California Agriculturist and Live Stock Journal. 



Meat. 



tOITLD it not 130 well to substitute more 

 eggs for meat in our daily diet? About 

 one-third of the -weight of an egg is 

 solid nutriment. This is more than 

 can be said of meat. There are no 

 bones and tough pieces which have to be laid 

 aside. A good egg is made up of ten parts 

 shell, sixty parts white and thirty parts yolk. 

 The white of an egg conUiius eighty-six per 

 cent, water; the yolk fifty-two per cent. The 

 average weight of an egg is about two ounces. 

 Practically, an egg is animal food, and yet 

 there is none of the disagreeable work of the 

 butcher necessary to obtain it. The vegetari- 

 ans of England use eggs fieely, and many of 

 these men are eighty and ninety years old, and 

 have been remarkably free from illness. A 

 good egg is alive. The shell is porous, and 

 the oxygen of the air goes through the shell 

 and keep up a kind of respiration. An egg 

 Boon becomes stale in bad air, or in dry air 

 chai-ged with carbonic acid. Eggs may bo 

 dried and made to retain their goodness for a 

 long time, or the shell may be varnished, 

 which excludes the air, when, if kept iu a 

 moderate temperature, they may be kept good 

 for a number of years. The French people 

 produce more eggs than any other, and ship 

 millions of them to England annually. Fresh 

 eggs are more transparent at the center, old 

 ones on the top. Very old ones are not trans- 

 parent in either place. In water in which 

 one-tenth of salt has been dissolved, good 

 eggs sink and indifferent ones swim. Bad 

 eggs float in pure water. The best eggs are 

 laid by young, healthy hens. If they are 

 properly fed, the eggs are better than if they 

 are allowed to eat all sorts of food. Eggs are 

 best when cooked four minutes. This takes 

 away the animal taste that is offensive to some 

 but does not so harden the white or yolk as to 

 make them hard to digest. An egg, if cooked 

 very hard, is difficult of digestion, except by 

 those with stout stomachs; such eggs should 

 be eaten with bread masticated very finely. 

 An excellent sandwich can be made with eggs 

 and brown bread. An egg spread on toast is 

 fit for a king — if kings deserve any better food 

 than anybody else, which is doubtful. Fried 

 eggs are less wholesome than boiled ones. An 

 egg dropped into hot water is not only a clean 

 and handsome, but a delicious morsel. Most 

 people spoil the taste of their eggs by adding 

 pepper and salt. A little sweet butter is the 

 best dressing. Eggs eoutiiin much phosphor- 

 ous, which is supposed to be useful to those 

 who use their brains much. — Poultry lievkw_ 



Sex rtJ Poultet. — The following is from a 

 corresponpent of the London Juuniai of Uor- 

 licullure : 



One of your correspondents revives the old 

 question about the sex of eggs; I send my 

 experience. Last year an Old Country poul- 

 try-keeper told me he could disliuguish the 

 sex in eggs. I laughed at him, and was none 

 the less skeptical when he told me the follow- 

 ing secret: " Eggs with the air bladder on the 

 center of the crown of the egg will produce 

 cockerels; those with the bladder on one side 

 will produce pullets." The old man was so 

 certain of the truth of this dogma, and his 

 poultry yard so far confirmed it, that I deter- 

 mined to make an experiment upon it. I 

 have done so, carefully registering every egg 

 "bladder vertical," or "bladder on one side," 

 rejecting every one in which it was not decid- 

 edly one or the other, as in some it is only 

 very slightly out of the center. The follow- 

 ing is the result: Fifty-eight chickens were 

 hatched, three are dead, eleven are yet too 

 young to decide upon their sex; of the re- 

 maining forty-four every one has turned out 

 exactly true to the old mjin's theory. This, 

 of course, may be an accidental coincidence, 



but I shall certainly try the experiment again. 

 1 am now trying the same theory upon ducks' 

 eggs. 



A Westchester, Pa,, man gives the results 

 of his experiments as follows: Last Summer I 

 hatched 122 chicks from eggs selected on this 

 principle, Il'J of which were pullets. I al- 

 ways select eggs of medium size, believing 

 them to be the best for this purpose. I then 

 get a large kerosene lamp and take an egg in 

 my right hand, between the thumb and two 

 forefingers, big end uppermost, and hold it as 

 near the light as possible; then hiy the little 

 finger of the left hand across the middle of the 

 middle of the egg. This will throw the light 

 in the egg; then turn it around slowly, and 

 you will perceive a dark spot the size of a 

 three-cent piece, directly in the center of the 

 large end, or on one side. As I raise poultry 

 for eggs and for market, I of course set only 

 eggs for pullets, with a few for cockerels' to 

 replace the cocks of last year. It would be 

 well for an amateur to break a few eggs, 

 empty out the contents, and examine the 

 large end, where the air chamber in the dif- 

 positious will be distinctly seen. 



The principal points by which to discern 

 the quality of the iiesh in a fowl are, says the 

 Cottage Oardener, the color of the feet and the 

 kind of skin. The yellow foot generally in- 

 dicates a fowl with tough flesh, heavy bones, 

 and yellow fat. It is very rare that this color 

 does not show itself in the skin. However, it 

 does not exclude certain qualities of the flesh 

 in the pure descendants of the two exotic 

 races. Cochin China and Brahma Pootra. 

 With the exception of yellow and green, 

 which can never be recommended, all other 

 colors, from black to white, are equally indi- 

 cations of an excellent flesh. When the skin, 

 and, above all, that of the sides and breast, 

 is of a fine tissue, delicate and easily extend- 

 ed, also having a rosj'-pearled color, one may 

 be certain that the flesh is good, and will fat- 

 ten rapidly. 



Gapes in Chickens. — Some eighteen years 

 ago I came to live on an old farm, where the 

 gapes made such fearful ravages on the young 

 chickens that it seemed almost needless any 

 longer to set the hens. I came across the 

 horse-hair remedj- iu the Country GKiUlvman, 

 tried it, and the result was that I operated the 

 first Summer on from fift)' to sixty chickens 

 with perfect success. Chickens very rarely 

 have more than three or four worms, but I 

 have taken as many as eight from young tur- 

 keys. Each year the number attacked de- 

 creased, till last year there were only two. 

 None die from the treatment, but you need to 

 take them when they first begin to gape. For 

 a few moments after they leave your hand, 

 after treatment, they will gajoe and sneeze a 

 little, and then are as bright and livelj' as ever. 

 It distresses me to read of so manj* losing 

 their chicks when so simple a remedy will 

 save them. Some think the horse hair cruel, 

 but it is a mistake, and even if cruel, it is soon 

 over. I take no particular care of my chicks, 

 beyond cooping them, feeding them corn meal 

 and giving water. 



Remedy. — Take a stifif horse hair, make a 

 pointed loop, insert it in the wind-pipe, push 

 it down as far as it will go, with the rest of 

 the hair. between your thumb and forefinger; 

 twist it quickly, then draw it out. You may 

 not get any worm the first or the second time, 

 but they loosen so that the third or fourth 

 time they come; sometimes all three will come 

 at the first drawing. The operation must be 

 done quickly; it needs two to do it — one to 

 hold the struggling chick, the other to oper- 

 ate. — C. jB. S.. ill Country Gentleman. 



We have cured the same complaint by dip- 

 ping a feather into kerosene and running it 

 down the windpipe, twisting it around two or 

 three times. It loosens the worms and the 

 chicken coughs them out. It is an easy and 

 sure cure. 



Ti^NstjEE THE Hatching of Eggs. — A cor- 

 respondent of the Poultry liemrd gives the 

 following plan as better than sprinkling eggs 

 with water to insure hatching. It is sound, 

 for it is well known that hens which make 

 their nests on the ground are apt to bring oflf 

 large broods. The earth keeps an equable 

 warmth, and anpx^lies the necessary moisture 

 to the eggs: 



I put about two or three inches of fine, 

 moist earth into the box I want to put the hen 

 in, press it down firmly, and have it a little 

 deeper in the center, a handful of straw or 

 hay on toj) of it, and the nest is ready to re- 

 ceive the eggs. The earth contains all the 

 moisture necessary for the good of the eggs. 

 If your box is deep, more earth may be put iu, 

 a foot deep will do no hurt. You say wheat 

 screenings are poor food for chickens. My 

 experience is difl'erent. I consider them the 

 best and healthiest feed, and use them almost 

 exclusively, and only give a little corn at 

 night. Wheat screaniugs will make the hens 

 lay, keep them from getting broody, and, I 

 think, will in a great measure prevent cholera. 



No amount of care in i^ropariug the nest or 

 moistening the eggs will insure a large brood 

 if the eggs are not good. After eggs have 

 been under the hen three days the germ be- 

 comes sufficiently developed to make it deter- 

 minable whether the egg will hatch or not. 

 They may be examined at this stage, by hold- 

 ing before a light, and those which show no 

 evidence of fecundity discarded and replaced 

 by fresh eggs. Care must be taken not to 

 handle them too much, and fresh eggs should 

 not be placed in the nest later than three days 

 after the hen begins to set, or she may leave 

 the nest before they are hatched. 



When poultry is kept in a yard, it is best to 

 dig up a small corner occasionally to let them 

 hunt for worms and beetles, and then sow it 

 in oats and corn and lettuce. They always 

 want a dusting place; a box of ashes with sul- 

 phur intermiaed is what they need for this. 



That farmers and manufacturers are mutual 

 producers and consumers — that is, that each 

 is a consumer of the other's products — is 

 quite plain. It ought to be equally plain that 

 it is for their mutual advantage and profit that 

 they be in juxtaposition. The cost of trans- 

 portation between them is a tax on both, and 

 it increases with the distance between them. 

 If the price were fixed to the producer, 

 whether of agricultui-al or mechanical pro- 

 ducts, then the cost to the consumer must in- 

 crease with the distance between them; if the 

 price were fixed to the consumer, the profit to 

 the producer must be diminished as the dis- 

 tance between them increases. As a matter 

 of fact, the cost of intei-vening transportation 

 is a tax which is di^•ided between them, and 

 this would still hold true were that cost re- 

 duced to its minimum. To transportation 

 companies and middlemen distance may "lend 

 enchantment to the view," but he is an un- 

 wise farmer who does not do all in his power 

 to encourage manufacturers to locate beside 

 him. 



Faem Machines. — The Tlw-iiZ says : Know- 

 ledge of machinery is becoming one of the 

 most important requisites in a farmer or a 

 farmer's help. No machine should go upon 

 any farm without the farmer comprehending 

 it iu all its parts, the requirement and relation 

 of each part to the other, how to adjust and 

 care for it, how to remedy difficulties that may 

 arise, ank keep the whole machine in proper 

 working condition without the aid of a ma- 

 chiuist, uuless in exceptiouil circumstances. 

 It should be the first duty of the hired help to 

 learn the same lesson, if he is to be intrusted 

 with the machine's use. This is urged as a 

 matter of economy. It is frequently the ease 

 that a non-observant farmer loses the time of 

 his men and his own, besides making a bill at 

 the blacksmith's or machinist's, when a little 

 gumption and ten minutes' time properly ap- 

 plied would have saved all loss. 



