34 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



ods? See Special Notices for Nov. 1. I 

 am certainly heart and soul in favor of 

 removing the temptation by cutting off this 

 profit from the business. I have already 

 mentioned that in Cuba, where I spent one 

 winter, intoxicating liquors were sold at 

 almost every country grocery. A man 

 could get enough whisky for a penny to 



make him drunk, and a child could get a 

 cent's worth of whisky in a tin cup ; but 

 intemj erance there in Cuba was nothing to 

 be compared with what it is here in the 

 United States; and especially was that the 

 case before "we, the people of the United 

 States," carried over to the Cubans our 

 American beer and other liquors. 



Poultry Department 



FLORIDA FOR POULTRY. 



Dear Mr. Root: — Many letters have been received, 

 asking if Florida was good for poultry. These and 

 other inquiries about the counti-y have gone un- 

 answered because the writer was too busy to reply 

 to so many. Perhaps Gleanings will be kind enough 

 to carry an answer that will reach and relieve all 

 these anxious ones. After three years of careful in- 

 vestigation I can say, without reservation, yes. Be- 

 low are some of the advantages. Land is cheap ; 

 housing costs almost nothing ; no long hard winters 

 call for expensive houses and intensive care. Prices 

 are good. If one will use open roofless pens or 

 houses in which to keep his birds they will be 

 healthy and free from vermin. They can be iiatched 

 at all seasons of the year ; but I suggest that one cut 

 out the rainy season. Now is a good time to start 

 the hatching. Yesterday morning as I parsed a 

 neighbor's. I caught sight of a bunch of turkeys, and 

 remarked that I would be around Thanksgiving day. 

 He said they were all gobblers, and would need to 

 be eaten that day or Christmas. But he added that 

 he had hopes of perpetuating the flock, as the old 

 hen was faithfully incubating a batch of eggs. Think 

 of it, you frost-bound people — young pults in No- 

 vember I The weather is favorable. They should do 

 well. 



A surveyor is away from home so much that he 

 can't raise poultry, no matter how fond he may be 

 of that work. I can get more pleasure watching a 

 brood of chicks ("biddies" the Floridian calls them) 

 than I can by watching a championship game of ball, 

 and I have been a fan over 40 years. I must follow 

 my profession, and that cuts me out of a lot of fun 

 with the biddies. A man must live with his flock 

 every day of the 365 if he would make it pay, and a 

 surveyor can't do that. My work called me to Lee 

 County three weeks of September, and fifteen days 

 of October were spent on another job besides many 

 single days away from Parish. So I cut out the 

 practical side of chicken culture and confine myself 

 to observation. Eyes and ears are open all the time 

 for all facts that bear on this interesting subject, 

 but I claim to be only a "looker on." 



The chief drawback down here is the cost of feed 

 Long hauls from the North make heavy freight bills. 

 The middleman comes in for a big profit. Of course, 

 feed is high ; yet all the poultrymen of whom I have 

 knowledge buy it rather thai^raise it. Mr. Stevens, 

 at Alva, keeps 600 that roost in his orange-trees 

 and feed on dry mash from old boxes. He spends 

 not one per cent on equipment, but buys all his feed. 

 Mr. Throop, at Enterprise, is in the business big. 

 He has 2000 hens the year round, that clear him at 

 least $2.45 each per annum. He says it is better 

 than a grove. He raises no feed, preferring to give 

 the time to personal care for his flocks. The houses 

 are cheap low sheds with old fertilizer-sacks for 

 sides. They cost scarcely a hundred dollars for the 

 whole outfit. A writer who makes his living at 

 Clearwater out of his White Leghorns, said in a re- 

 cent number of the Florida Grower, that he bought 

 all his feed last year and cleared $1.40 per hen. 



This man goes in for more expensive housing than 

 the others. He writes that he "would as soon think 

 of sleeping with a leaky roof over his head as over 

 that of his chickens." Fine sentiment, that, but 

 only sentiment. Down here the roofless house is 

 the kindest place in which to keep your pets. There 

 they are healthier, and freer from insect pests than 

 when under roof. There are no kinder people than 

 Mr. and Mi-s. W. A. Halsey, of Terra Ceia Island. 

 They shut their chickens up in roofless coops or 

 nouses the year round because they are healthier 

 and more comfortable there, and lay well. Last 

 summer, when everybody else's hens were on a 

 strike, and no eggs could be bought in the country 

 stores, theirs were shelling out the hen-fruit, keeping 

 them supplied with all they could use, and they never 

 stint themselves. 



The Halseys were formerly in the poultry business, 

 but now have only enough for their own table. They 

 live off of the returns from 700 grapefruit trees on 

 their ten acres, which nets them $5000 or better per 

 annum. Mr. H. came to Florida 25 years ago from 

 Chicago. His experience was that of a city man. 

 He knew nothing about farming. Having no capi- 

 tal, he worked at day labor as he could find some- 

 thing to do. When he got a chance he started to 

 raise poultry. He saw that those who let their hens 

 roost in the trees with a piece of old stovepipe 

 about the trunk to keep the varmints away had no 

 trouble with vermin and disease, and those who 

 built houses for them had no end of trouble. There- 

 fore he adopted the roofless house. Later he took 

 up with the bottomless coop resting on the ground, 

 which the poultry papers of those days were sug- 

 gesting. It was the Philo system long before Philo 

 hit upon it as the way to make money. In this case 

 i* was adapted to the conditions where it was to be 

 used, which is the secret of success in every busi- 

 ness, in every clime. Adapt yourself to your condi- 

 tion, and stay with it, spells success everywhere. 



The Halsey plan is a light-weight bottomless coop 

 set on Bermuda-grass sod, and moved every two or 

 three days. There is an orange-box for a double 

 nest in one end of the coop, which last is 8 feet by 

 8 feet on the ground. Its two ends are shaped like 

 a capital A. It has two cross-pieces that strengthen 

 it and serve as roost. It is enclosed with wire net- 

 ting. Twelve hens spend their whole laying experi- 

 ence in it and enjoy it. As I told above, they lay 

 well, much better than those that run out on the 

 neighbors' land, and they are never in the way in 

 the truck-patch. Fresh water is supplied, and they 

 get a quart of mash in the morning, and a pint and 

 a half of wheat in the afternoon, to each coop. Dur- 

 ing the trucking season they get plenty of lettuce. 

 The rest of the time, grass furnishes their green 

 food. It is not unusual to see the Philo system in 

 use here, just as its author directs for city back- 

 yards and house-tops in the North. There seems 

 to be no effort to adapt the method to conditions. 

 Proper adaptation to location and surroundings is 

 needed in all things. When the farmer comes down 

 from the North he must forget what he knows, and 



