JANUARY 15, 1913 



69 



that you are a member of the church. The 

 scriptures enjoin us to be diligent in sea- 

 son; and not only that, but even out of 

 season. May God bless the good brother 

 who has bv his letter braced us up where 

 many of us need a bracing. I for one need 

 it myself. And his message comes to me 

 just before I am starting to my southern 

 home. A great many times in traveling I 

 feel too tired or worn out to open up con- 

 versation, say with the tired neighbors 

 around me on every side; but some of the 

 pleasantest acquaintances I have ever been 

 fortunate enough to make have been opened 

 up while taking a long trip somewhere. 

 In after years 1 frequently meet these peo- 

 ple, and it is one of my hapjjy experiences 

 to recount the incidents of travel of yeai's 

 ago. Away oi¥ in California I dropped 

 a letter in the box, having my printed ad- 

 dress on the envelope. The postmaster 

 happened to be near and said, smilingly. 



"Mr. Root, how does it come that you are 

 sending letters to yourself f" Then he told 

 of having passed a part of the night with 

 me on a trip through the mountains years 

 before. 



Now, if you will take a little pains to 

 get acquainted with your fellow-travelers 

 there will almost always be a chance to 

 put in a word for the dear Master, and 

 you can do it, too, without being thought 

 cranky or a little off in the upjDer story. 

 Several times I have been enabled 'to get 

 a promise from an acquaintance of only a 

 few hours, that, when he got home, he 

 would hunt up the jjastor of the nearest 

 church, and at least encourage him by 

 being on hand at church or Sunday-school 

 or both ; and what a thrill it gives me when, 

 years after, and I had forgotten all about 

 it, to find from some pastor that my talk 

 was the means of enabling him to gather in 

 the "precious sheaves." 



Poultry Department 



MUSTARD FOR POULTRY. 



We clip below from the Illustrated Poul- 

 try Record (English) : 



About two years ago six pullets were placed in 

 competition with two other pens of birds numbering 

 lix each, and sisters to them. The first pen were fed 

 on ordinary foods, the second on similar foods with 

 an addition of capsicum, and the third pen also on 

 similar foods, but with an addition of one teaspoon- 

 iul of Colman's mustard. The mustard-fed birds laid 

 during the period of six months commencing in 

 October and ending in March the grand total of 532 

 eggs against 359 and 399 produced by the plainly 

 dieted and capsicum-fed birds respectively. In this 

 way did Mr. Ralph R. AUen, poultry lecturer to the 

 Herts County Council, prove to the public that mus- 

 tard-fed birds produce a larger supply of eggs. 



Later he proved that the feeding with mustard in 

 no way debilitates the birds. He produced a short 

 brochure entitled "Mustard for Poultry," followed 

 twelve months later by a booklet giving 101 reasons 

 why mustard should be employed during the winter 

 months to increase production. Mr. Allen has now 

 issued a third brochure entitled "Enquire within 

 upon Poultry and Egg Production," containing 

 many valuable hints on practical poultry-keeping. 

 The book is well thought out and well compiled. 



From the above it would appear the six 

 pullets were given a teaspoonful of mus- 

 tard daily, for six months, which is a much 

 larger "dose" than we have ever fed. So 

 far I have never seen any unfavorable re- 

 port from the use of mustard. 



WHERE TO GET MUSTARD BRAN. 



I notice in Gleanings for Nov. 15, in the Poul- 

 try Department, a suggestion for feeding mustard 

 to poultry. The question is also asked whether some 

 one can not advertise and furnish " poultry mus- 

 tard " at a considerably smaller price than the 

 ground mustard of commerce. I notice in the 

 Poultry Fancier for December, a journal edited by 



F. W. Delancy, Sellersville, Pa., an advertisement 

 from Juniata Poultry Plant, Lewiston, Pa., in which 

 a mustard bran is offered for sale. I believe mustard 

 is better for poultry than cayenne or red pepper 

 and man}' patent poultry powders. 



Derry, Pa. Lawrence L. Peck. 



KEEPING poultry AT ONE-FOURTH CENT PEE HEAD 

 PER DAY. 



Mr. Arthur Head wishes some details of feed and 

 prices in this case. He would like •." to know how 

 it is done." It would be simple enough to give the 

 bookkeeping details of this feeding, but I am now 

 forty miles away from that yard, and have not been 

 near it for two years, and did not carry away such 

 details with me. The place was worked on shares ; 

 and as the owner was a pretty tight-fisted individual 

 you may be sure he did not make the cost of feed 

 any lower than it actually was. The accounts were 

 checked monthly by two independent parties. It 

 should be noted, however, that dry-mash or hopper 

 feeding of any kind was tabooed. All fowls were 

 hand-fed ; all feed was carefully calculated and 

 measured, and there was absolutely no waste of 

 mash or grain. There was no waste by overfeeding 

 the birds, and there was no waste by food going 

 bad or by the birds scattering mash among the lit- 

 ter, or by suporting rats or other vermin. Any sys- 

 tem that allows birds to gorge themselves at all 

 times will soon run up the costs ; and this is one 

 reason why hand-feeding can walk all round dry- 

 mash feeding. Animal food was economically bought. 

 A local butcher supplied meat without bones at two 

 cents a pound, and another butcher supplied bonet 

 for grinding at sixty cents per hundred pounds. 

 This was rather different from buying meat meal 

 (mostly ground bone) at $3.00 per hundred pounds. 

 As the meat was always fresh, pure, and sweet it 

 was worth 50 per cent more in actual practice than 

 the old horse meats mostly sold, and this in itself 

 is an immense saving, apart from the actual prices 

 paid. Little or no green food was purchased except 

 oats used for sprouting to feed brooder chicks. 

 The real economy lay in feeding the stock just as 

 much as it needed, and absolutely wasting nothing 



