seems to me that when the little steel ball begins 

 to move, the person, unaware, through sympathy, 

 gives it that movement, whichever movement it 

 may take. Hang it on a nail instead of on the fin- 

 ger and you get no results; or blindfold, when try- 

 ing it, you get no decided results. 

 Newboro, Oamaru, Mar. 10. .John Allen. 



^^'ith the above letter came a leaf torn 

 from the English i?fr/e7t' of Bevieivs; and 

 this sheet contains a picture of the wonder- 

 ful instrument. Just as soon as I read the 

 above letter I decided the machine was on 

 the same plan as the i)lanchette board that 

 made svich a stir over forty years ago; and 

 it is certainly a disgrace to the present state 

 of civilization to see a periodical like the 

 Revieiv of E( views not only giving space to a 

 description of the thing, but also iUustrat'ing 

 the "humbug toy." 8ee page 240, April 1. 



THE SEXAPHONE — THE IN.STRUMENT THAT TELLS 



WHETHER AN EGG WILL PRODUCE A 



PULLET OR -A ROOSTER. 



Mr. A. I. Bool.—l take great interest in your 

 poultry notes, and have been expecting you to 

 have heard of the sexaphone long ago, making 

 sure that some one would have drawn your atten- 



CARBOLINEUM AS A REMEDY FOR VERMIN IN POUL- 

 TRY-HOUSES; ALSO SOMETHING MORE ABOUT 

 STICK-TIGHT FLEAS. 



Here is a remedy for ridding a poultry-plant of 

 mites and lice, worth ten times all the other reme- 

 dies recommended. Two of my neighbors' ranches 

 as well as my own were overrun with vermin — so 

 much so that one of them lost a good part of chick- 

 ens and young poults. We had tried almost every 

 thing, only to be defeated. Last fall I got a gallon 

 of carbolineum, and we divided it among the three 

 of us. I used less than one quart in twelve colony 

 houses. 



I applied it to the bottom of the roosts with a 

 four-inch brush. That was over six months ago. 

 and I am not afraid to offer Si. 00 per mite or louse 

 if found in any of my twelve colony houses. Here 

 on the coast it costs .?1.7.5 per gallon. 



If it would drive away fleas such as bother poul- 

 trymen in Florida It would be great, for I have 

 raised poultry in St. I'etersburg, Fla.. and know 

 what a bore vermin are to the poultr.v-raiser there. 



I^angley, Wash., .lune 7. S. S. Stults. 



My good friend, I think you are right 

 about it, or at least pretty nearly .so. If you 

 will turn to page 1*214 of our issue for Sept. 

 15, 1908, you will find that I made a poul- 

 try-house here in Ohio, and sprayed all the 

 lumber, and every thing put into it, with 

 carbolineum.* I said there that the Eural 

 Netv -Yorker and the Country Gentleman 

 both recommended this preservative, and I 

 am glad to indorse what you say by telling 

 you that I have never been able" to find 

 mites, lice, or fleas anywhere on the prem- 

 ises, nor on any of the chickens, big or lit- 

 tle; and it is now two years since the carbo- 

 lineum was put on the building. I was not 

 able to get carbolinenra in Florida, but I 

 obtained of a neighbor some zenoleum, 

 which he thought was much the same 

 thing: but it did not banish the sticktight 

 fleas. In fact. Dr. Conkey, of Cleveland, who 

 manufacturers every thing in the way of 

 medicine for the whole poultry business, 

 wrote me recently that he felt sure that 

 neither his- lice-killer nor any other yii^\\\^ 



* Address Carbolineum Wood-preserving Co., 349 

 West Broadway, New York. 



