1874 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



45- 



A SHORT CHAPTER ON POULTRY, 



AVitn a. moral that may liave a bearing on 



Bee Culture. 



J^NCE upon a time a lad "got up to the 



head" in his spelling class, and what is 

 more he did the same thing, not only once but 

 several times, until he eventually secured a 

 silver quarter of a dollar, awarded as a medal 

 the last day of school, to the one who should 

 have earned the most head marks. On his 

 way home on that eventful day, he mused 

 somewhat in this wayi "spelling I have con- 

 quered, or at least pretty nearly, (remember he 

 was of only about a dozen summers,) and now 

 what is to be "licked" next, and what is to be 

 done with the silver quarter V" If we follow 

 hi in a little, we may discover his project for 

 solving the two problems at once. 



That same afternoon after having obtained 

 the maternal sanction of his plan he trudged 

 off 2 1 ^' miles to "Grandfathers;" and "Grand- 

 mother" being absent the following colloqu}^ 

 occurred : 



"Well, what's broke now?" queried Grand- 

 father who sat by the fire in the old "cellar 

 kitchen." 



" Nothing's broke, but I want to buy two 

 hens." 



"Want to buy two hens? what for, where is 

 your money ?" 



A display of the quarter, and a relation of 

 how he came by it, seemed satisfactory, and 

 then came the query : 

 "But don't you want a rooster too ? " 

 " No, they don't lay eggs." 

 "You are ouly intent on making money 

 then?" 



"Yes; if they lay eggs enough to buy more 

 hens, I shall probably get a rooster too, but 

 just now I only want what the quarter will 

 pay for." 



"You would not take a rooster then as a 

 gift?" 

 " I had rather not." 



A bargain was soon made, after the above 

 preliminaries, but ive must digress a little here 

 to explain that beside the fire place in this old 

 cellar kitchen a brick oven had been built in 

 the wall, and Grandmother had so far domes- 

 ticated two large cream colored "biddies," that 

 they had for some time been in the habit of 

 laying great white eggs in this same oven ; 

 after which feat they modestly betook them- 

 selves out doors with the rest of the fowls ; 

 but it always seemed that these two hens had 

 a kind of a way of looking up at a body as if 

 they knew something that other folks didn't; 

 they only approached their novel nest when 

 Grandmothers back Avas turned, and rarely if 

 ever intruded in the house at other times. 



Now regardless of the "great store" she "set" 

 by these two, Grandfather picked them up 

 probably because it was less trouble, and our 

 hero of the spelling book was traveling home 

 happy, with a hen under either arm. To con- 

 fess the truth we fear his enthusiasm teas 

 somewhat abated before he reached home, and 

 his musings as to whether these two hens were 

 not unusually large, were once brought to a 

 dangerous crisis by his slipping down on a 

 steep rough gravelly bank when near home. 

 Twouldu't do to let the fowls <ro after all this 



trouble, and so he " held till 'em," but to judge 

 by the twist of his mouth at this time, we 

 should think those gravel stones were prob- 

 ably quite harrassing. 



The fowls were duly housed an 1 cared for, 

 and many a happy hour was spent in devising 

 improvements, by way of giving them a wider 

 range without any excessive cash outlay; fur- 

 nishing them a better variety of eg\s producing 

 food, studying all the agricultural papers had 

 to say on poultry keeping etc., etc. Bye and 

 bye, a Poland hen with a brood of 14, comical 

 top-knotted chicks was added ; they wero pur- 

 chased for a small sum, of a neighbor who had 

 become tired of their mischievous propensities. 

 Regular accounts were kept and the " hen 

 business," as his sister termed his hobby, 

 really paid <, not much it is true, but when the 

 young Poland pullets began to lay in Feb. and 

 eggs were eighteen cents a dozen, our young 

 friend felt as happy as the proprieter of a 

 small Gold mine. 



And now we come to the " pint" as Major 

 General Jack Downing used to say, and in 

 fact we should not have written so much on 

 Poultry for a Bee Journal had it not been for 

 this same " pint." 



This same poultry house and yard, built of 

 old rotten boards, refuse lath, and all sorts of 

 odds and ends, was on the south side of the 

 horse barn; the family poultry house, a com- 

 paratively large and expensive affair being 

 directly east of it ; with the manure from the 

 stable bounding the west, which in fact before 

 spring, came very near covering the whole 

 structure entire, do you wonder those hens 

 laid eggs? On the ground of economy the 

 roof was entirely open on the south side, so 

 the sun shone directly on their scratching 

 ground, and some tempting nests were formed 

 by bedding boxes back under the manure with 

 entrance partially obscured by straw. Of 

 course eggs never froze in them, and in fact 

 the back part of their domicil was quite a 

 warm retreat during the coldest days. Con- 

 siderable of this coarse stable manure was 

 scratched through the loose structure, and to 

 furnish them employment their grain was 

 buried in this, which kept them scratching the 

 material over and over until it was like saw- 

 dust, thereby keeping the ground under their 

 roosts always clean and wholesome, on the 

 plan given by Mr. Stoddard in the Egg Farm 

 papers in American Agriculturist. 



In this case it seems a condition was secured 

 free from frost, wind, rain and snow ; yet ad- 

 mitting sunshine during the middle of the day 

 all winter long. Is any thing else needed for 

 the successful wintering of bees ? 



After enlarging the " hen business" and try- 

 ing it away from the barn and manure heaps, 

 it did not pay as well, yet the real cause, prob- 

 ably, of the difference in results was not 

 thought of at the time. 



P. S. — " Grandmother" was very much in- 

 clined to be vexed at the loss of hei "pet bid- 

 dies," yet under the circumstances, and in 

 consideration of their being in the hands of 

 her favorite grandson Novice she at last be- 

 came reconciled. 



Also, we omitted to state in the proper place, 

 that Father's larger number of fowls in their 

 large poultry house, with 24 elaborate nests, 



