5i0 



Of course, it- took a lot of money out of 

 the town, and stopi)ed a lot of business; but 

 the Christian and temperance-loving people 

 said, " All right ; we are going to have our laws 

 enforced, even if we do not have quite so 

 much money." 



Our good friend said he was not a member 

 of the Anti-saloon League, nor, I think, of 

 the Prohibition party; but he believed in 

 enforcing the laws, and they went at it, and 

 did enforce them in s^iite of the whisky 

 gang. God si)eed the day when our com- 

 mon hard-working peoi)le — men of influence 

 and men of means — shall rise up in their 

 might and stand up for the principles of the 

 stars and stripes. 



With a speed of about a mile a minute, 

 and sometimes a little more, we were back 

 again in that busy humming city of Phila- 

 delphia. A bright little girl, Mr. Selser's 

 stenographer, met us when we stepped off 

 the train, hurriedly took down some dicta- 

 tion, ran errands (yes, stenographers in 

 Philadelphia and New York both run er- 

 rands, and I tell you they are expert at the 

 business too) , and friend Selser then said we 

 had 15 minutes to get dinner before taking 

 our next train. He suggested a roast-beef 

 sandwich with some mashed i)otatoes. Let 

 me say right here that may be I am telling 

 a good many i)eople something they know 

 all about but which I didn't. But I am 

 sure there are jnany others who are as un- 

 acquainted with the great cities as I am; 

 and it was one of niy happy surprises to find 

 that that roast-beef sandwich was a great 

 plateful of large slices of nice bread soaked 

 in rich dark gravy with good slices of about 

 the nicest roast beet I ever ate. It was so 

 tender that we made out a good meal in fif- 

 teen minutes, caught our train, and hied 

 away to the Corning egg-farm at Bound 

 Brook, X. J. As we stepped from the car I 

 was pleased to see a neat little sign at the 

 entrance gate announcing "No visitors re- 

 ceived on Sunday; but we shall be glad to 

 welcome you other days and show you 

 around between 8 and 12 a.m. and 2 and 5 



P.M." 



As we came up to the door of the office a 

 jolly-looking gentleman rose up and said 

 pleasantly, "Well, gentlemen, how can I 

 serve you ? " When I was introduced I was 

 pleased to hear him say he had read some of 

 my talks, and would be very glad to show 

 me around. As most of the chicken folks 

 have read the Corning egg-book I need not 

 go over it here; but I saw there right under 

 my own eyes a demonstration of about all 

 there is in the book. Six thousand chick- 

 ens, all about one size, were in a long build- 

 ing that separated them into flocks of about 

 fifty each. They could run out into their 

 respective yards "or come inside, just as they 

 chose; but during that hot summer day they 

 seemed busy in scratching in the litter in- 

 side. The laying hens, 450 in a similar 

 house, also seemed to be busy, and well and 

 happy. This house, however, provides them 

 all they need in the way of grit, green food, 

 animal food, etc. The green food they 



Gleanings in Bee Culture 



mostly prefer is sprouted oats. One base- 

 ment was full of oats sprouted green in dif- 

 ferent stages. During the severe hot weath- 

 er, Mr. Corning said, they had better suc- 

 cess in sprouting the grain in a damp shady 

 basement instead of having it out in the 

 open sun. He remarked that, although the 

 chickens would eat oats a foot high or more, 

 they had decided from their experiments 

 that there is more nutriment when the 

 sprouts are only about a quarter of an inch 

 long. He said that at this stage we have 

 the full benefit of the grain with the addi- 

 tional value of green food. 



A yard of pullets one-half or two-thirds 

 grown were in colony houses out in the lot. 

 These colony houses are about such as I 

 have described; but they are on runners so 

 as to be movable; and he has decided, like 

 myself, that every chicken will have to be 

 shut up in a secure rat-])roof house every 

 night, and let out every morning at day- 

 break. Their foreman is one of the chaps 

 like myself who like to get up early. 



^^'hen I asked if the handsome White Leg- 

 horn chickens scattered over the fields all 

 went back to their resi)ective houses at night 

 Instead of piling all into one or more houses 

 he remarked. "Why, Mr. Root, most of 

 them find their homes without any trouble; 

 but there are a few nearsighted ones; and 

 about roosting-time you will see them get- 

 ting up in front of tlie house and looking at 

 these large black figures. You see they are 

 over a foot long, and they almost always 

 make out their number. We have thought 

 of getting some spectacles for a few of them 

 that are badly nearsighted, but we have not 

 got around to it yet." 



When we came to discussing poultry 

 remedies he said they had very few diseases 

 of any kind. He remarked that some of 

 the poultry remedies are doubtless good — 

 for instance, the roup cure that is advertised 

 at 50 cts. or $1.00 a bottle. He held up a 

 bottle marked "permanganate of potash" 

 and said, "This, Mr. Root, is a staple rem- 

 edy for roup — the principal drug in all their 

 roup remedies, and even for other ailments. 

 But five cents' worth of i)ermanganate will 

 go further than a fifty-cent package of the 

 roup cure, (io to the drugstore when you 

 want it, and mix it yourself." 



When I asked about the three or four 

 bloodhounds that were chained near the 

 office he said they were let out to protect the 

 premises at night; and they not only kept 

 awaya,ll sorts of vermin but suspicious cliar- 

 acters of the human family. When I asked 

 about the laying, he ga\'e the per cent of 

 eggs from certain houses. For instance, a 

 pen of 450, where some of them were just be- 

 ginning to moult, was then giving about 30 

 per cent — that is, 30 eggs for every loO hens, 

 and he said something like this: In Decem- 

 ber it would run something as it then did. 

 In .January they would come up to 40 per 

 cent; February, 50 per cent; March, 60 per 

 cent; and in April, perhaps 70 or 75; and 

 about the same in May. 



Their eggs are marketed the day they are 



