1901 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



161 



body ; or you can procure for !?2.00 a right to 

 use the patent nest, including a sample door 

 and latch, by mail, postpaid. 



Another trap nest that has been found to 

 work very nicely by the Maine Experiment 

 Station is described in their reports. 



The Cyphers incubator people furnish a 

 nest, ready made, for $1 50, which they rec- 

 ommend very highly. 



Perhaps one of the simplest trap nests is de- 

 scribed in the back part of a book furnished 

 by the O. Judd Co., entitled, "Low-cost 

 Poultry houses," 25 cents. We can send this 

 book from our office if our friends want it. 



The " Advance " trap nest furnished by W. 

 Darling, South Setauket, L. I., is ^\.50. I 

 have not seen this, but I should think it would 

 work all right. 



A prominent agricultural writer furnishes a 

 little pamphlet describing a trap nest, or a 

 nest that can be easily arranged so as to trap 

 the hen when she uses it, together with a new 

 hatching system, for $1.00. This trap nest 

 amounts to the same thing as the one describ- 

 ed in the book I have mentioned, sold by the 

 O. Judd Co. ; but I think the one in the book 

 is much the simpler and easier to make. 



As we have now about finished the subject 

 of trap nests I wish to say something about 

 the "new hatching system," or the " natu- 

 ral-hen incubator," for it amounts to the same 

 thing. I wrote up the natural-hen incubator 

 something over one year ago. The inven- 

 tion of the writer mentioned above is a nest 

 made out of a drygoods box, such as I have 

 described, with a little poultry-netting yard, 

 so the sitting hen can not get away from her 

 eggs very far, and no other hen nor any thing 

 elst can get to her nest to bother her. Food 

 and water are provided, of course, in this 

 poultry-netting yard. This device, you will 

 see, is simply a modification of the natural- 

 hen incubator, only the latter is made by hav- 

 ing a lot of hens' nests and a lot of yards all 

 in compact form. Now, although the ven- 

 ders of these devices would persuade us that 

 they are entirely new, the thing is >wi new 

 at all. I find both pictured and described 

 in the book entitled "Profits in Poultry," 

 sold by the O. Judd Co., and the book has 

 been in our book-list for more than ten years. 

 In fact, I found both devices pictured and de- 

 scribed in an old edition as far back as 1886. 

 Both parties who sell this yarded sitting-hen 

 arrangement tell doleful stories about the loss 

 of money and loss of eggs with incubators ; 

 and no doubt it is true one can, in almost any 

 neighborhood, find incubators that have been 

 purchased and laid aside ; but even if this is 

 true, their efforts to make it appear that eve- 

 rybody who buys an incubator is humbugged 

 are very far from the truth. Sitting hens 

 may be very good where you can get enough 

 to stock a sitting-hen incubator on short no- 

 tice. 



But let me touch on one point that the sit- 

 ting-hen men seem to overlook. I have been 

 waiting all winter to get a sitting hen. I have 

 told the neighbors right and left I would pay 

 almost any price for a hen that wanted to sit. 

 But all the hens in our neighborhood seem to 



have quit the business. Had I known this I 

 would have bought a lo.OO incubator in De- 

 cember, and had some chickens to play with 

 all winter. Of course, I do not know how 

 many (we must not count our chickens before 

 they are hatched, you know) ; but I feel sure 

 I might have had a few. Will our good friend 

 (the agricultural writer) and that other fellow 

 in that same line of bus ness (Natural-hen In- 

 cubator Co., of Columbus, Neb.), tell us how 

 we are to get silting hens to stock their ma- 

 chines, for that institution advertises that a 

 lOO-egg incubator can be made on their plan 

 for $2.00 ? This may be true, but I think the 

 $2.00 would have to be stretched pretty well ; 

 and after the machine is made, eight or ten 

 hens must be forlkcoming that want to stt, be- 

 fore the thing can be started. 



Now, even though it is out of my line of 

 business somewhat, I protest against this plan 

 of asking people for a dollar for the informa- 

 tion contained in a little bit of pamphlet or on 

 a single sheet of paper. The pamphlets or 

 sheets of paper can be printed for a cent each 

 or less ; and when you g-et the information, al- 

 most invariably the very thing is found in our 

 books that have been before the world for 

 years past. 



By the way, I have not seen any mention in 

 any of the poultry books or journals of the 

 fact that an electric light is the best thing in 

 the world for testing eggs. With a fifty-can- 

 dle-power lamp, shaded and arranged just 

 right, you can see every thing inside of an 

 egg. I have not had a chance yet to test it 

 with eggs from an incubator. One more item : 

 All the books and journals recommend a 

 scratching shed, and most of them say this 

 shed should be open to the sun and air when- 

 ever the weather permits ; and cloth frames 

 are recommended in place of glass when the 

 weather is not bad. The cloth is cheaper, 

 gives light enough, and also gives just about 

 as much air through it as the poultry ought 

 to have. Now, the cheapest way in the world 

 to move the cloth according to the weather 

 is by having it roll up, on the plan described 

 in our tomato-book. 



Humbugs and Swindles. 



DUNNING LETTERS, FOR SOMETHING YOU DII> 

 NOT ORDER AND DID NOT HAVE. 



It seems the swindling fraternity are finding 

 new tricks for the new century. One of the 

 latest is to threaten people with a suit at law 

 unless they send the swindlers a certain sum 

 of money forthwith. Several of the letters 

 have already been mailed to us, asking us if 

 they had not better pay the amount (two or 

 three dollars as the case may be) in order to 

 keep out of trouble. This threatening letter 

 is usually sent to somebody who answered an 

 advertisement some time ago, and perhaps 

 sent a small sum of money for the advertised 

 nostrum. Let me say, first, that nobody can 

 collect or will undertake to collect any money 

 from you for something you did not order and , 

 did not have. Another thing, these letters are 



