510 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



for the best that I came here when I did. I am but 

 twenty-five years old. I see where I have made mis- 

 takes, and I intend to turn those same mistakes 

 into future profit by not making them again. 



Asking your pardon for this long letter, I beg to 

 remain yours truly until prohibition really prohibits. 



Pittsburgh, Pa. A7361, N. S. 



Permit me to say, dear brother, I looked 

 over the letter above with careful scrutiny 



to find some place where you recognize the 

 importance in a crisis like this of divine 

 help; and although you do not close by 

 asking the readers of Gleanings to pray 

 for you, I am going to ask our good friends 

 to remember our unfortunate brother who 

 is in trouble, even yet, inside of prison 

 walls. 



Poultry Department 



RHODE ISLAND BEDS AND MOVING THEM TO ANOTHER 

 NEST WHEN THEY WANT TO SIT. 



Mr. Root: — In the May 1st issue of Gleanings, 

 page 321, I am a little surprised at the remark of 

 your correspondent in regard to the Rhode Island 

 Red pullets not sitting when removed from one nest 

 to another. My flock is composed mostly of Rhode 

 Island Reds; and out of 25 sitting hens and pullets 

 I have been compelled to move 24, and some of 

 them quite long distances, and not one has refused 

 to sit. With the mixed Leghorns and Plymouth 

 Rocks I have not been so successful. 



Now in regard to my management of sitting hens. 

 I have a sitting-room screened off with chicken wire 

 and burlap — formerly bran and chop sacks — from 

 one of the hen-houses, and in this room I place just 

 as many individual nests as I have hens ready to 

 sit. I place in each of these nests two eggs — not 

 porcelain nor rotten eggs, but good ones. After 

 dark I take my hens gently from their nests, one at 

 a time, and carry them in my arm in the same po- 

 sition in which they were sitting, put them on the new 

 nests, and shut them on the nests. In this room I 

 place vessels containing water, feed, grit, and a 

 dust-box. In the afternoon of the following day I 

 let the hens off to eat; and when I am doing up 

 the evening work I slip my hand under them, take 

 out the two eggs and lay before and around them 

 thirteen or fifteen eggs. This is done in daylight; 

 and by the time I have finished up my other even- 

 ing work around the chicken-yard, and go in to see 

 how they are getting along, they will have all the 

 eggs rolled under and be hovering them very con- 

 tentedly. 



This plan is much more simple and satisfactory 

 than my incubator experience, for all I have to do 

 is to see that they have plenty of feed and water, 

 and look in two or three times a day when other 

 duties call me to the hen-house, to see that no two 

 hens are sitting on the same nest — a very rare oc- 

 currence, and never with the Rhode Island Reds. 



There is only one drawback to this plan, and that 

 is when the hens are set at different times, and the 

 first sittings begin to hatch. At this time some of 

 the other hens are liable to get excited and want to 

 help mother the chickens when the chickens are very 

 noisy, and sometimes it becomes necessary to remove 

 the hatching hens ; but as the nests are made single, 

 it is very easy to pick up the nest and carefully 

 carry it to some other building. 



Fayetteville, Ark., May 26. Miss C. E. Jordan. 



My good friend, I am very glad to get 

 the above; and that is about the way the 

 Rhode Island sitting hens behave here in 

 the North. But when I went over to neigh- 

 bor Rood's and asked him if he had any 

 sitting hens, he replied, " Yes, plenty of 

 them; but I fear they will not continue to 

 sit if you move them to some other nest — at 

 least they will not with me. But perhaps 

 they will work better with an experienced 

 man (?) like yourself." Well, I went and 



got tlu-ee, off the nests, that seemed fully 

 determined to sit; but they were all off 

 the notion when they got over to my prem- 

 ises, in spite of putting boxes over the hens, 

 nests and all. I wish to say to^ their credit, 

 however, that all three raised nice broods 

 after a laying of eggs ; and, best of all, all 

 three commenced laying again when the 

 chickens were about three weeks old. Now 

 you say, my friend, you shut them on their 

 nests; but you do not tell exactly how, but 

 I infer you put some sort of box over them 

 so as to keep them in the dark, as you say 

 further along that your nests were all made 

 single. 



GKOUND mustard for CHICKENS. 



Some time last winter I saw an advertise- 

 ment in one of our poultry journals of the 

 R. T. French Co., of Rochester, N. Y. 

 Their principal business seems to be put- 

 ting up mustard for the whole wide world, 

 chickens included. After some correspon- 

 dence I ordered a barrel at 18 cts. per lb., 

 laid down at Bradentown, Fla. When the 

 package was unloaded from the steamer it 

 was so badly broken that the transportation 

 comj^any went and got a new barrel to hold 

 it. They told me there was quite a lot of 

 sneezing, and wiping of eyes, before thej- 

 got the "stuff" transferred. Permit me to 

 say here that the French Co. made good all 

 the loss of mustard, taking the task off my 

 own hands of settling with the railroad 

 company. 



Two things prevented my giving the mus- 

 tard a fair test with my flock of forty or 

 fifty chickens. First, it was near time to go 

 north. Second, I had been feeding them 

 for a month or more with Conkey's " lay- 

 ing tonic," so they had been giving me 35 

 or 40 eggs from 60 laying hens. I think 

 you will agree with me that it would be 

 pretty hard to make an improvement under 

 such circumstances with mustard or any 

 thing else. Not so, however, with the In- 

 dian Runner ducks. Eighteen laying ducks 

 had been giving fourteen or fifteen egg's 

 nearly all winter; but about two weeks be- 

 fore the receipt of my mustard they had 

 for some reason gone down to ten or eleven 

 eggs. Within three days, possibly four, 



