1909 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



93 



Fertile Eggs. " The price was 50 cents. Well, 

 I sent the money without signing any agreement 

 ■not to divulge, etc. The answer came back that 

 the book would not be furnished until I signed 

 the secrecy document. But I wrote back, and 

 told them to return the money, under the cir- 

 cumstances, and I begged to be excused for not 

 signing such a pledge. I thought I had failed 

 for once in getting a secret; but this morning I 

 found on my table a little book of four and a 

 half small pages. You see it is a pretty hard 

 matter to return 50 cents instead of sending a 

 book that costs less than a nickel. Now, this 

 Angell system is something new — to me, at least 

 — and I am fully satisfied it is valuable. You 

 want a yard big enough to hold, say, a dozen 

 hens. This yard is divided into two parts. Have 

 the nest-boxes in the partition between the two 

 parts. Every morning the twelve hens are put in 

 one apartment, and the male bird in the other 

 one. Every hen that lays an egg or goes into the 

 trap-nest goes out into the apartment with the 

 male and is promptly served. When night comes, 

 the laying hens are with the male bird. Those 

 that do not lay can be removed, and the next day 

 put in the twelve you have good reason to think 

 iire choice laying hens. In this way I can read- 

 ily believe that every egg, or almost every one, 

 will prove fertile. Every morning the male is 

 alone in the yard by himself; and the author says 

 he should not be allowed to serve more than 

 twelve hens, in order to have every egg fertile. 

 The book does not tell us about hens that lay 

 every other day or every third day. In fact, there 

 are a lot of points connected with this method 

 that are not discussed or made plain. There is a 

 diagram of two pens with nest-boxes between 

 them; but I can not fully understand it, to save 

 my life. There should be plain pictures and a 

 record of experiments Perhaps the author will 

 get out a bigger book further on. 



There are some bad misprints in this little book, 

 which muddle the reader. For instance, in one 

 place where he means to speak of nest-boxes the 

 printer has made it next box. I was obliged to 

 spend quite a little time before I found out that 

 the writer meant nest-box. And this kind of 

 cheap work has been true with nearly all the se- 

 crets I have purchased. 



I am glad to say that this Angell system is the 

 most valuable secret I have yet gotten hold of in 

 this way. Even if it is imperfect, it suggests a 

 new field for experiments, and I do not know but 

 the 50 cents is pretty well invested in this brief 

 little book. 



Now, I want to say a word more about this ad- 

 vertisement that is in all the poultry-journals, of 

 feed at 10 cts. a bushel. Since that came out, 

 another advertisement reads "Only 8 cents a 

 bushel " The advertisement says this is not 

 sprouted oats nor beet pulp, but a real food. On 

 sending for the" Free Booklet for Facts " we read: 



I invented the cheapest eovd poultry food known, and it costs 

 only 8 to 15 cents a bushel. .And it is not sprouted oats nor beet 



pulp, but a rrjl fold. 



In another place we read also: 



We have increased the weight of hundreds of fowls two to 

 ihree pounds in ten to fifteen days, and often doubled their mar- 

 ket value. 



When I first read that, I thought it must be a 

 mistake in the print; but after I received the $2.00 



book I found the same thing stated in a way that 

 can not be misunderstood. The author claims 

 that from two to three pounds may be gained on 

 each bird in fifteen days, at a cost of only from 

 6 to 12 cts. each. This wonderful feed that costs 

 only 8 cts. a bushel, which the author claims he 

 discovered, is scalded clover hav mixed with corn- 

 meal middlings and bran sprinkled over it. The 

 clover or alfalfa is cut into lengths of % inch. 

 It may be that our friend Fred Grundy did dis- 

 cover it; but I can well remember my father 

 feeding his horses on just the same thing fully 

 sixty years ago; and chopped clover has been 

 scalded and fed to fowls in winter time as a sub- 

 stitute for green food as long as I can remember. 

 The price of this book, "The Famous Grundy 

 Method," is $2.00. 



I hardly think there is a patent on what is call- 

 ed the alfalfa meal; but such a patent would be 

 as sensible as the one the " ten-cents-a-bushel " 

 man claims to have on his sprouted oats. 



SELLING SECRETS MORE ABOUT IT. 



We clip the following from the Rural Neiv- 

 Yorker: 



Not a day passes that we do not receive a question about one 

 of the many " poultry systems " so widely advertised. Some se- 

 cret connected with one or the other of these " systems " is offer- 

 ed at from one dollar to $10. The buyer is to sign a pledge not 

 to reveal this great " secret " after he gets it. In one case a read- 

 er wrote for the " secret " and was informed that $5 would buy a 

 book giving the whole story. Now, the truth appears to be that 

 all these "systems" contain more or less sensible information 

 and suggestion. Most of it is old, and probably 90 per cent of it 

 has been printed in The Rural. For example, great stress is laid 

 on a cheap feed that can be made for a few cents a bushel. Aft- 

 er you pay your money you find that this is sprouted oats. The 

 oats are soaked in warm water, and then kept in a warm place 

 until they start sprouts several inches long. Of course, a few 

 quarts of oats sprouted in this way would make a bushel in bulk! 

 We have told this over and over — and it is about all you will get 

 as your great feeding " secret." Many a poultry-keeper who 

 reads this will think of the good dollars of wtiich he relieved his 

 financial system with hopes that were like sprouted oats. 



In regard to the above, some sort of book is 

 certainly better than charging a dollar or more 

 for the simple matter that could be put on a pos- 

 tal card; and I am glad to know that the secret- 

 venders are giving us a book that contains more 

 or less valuable matter. But this signing a pledge 

 " not to divulge" is, it seems to me, a ridiculous 

 piece of business. It is behind the times, and 

 those who go into it ought to be ashamed of 

 themselves. I have never signed any such paper, 

 and yet I have always got all the books and se- 

 crets. When these chaps once get the money 

 into their clutches they do not let it get away. 



There is another thing that is not quite straight. 

 Most of these systems claim they have a patent 

 right on the arrangement. For instance, the "nat- 

 ural-hen incubator " man has been taking money 

 for years for a " right" to use the idea of having 

 a little dooryard hitched to the box that contains 

 a sitting hen; and other venders of these books 

 claim they have still another patent on the same 

 arrangement; and yet our poultry-books and 

 agricultural journals have for years past describ- 

 ed the same thing over and over again. Their 

 patent, or " patents applied for," are about as sen- 

 sible as the patent on the churnless butter. When 

 I read it to Mrs. Root she said she remembered 

 seeing her mother make butter when she herself 

 was a child, in exactly the same ivay, and my 

 stenographer who is taking down these words says 

 he made butter, when he was a boy, in almost no 



