1909 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



553 



been so much advertised, and then finding 

 they have been "humbutroed again." 



The young man said he had heard of the 

 Fhilo sytem, but they had never cared 

 enough about it to get Philo's book. They 

 were considerably interested, however, in 

 the himpless brooder. 



I asked about having a bone-mill and get- 

 ting bones at the butcher's They are quite 

 a piece from any meat-market: and besides, 

 he said, they had a bone-mill, but it was too 

 hard work to turn it. When I suggested a 

 gasoline- engine he thought that was going to 

 a great deal of expense just to grind bones 

 for chickens. Yes, it is; but if the engine 

 could be made to do a lot of other things be- 

 sides, it might prove to be a good invest- 

 ment They have a windmill and a water- 

 tank, and run water to all the nearby yards. 

 They give the chickens water in open'buck- 

 ets. ' When I suggested the drip system and 

 a little cup that is constantly running over 

 he said it would no doubt be a good thing, 

 but they had not got around to it. 



They furnish the meat part of rations for 

 the laying hens by purchasing beef scrap and 

 mixing it with a wet mash. 



They built one poultry-house with cement 

 walls partly u ider ground, expressly to grow 

 broilers from eggs hatched quite early; but 

 they did not make it pay. They are using 

 this broiler-house now for a laying-house; 

 but he said it did not give any better results, 

 if as good, as the houses built on top of the 

 ground; and I believe it is generally true 

 that chickens do not seem to thrive in any 

 apartment where the floor is much below 

 the general surface of the ground. 



I asked him if one man could take good 

 care of 1500 laying hens and 1000 chickens. 

 He said he guessed he could, but sometimes 

 it would "keep him humping." It looks to 

 me as it it would save them a lot of time and 

 work to have drip water in every poultry- 

 yard, and some arrangement for hopper 

 feeding. It might take a little more feed, 

 but I am not sure of even that; and when 

 every chicken in the whole ranch never goes 

 hungry, there would certainly be a better 

 egg-yield. 



I supposed, of course, that with from 600 

 to 1000 eggs a day they would be carried to 

 the Cleveland markets, about 20 miles away, 

 every day or every other day; but he says 

 they carry their eggs to the city only once a 

 week, and they take no pains to tell their 

 customers which eggs are one day old and 

 which are a week old. They are sold at the 

 groceries; but, of course, they could get 

 more money by delivering them, say, when 

 they are one day old, to special customers; 

 but it would be (|uite a little more expense 

 than taking them where they can unload at 

 once and go straight back home. 



SKUNKS, WEASELS, HAWKS, ETC. 



He said they had pretty effectually cleaned 

 out all the enemies of a chicken-farm except 

 the hawks. When I asked him why they 

 did not give those half-grown chickens a 

 cornfield to run in during the very hqt days 



he said that was what they used to do until 

 the hawks got a fashion of hiding in the corn 

 so as to catch the chickens. When they ban- 

 ished the cornfield and put the chickens in 

 an open lot without any trees, nor any thing 

 for shade except their roosting-places, they 

 managed to keep the hawks away. Several 

 of the yards for laying hens are in a good- 

 sized orchard; and I believe an orchard is 

 about the best place for a poultry-yard. 

 The chicks pick up many of the insects that 

 trouble apple and plum trees, and they also 

 keep up the fertility of the soil. 



Mr. Swift has nothing but pure White Leg- 

 horns; and one of the poultry-journals re- 

 cently made the statement that the success- 

 ful egg-farms, almost all the world over, are 

 using only a non-sitting strain of White Leg- 

 horns. 



When I asked the young man if his father 

 did not buy a pretty good-priced rooster, 

 one or more every season, to get a good 

 strain of blood, he said he never had so far 

 as he knew; and he did not think they took 

 any pains to get new blood outside of the 

 premises. With so many yards it was an 

 easy matter to select a male from some yard 

 that was no close relation to the laying hens 

 in another yard; and he certainly had some 

 very handsome Leghorns, both male and fe- 

 male. 



In conclusion I am glad to know of at least 

 one egg-farm right near our home that is a 

 paying business; and I do not know, too, but 

 it is a pretty good thing to know that it pays 

 without the help of a poultry-journal or any 

 of the new-fangled inventions and ideas. 



POULTRY SECRETS, ETC. 



We clip the following from the Poultry Di- 

 gest, and they copy it, as you will notice, 

 from the Petaluma (Cal.) Poultry Journal: 



I have been reading- about a feed at 8 cents a bushel. The 

 man who puts it up or s-ells the formula to make it lives in Il- 

 linois. He says thousands of poiiltrymen are using it. What 

 do you thinlc about it<— L. S. R. 



You can best find out by writing direct to the man 

 who is the originator of this cheap food. But you 

 must know that it is impossible to furnish a satisfacto- 

 ry and reliable food for fowls — a food they could live 

 on and get fat on — for ten times eight cents. There 

 must be some " catch " in the proposition. There is 

 some catch in it. Write him, and then you will be 

 better satisfied. The man who puts out this feed is a 

 poultryman, and an old writer for the poultry press, 

 and I am astonished that he should be guilty of any 

 thing not on the level.— Petalttma Poultry Journal. 



There you have it, friends, straight from 

 the shoulder. Ten times, as they put it, is 

 rather strong, but I do not know but it may 

 be about right. The Petaluma Journal and 

 the Poultry Digest can neither of them hope 

 to get any advertising from Fred Grundy 

 when they come out thus squarely against 

 his plan of getting people's money. They 

 omit to tell you that he wants $2.00 for his 

 little paper-covered book containing the se- 

 cret of making "feed for 8 cts. a bushel," 

 etc.; but whenever a poultry-journal comes 

 out thus I think it ought to be patronized. 

 If you want* a weekly poultry-paper, send a 

 dollar to the editor and thank him for his 

 timely warning; and if you care for only a 

 monthly, send 25 cts. for the Poultry Digest 



