354 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 1 



Since my sickness we have not been sprouting 

 oats at all. We simply soak them over night, as 

 I have mentioned. In our Florida home we did 

 all the sprouting in the open ground. The soil 

 there is so light and sandy that when we get a 

 piece of ground cleared of roots and rubbish it is 

 a very easy matter to make a furrow with a hoe. 

 The oats are then sprinkled in quite thoroughly, 

 say half a pint to a rod. With a rake or hoe 

 they are very easily covered up. About three 

 feet from this first furrow make another in the 

 same way, and keep on until you have covered a 

 piece of ground large enough so your hens will 

 not dig it all out before another lot gets sprout- 

 ed. It takes quite a little patch of ground to 

 keep seventy hens busy and give them all the 

 sprouted oats they need. When we had refuse 

 lettuce from neighbor Rood they rather neglect- 

 ed the oats and let some of them come up a few 

 inches. But they will dig them all up and eat 

 them at any stage. Where you have nice soft 

 ground we consider it rather less trouble to put 

 the oats in as above than to sprout them in boxes 

 which I have described so many times in our 

 back numbers. 



THE MAGIC EGG-TESTER. 



In our last issue I said I had asked for my 

 money back. In reply I received the following: 



Mr. A. I. Root: — It is not the germ nor the lack of it that is 

 c«using breeders so much trouble. The difficulty lies in bring- 

 ing the egg substance up to such a degree of perfection a;, to pro- 

 duce a strong and healthy chick. 



We should like to have you use a tester, setting only " x " and 

 " XX " eggs, and let us know the result of your experiment. We 

 are ready and willing to refund your money when you are thor- 

 oughly satisfied that the tester is of no use to j'ou; and if you 

 will follow our directions we know that the refund will never be 

 made. Magic Egg-tester W orks. 



Buffalo, N. Y., May 10, 1909. 



After receiving this I thanked them for their 

 offer, and promised to test a lot of eggs with their 

 tester in an incubator. I am very glad indeed 

 to find them so ready and willing to return the 

 money according to their advertisement. 



Later. — I have just tested something over 100 

 eggs with the Magic egg-tester before putting 

 them in an incubator. These eggs were from 

 one to five days old. The eggs taken out of the 

 nest to-day nearly all shov?ed x and some xx by 

 the egg- tester. As I got d wn toward the bot- 

 tom of the egg-basket they began to show more 

 x; then 0, and the lighter ones showed 1 and a 

 few 2. The tester, as I have before explained, 

 simply gives the specific gravity, and in testing 

 eggs for the incubator or for any other purpose 

 the machine will enable one to sort out quickly 

 the fresh eggs from those that are several days 

 old. But that is not all it does. Occasionally 

 we find an egg of low specific gravity on the day 

 it is laid. In fact, there is so much difference 

 that you can tell by taking a light egg and a 

 heavy one in the hand one after the other. Now, 

 the egg-tester people say these light eggs are not 

 profitable for raising chickens, and no doubt they 

 are right about it. You might think the small 

 eggs would be the light ones; but with the egg- 

 tester we do not find this to be true. A small 

 egg may be xx the day it is laid; but aside from 

 the specific gravity I believe it is generally con- 

 sidered that small eggs are not profitable for 

 raising chickens. 



A BEE-ESCAPE FOR CHICKENS. 



Mr. A. I. Root: — I notice what you say about a " chicken- 

 escape," and inclose a drawing which I hope will give you my 

 idea. The same method may also be used in making trap nests. 



You wonder at Mr. Polk calling " Bob White " a partridge. 

 You will find these provincialisms all over the world. In the 

 part of Ohio where 1 formerly lived, what the Eastern folks call 

 a " spider " was called a " skillet;" and what is here called a 

 " pail " is there called a " bucket." In my travels in Indiana 

 and Pennsylvania some years ago I often heard the word " hate" 

 used peculiarly. If you asked some one if he had any produce for 

 sale the answer would be, " Not a hate", meaning none at all. 

 Throughout the South, quail are usually called '" partridges," and 

 ruffed grouse are called " pheasants." The latter are called 

 " pheasants " over much of the West, bat I believe that in Mich- 

 igan they are called " partridges," as they are in New York and 

 the New England States, where quail are called " quail," as tney 

 should be. We have no partridges in this country except the 

 Hungarian, which have been imported much of late, and liberat- 

 ed. The usual weight of quail is about 7 ounces, whilt ruffed 

 grouse weigh about 24 ounces. E. P. Robinson. 



Packerville, Ct., April 12. 



Accompanying the above letter is a sketch of 

 a little swinging door hinged at its upper edge, 

 to be placed in the poultry-fence. Now, in or- 

 der to have the fowls find this door and use it,' 

 there is an opening in the lower part of the door, 

 like an inverted letter V. The hen puts her head 

 into this opening and pushes a little, and readily 

 goes through. A button on the back side of the 

 door prevents its swinging the other way. I do 

 not see how any thing can be made much simpler. 

 This V-shaped opening should be so it can be 

 made larger or smaller, or else we should have 

 doors with openings of different sizes according 

 to the size and age of chicks I think that, if 

 such doors are nicely made, and advertised in 

 our poultry-journals, there would be quite a de- 

 mand for them. If made of light thin lumber 

 they could easily be sent by mail. 



SELLING SECRETS, ETC. 



I confess that I have felt almost indignant be- 

 cause so many poultry-journals have continued 

 to help along the "secret" business by inserting 

 fraudulent advertisements. A reform, however, 

 in this respect is beginning. See the following, 

 which I clip from the American Poultry Ad'vocate: 



TESTING OUT UNFERTILE EGGS. 



I note In the papers an advertisement relating to incubating 

 eggs, claiiulng that it is possible to test out the fertile eggs 

 before setting. I have been reading poultrj'-papers for the 

 past twenty years, and in all of them the claim Is rldleuled. 

 and noted as an impossibility, unless the egg is broken. New 

 wrinkles, however, are constantly coming to the front; and 

 may be what was claimed to be an impossibility can now be 

 accomplished. If you know any thing about the advertise, 

 ment mentioned, please tell me if the party can '• make good" 

 if I send the dollar. 



Smithtown Bridge. N. Y. A. H. S. 



Save your dollar. The party can not " make good," nor can 

 any one else who claims such impossibilities. We greatly re- 

 gret that the advertisement was admitted to the Advocate tor a 

 month or two, but it was " fired " as soon as the writer's atten- 

 tion was attracted to it and the claim investigated. We note 

 that some other papers haven't discovered the error yet, and are 

 still carrying the advertisement. It should be stopped, as it is a 

 fraud. 



Below is something I have taken the liberty to 

 extract from a private letter from the editor of 

 one of our best poultry-journals: 



THE POTTER AND HOGAN SYSTEMS FOR SELECTING LAVING 

 HENS, ETC. 



Even at the dollar Potter charges, the price is too high, and the 

 ten dollars Hogan asks is simply outrageous, as the systems are 

 identical and neither new. 



I have gotten a little bit tired about this " secret " business. 

 Lately I got Farm Journal's book of poultry " secrets," and 

 there is not a single thing in it that has not been published in 

 Poultry. I have told all about preserving eggs, about sprouted 

 grain for chicken feed, and about all the other things which are 

 advertised and sold as secrets more than once in my publica- 

 cations, and I think it is going a little too far to sell these to 

 credulous people at from two to ten times as much as we charge 

 Continued on page 26. 



