iyo« 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



12L'^ 



book has given me the fever, even in my old 

 age, to try my hand once more on wheat-growing. 

 The book is published by The O. Judd Co., 

 New York; price $2.00. It can be mailed from 

 this office. 



SHREDDED-WHEAT BISCUIT, GRAPE NUTS, AND 

 OTHER SIMILAR " READY-TO-EAT " CEREALS. 



While I am on this subject of wheat, let me 

 add the following, as an illustration of the mag- 

 nitude of the manufacture of " ready to eat " 

 wheat foods: 



This book tells us that the plant where shred- 

 ded wheat is manufactured at Niagara Falls cov- 

 ers 5% acres; and the total cost of the buildings 

 and equipment was something like two millions 

 of doUais. Again, the capital employed by the 

 Postum Cereal Co. is five millions. The expen- 

 diture for advertising is one million dollars a 

 year. Now, I am fully satisfied that the intro- 

 duction of these cereal foods has been a blessing 

 to humanity; but at the same time there would, 

 no doubt, be a great saving in money if the 

 farmer who grows the wheat could put this same 

 wheat right on his table, thus saving the expense 

 of the " middleman," passing it through a facto- 

 ry, and asking the consumer to pay for a deco- 

 rated pasteboard package. All that is necessary 

 to make the wheat ready for the table is to clean 

 it from all trash, and then crush it by means of 

 toilers or something else so it may be masticated 

 as readily as the Pettijohn rolled wheat which we 

 find at the groceries. Perhaps a majority of 

 mankind will still prefer to buy it as it is needed, 

 at the nearest corner grocery, even though we do 

 pay somebody a pretty large profit for doing the 

 work for us. 



Poultry 

 Department 



" PROGRESSIVE POULTRY CULTURE ;" SOMETHING 

 ABOUT POULTRY-BOOKS IN GENERAL. 



On page 1179 Prof. Cook gives this book an 

 excellent write-up; and while I agree, after a care- 

 ful perusal, that it is one of the best poultry-books 

 we have, so far as it goes, I hope both the author 

 and my good friend Cook will excuse me for giv- 

 ing it as my opinion that the book is not strictly 

 up to date. It is a scholarly work, and the state- 

 ments are all true; but it is of the " sin of omis- 

 sion" that I wish to complain. Now, my criti- 

 cism of this book will apply to a great number of 

 other poultry-books. The author, like Prof. 

 Cook himself, has evidently not been reading our 

 poultry-journals and keeping in touch with the 

 great improvements and new inventions that have 

 been going on. Yes, some of these inventions 

 are not new and true, but neither new nor true, I 

 admit; but still our up-to-date poultry-books 

 should discuss them and help us to sift the wheat 

 from the chaff. In the first place, I could not 

 find any mention of the trap nest; of Hogan's 

 $10.00 secret or the Potter $1.00 secret. I do 

 not find any thing about hens that lay from 200 

 to 300 eggs a year. These secrets are advertised 

 in the poultry-journals all over the world; and 



hard-working people are paying out their hard- 

 earned money for them — yes, and even after the 

 so-called secrets have been published and given 

 to the world — see Gleanings for Jan. 1, p. 43. 

 Our \)0\i\\.ry-journals may be excused in some de- 

 gree for keeping silent in regard to this matter, 

 because of the advertising they get so long as they 

 do not expose the frauds; but not so with a book. 

 I find also no mention of sprouted oats, and yet 

 the journals all over our land are still advertising 

 the $5.00 book that contains a secret for making 

 the very best poultry feed for ten cents a bushel. 

 Our Ohio experiment station, as you may remem- 

 ber, have agreed to test this matter, and see if 

 one bushel of oats really will, when sprouted, go 

 as far as four bushels fed dry. Why does not 

 this book or other books tell us the truth about a 

 matter like this.? The author of this $5 00 book 

 claims he has sold several thousand copies, and 

 his customers are all satisfied. Neither do I find 

 the matter considered of germless eggs, as recent- 

 ly mentioned in this journal and the Rural Ne-uc- 

 Yorker* A very brief mention is made of "cur- 

 tain-front houses," "day-old chicks," and " hop- 

 per feeding. " But there is no picture given of 

 an up-to-date hopper arranged so the poultry will 

 not waste the feed and keep out rats and mice,+ 

 etc., and no recognition of the large establish- 

 ments that are now shipping day-old chicks suc- 

 cessfully by the hundred thousand and sending 

 them hundreds of miles. Nor is a word said 

 about the "fireless brooder," as now advertised 

 by several establishments; and yet I am fully sat- 

 isfied that there is no need of a lamp, or of arti- 

 ficial heat of any kind, for a brooder, either in 

 California or Florida; and some claim that no 

 artificial heat is needed here in Ohio, especially 

 where one has forty or fifty chicks or more to 

 keep up the animal heat. 



I know by experience that it is a great task to 

 review even hastily the principal poultry-journals 

 now published in the United States; but a man 

 who writes a poultry-book surely ought to take 

 the time to do it if he wants his book to give a 

 glimpse of what is now going on in the poultry 

 world. I am glad to say the book is beautifully 

 bound, and well printed on nice paper; and I do 

 not find a single statement in it, from beginning 

 to end, that I should consider erroneous or mis- 

 leading. We can mail the book from this office. 



"■'We are told by the Farmer's Guide ihil the Geneva Experi- 

 ment Station publishes a bulletin in regard to careful experiments 

 in keeping the males from the laying pullets. Below is a brief 

 extract summing up the results: 



"A pen of pullets, kept without a male, produced eggs at about 

 30 per cent less cost than an exactly similar pen with which a 

 cockerel was kept. Another pen without a male gave during the 

 first three months about the same proportionate excess of product 

 over an exactly similar pen with which a cockerel was kept.* * * 

 In each of the two pens without male birds some pullets had be- 

 gun to lay from one to two months earlier than any in the corres- 

 ponding pens in which male birds were kept." 



If the above is true, farmers and other poultry-keepers through- 

 out our land are losing large sums of money by letting useless 

 males run at large. Not only bet'er eggs, but ever so many more 

 of them, can be secured by promptly disposing of these surplus 

 males; and yet how many poultry-books even mention this ex- 

 ceedingly important matter.' 



t Friend Cook mentions the excellent index. In that index 

 we read, " Feed-hoppers, 208." On turning to that page I find 

 the following: " Feed-hoppers of metal or wood may be hung 

 against the wall of the room." No picture of an up-to-date feed- 

 hopper in the whole book, and no other mention of how feed- 

 hoppers should be constructed, do I find. 



