GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



places, but we may accomplish it after all. 

 As I said, I do not exactly expect to have 

 her carry her eggs to the grocery, but I do 

 expect to have her bring them up to the gro- 

 cer's wagon instead of having her owner 

 travel around to the nests to pick up the 

 eggs in a basket. Let us now go back a 

 little.* 



As I told you on page 578, Sept. 15, 

 1911, between thirty and forty years ago I 

 was gi-eatly excited in consequence of a 

 series of articles in the American Agricul- 

 turist, entitled "An Egg-farm." The writer 

 was our veteran friend, H. H. Stoddard. 

 He had planned to have poultry-houses lo- 

 cated all over the field— I think about ten 

 rods apart. They were arranged like the 

 cells of a honeycomb. A low-down wagon 

 went to each liouse, carrying water and 

 grain, and to gather the egg's, etc. I start- 

 ed such an egg-farm in our basswood or- 

 chard at the time it was planted, in 1872. T 

 soon decided, hoAvever, that one objection 

 to Stoddard's egg-farm was the amount of 

 travel incumbent on the owner in order to 

 keep things in running order. Well, this 



* Our stenographer suggests that I, unlike Mo- 

 hammed, who, being unable to bring the mountain to 

 him, concluded to go to that, have solved that prob- 

 lem by bringing the chickens to me instead of being 

 compelled to chase after them to feed them and gath- 

 er their eggs. 



Pig. 1 shows Stoddard's convergent poultry-yards. As will be noticed, 

 it pictures 16 yards converging to the center, whei-e the granary is located. 

 The engraver has outlined 16 x>ouUry -houses adjoining; but in Florida and 

 Texas I do not think these houses will be needed. In fact, H. H. Stoddard, 

 the inventor, of Riviera, Texas, has 600 fowls in yards, as above, roosting 

 in the open air, without any roof over their heads at all. I do not know 

 at present how he protect* the food-hopper and the nesta. 



same Stoddard is now down in Texas su- 

 perintending an up-to-date (or Ave may say 

 1912) egg-farm; and in place of going 

 around to the different poultry-houses with 

 a horse and wagon he makes the laying hens 

 do the running. Before I saw that friend 

 Stoddard had got the idea of it, it had 

 been running through my head, off and on, 

 for years. 



SOME PLAN OF TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE 

 DISPOSITION OF MANY OF OUR BEST EGG- 

 LAYING TRIBES OF FOWLS ; THE DIS- 

 POSITION TO ROAM AND RAMBLE. 



I had planned to have four or perhaps 

 eight yards all running down to a common 

 center, where the nests, watering-troughs, 

 the feed-pans, and the roosts were to be lo- 

 cated; but friend Stoddard has "outgener- 

 aled" me by having his arranged like the 

 spokes in a wheel— say of a wagon or bug- 

 gy. The circle in the center, or where the 

 hub of the wheel comes, is to be large 

 enough to include a granary. The spaces 

 between the spokes of the wheel are the sep- 

 arate yards. I think he has sixteen yards, 

 with the granary in the center. This gran- 

 ary had, perhaps, better be a round build- 

 ing, say something like a silo. A lane 

 gives access to this inside circle, 45 feet in 

 diameter, which he describes in the Ameri- 

 can Poultry Advocate 

 for May. A team can 

 come in with a load of 

 grain and go right 

 around the round gTan- 

 ary, then go out again. 

 This "inner" circle or 

 fence is 45 feet in di- 

 ameter, and with six- 

 teen yards each yard 

 would occupy a part of 

 tliis smaller circle, 

 about ten feet across. 

 The division fences 

 ought to run out far 

 enough to give yard 

 room, say for fifty hens 

 in each yard. If the 

 fowls were not too much 

 disposed to get too far 

 away from where the 

 feed, water, and nests 

 are located, he might 

 leave the outside ends 

 entirely open so a team, 

 a harrow, or any other 

 farm implement could 

 be driven from one yard 

 right to another without 

 opening gates so as to 

 grow corn, for instance, 

 in each yard as Mr. 



