1146 



CJLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 15 



In regard to abstaining from flcsVi food, after 

 I tried entire lean meat, as I told you, and after 

 having been at another time of my life fom-yean 

 a vegetaiian, except that I had eggs and milk, I 

 shall have to say I am undecided. In warm 

 weather, when I can have what 1 want, as I do at 

 home, I think I would give up meat (I am sure 

 I feel better without it, and it might help to 

 break up the " meat trust "); but while I am trav- 

 eling, especially during very warm weather, or 

 at other times, when I get what is commonly 

 called "summer complaint," I must reserve the 

 privilege of a pure lean-meat diet until I begin 

 to straighten out. / do not knoiv of any other 

 •way. Last, but not least, especially when I feel 

 out of sorts, 1 would go to almost any expense 

 or trouble to get pure soft ivater. Rain water 

 that has been boiled has so far always proved to 

 be all right on that score for me. 



Poultry 

 D epa rtment 



THE SECRET OF RAISING CHICKE.NS IN AUGUST. 

 I want to say something about my discovery — 

 at least I never heard or read of it in any of the 

 poultry-journals. I think it might be worth 

 $5.00 to many of you. But I am not going to 

 charge $1.00 for it, nor even 50 cents. Here it 

 is, free to all. Get a sitting hen if you can in 

 August, and let her raise a brood of chicks while 

 she is moulting. Moulting hens rarely lay any 

 eggs, so there will be no time lost, and you actu- 

 ally kill two birds with one stone by letting her 

 run with the chickens while she is on a moult. 

 Mrs. Root insisted that it was too late to raise 

 chickens. But I set one hen with 17 eggs about 

 the first of August. She hatched 14 chickens, 

 and has 14 now, this 11th day of September. I 

 never saw chickens grow faster or seem happier, 

 and they will certainly be well feathered out when 

 cold weather comes. The hen commenced drop- 

 ping her feathers when the chicks were about a 

 week old, and now she is fairly feathered out. 

 By the time the chickens are ready to winter, she 

 will be in good condition to lay again. And, 

 by the way, I have got a nestful of small pul- 

 lets' eggs, laid by the Brown Leghorn "day-old 

 chicks " the 14th day of April. You see they 

 commenced laying before they were five months 

 old, and so they are already paying for their 

 food. Is not this getting your money back in 

 pretty good time.'' While the old hens are in 

 moult, the pullets are supplying us with eggs. 



THE DAY-OLD CHICKS, AND HOW THEY TURNED 

 OUT. 



On page 586, May 1, I mentioned the fact that 

 I took home 25 chicks in a little box. They were 

 hatched April 14. There were 15 Brown Leg- 

 horns, 4 Buff Orpingtons, and 6 White Plymouth 

 Rocks. As I had no brooder, and the weather 

 was too cold to put them outdoors, I put them 

 up by the steam-pipes in the greenhouse. Well, 

 the Brown Leghorns all lived; but I lost 2 of the 

 Buff Orpingtons and 5 of the White Rocks. It 

 rather looked from this that the Brown Leghorns 



were a hardier breed, and I feel satisfied from 

 this experiment (and some others seem to think 

 so too) that I need not have lost any of them, 

 had I kept them away from the artificial heat. 

 The Brown Leghorns, when 4^ months old, 

 commenced laying. As every one of them seems 

 to be a true type of the Brown Leghorns, I think 

 Mr. Uhl furnishes very choice stock. The two 

 remaining BufT Orpingtons are both pullets. 

 They are large and beautiful fowls, without a 

 wrong feather — that is, so far as I can discover, 

 and I think they will lay soon. The single White 

 Rock was a male; and when 70 days old — that is, 

 exactly 10 weeks — he weighed an even 3 lbs., and 

 at the age of 4 months he weighed 6X lbs. One 

 reason why I weighed him was that friend Philo, 

 in his advertisement in Gleanings, said his Or- 

 pingtons, bred in confinement, weighed 2 lbs. 

 when 8 weeks old. There has been some criti- 

 cism in regard to what was called his extravagant 

 advertising; but in view of what I have just said, 

 1 do not think it at all extravagant. Chickens 

 when properly hatched, and have plenty of food, 

 without being scrimped a day of their lives, will 

 give no trouble in making such a record as the 

 Orpingtons and Rocks, and may weigh fully as 

 much as he claims. You see, in buying baby 

 chicks you escape all the trouble incident to an 

 incubator, and get choice stock for a small sum of 

 money. 



The Brown Leghorn chicks cost 8 cts. each, 

 and the BufT Orpingtons and White Plymouth 

 Rocks, 10 cts. each. I sold the big white cock- 

 erel, when Ayi months old, for $1.00,* and one 

 of the Orpingtons for $1.50. From some experi- 

 ments I made in Florida, where grain is much 

 higher than it is here, I decided that a nickel 

 would pay for the feed of a chicken until it is ten 

 weeks old; and 10 cents more would pay for the 

 feed until it is four months old. Now, if this is 

 true, what better business do you want than rais- 

 ing chickens — that is, if you have no more losses 

 than I have had, and start with some choice 

 breeds.? 



THE "chicken BIBLB ; " SEE PAGE 1025; ALSO SOME- 

 THING IN REGARD TO GOOD BOOKS FOR FARMERS, 

 NOT ESPECIALLY DEVOTED TO POULTRY. 



Mr. Root: — In your Arg. 15th issue you pass on Mr. Cogswell's 

 inquiry for a "chicken bible." There is no chicken book ex- 

 actly like the A B C of Bee Cultu-e, but possibly the two most 

 prictical poultry writers of modern date are Robinson, of Boston, 

 and Brown, of England. " Poultry Craft," by J. H. Robinson, 

 editor of Farm Poultry, of Boston, is certainly the safest, most up- 

 to-date, and most complete outline of the chicken business to be 

 had, using "complete" in the sense of general all-around out- 

 line, the book not being large, having only 272 pages. For a 

 more exhaustive treatment of the subject, Robinson's first and 

 second series of Lessons in Poultry-keeping are probably unsur- 

 passed, and his Common Sense Poultry Doctor, published in 1907, 

 is the best book for general use on that subject. Any person 

 much interested in chickens should have Robinson's books and 

 his monthly paper. Farm Poultry, as well as the Reliable Poultry 

 Journal and the Cypher's series of pouliry-books which you list. 



While writing on this subject 1 should like to call your atten- 

 tion to Fred Grundy's (Morrisonville, 111.) so-called " Perfected 

 System." It is true it is one of these pamphlet poultry systems, 

 but is one of the most practical 1 have seen; and his " fireless 

 brooder" is much better, in my opinion, than Philo's, whose 

 book 1 also have (as well as numerous other poultiy publications). 

 For a beginner, Grundy's pamphlet is excellent, except his 

 water-tank, which can not be cleaned properly, the two-part tank 

 being better. 



There is another book, or pamphlet, of 56 pages, to which I 



* After 1 told the man he might have him for a dollar, we found 

 he weighed 7V2 lbs. With the free range he had all his life, I 

 don't think his feed cost more than 15 cts., and large spring chick- 

 ens are quoted in the market at 15 cents per lb. 



