Oct. 15. 1911 



)[p(g©DSlU lK!J(n)tlD©(g^ 



By A. I. Root 



GREEN'S FRUIT GROWER. 



This periodical has been known almost as long as 

 ours, and it has always been a first-class, wide- 

 awake, reliable journal, Fruit-erowers who wish 

 to be up to the times, especially in regard to all 

 that is new and reliable, should by all means have 

 Green's publication. In all the years that his es- 

 tablishnaent has been .sending out vines and small 

 Iruits. as well as fruit-trees, we can remember 

 scarcely a complaint. The September number has 

 a beautiful front page, and is a gem. We make an 

 especially low price on it clubbed with GLE.\>rT>!GS, 

 as our friends will notice. 



HOW TO M.\NAGE A SITTING HEN. 



On page 577, Sept. 15, I mentioned our old friend 

 H. H. Stoddard and his valuable article in the 

 American Poiiltry JoHrnal. Well, in that same 

 journal for October Mr. Stoddard has given us one 

 of the best and most valuable contributions I ever 

 read anywhere, It is not only worth the price of 

 the journal for a whole year, but it is worth to me a 

 SIO.OO bill. I have been studying sitting hens for 

 years. In fact, while down on the Island I told you 

 I was "sitting at the feet" of a sitting hen, and 

 gathering wisdom day by day; for it is an unmis- 

 takable truth that the ordinary sitting hen has 

 more knowledge of God's mysteries along in her 

 line than all the wise men on the face of the earth. 

 You can get the October number, of the American 

 Poultry Journal Publishing Co.. 542 South Dear- 

 born .St.. Chicago, for onlyocts.: but as Mr. Stod- 

 dard is going to write a series of articles for that 

 journal you can well afford to send 50 cts. and get 

 the journal a year. We have 35 or 40 poultry-jour- 

 nals on our exchange list, and I hastily glance over 

 every one every month. It seems to me sad that 

 so much labor should be almost wasted in thrash- 

 ing things over and over. I have been so much 

 wearied with this continued repetition that Stod- 

 dard's articles seem like an oasis in the desert. He 

 rarely writes or expresses a thought that we have 

 ever seen somewhere else. He has studied chick- 

 ens all his long life, and what he writes is from his 

 ripened knowledge and long experience. There is 

 a good picture of him in this October number. 

 May God grant him health and strength to con- 

 tinue his valuable and sensible contributions for 

 the younger " chicken '' enthusiasts. 



WINTERING IN FLORIDA AND RETURNING IN THE 

 SPRING. 



The Seaboard Air Line Railway, the only road 

 through Manatee Co,. Florida, furnishes the follow- 

 ing in regard to the round trip from Cincinnati to 

 Bradentown and points in that vicinity. Permit 

 me to explain that Bradentown is about 60 miles 

 south of Tampa, close to the Gulf of Mexico, and 

 right on the Manatee River. 



.V/-. .4. /. i^oof. —RefeiTing- to your letter of Sept. 18. 1 would 

 say that the round-trip winter-tourist fare from Cincinnati to 

 Bradentown. which becomes effective on the loth of October, 

 and has a return limit of May 31. 1912. will be S46.6.i. It is pos- 

 sible, however, to do better tlian this by the use of two inter- 

 changreable mileage-books. Tliese mileage-bool^s are sold at 

 the rate of S20.00 per 1000 miles. The distance in each direc- 

 tion is 1068 miles, mailing' tlie round-trip distance 2136 miles. 

 In view of this a passenger may purchase two 1000-mile books, 

 amounting to $40.00. and have a sliortage of 136 miles, which, 

 on the return journey, he can pay for at the rate of two and a 

 half cents a mile, or S3.40. making his round trip cost S13.40. 

 Mileage-books, as you know, are valid for passage at any time 

 within a year from date of purchase. J. A. Pride. 



General Industrial Agent of Seaboard Air Line Railway. 



Norfolk. Va., Sept. 26. 1911. 



Let me explain further that there will be several 

 advantages in getting mileage-books instead of a 

 round-trip ticket. First, it will be a little cheaper; 

 second, you will not have to invest .so much money 

 to lie idle until you return home: third, your mile- 

 age-book can be used -so as to stop otT anywhere 

 you choose, or take a side trip on other Florida 

 lines that accept these mileage-books. 



I have written the above because so many are 

 making inquiries in regard to the expense of a trip 

 to Manatee Co. There is also a much lower rate, 

 usually, for 25-day tickets — that is, a ticket to go 

 and return inside of 25 days. A year ago these 25- 

 day round-trip tickets were offered at the low rate 

 of S25.00 from Cincinnati to Manatee Co. and return. 



23 



.\N0THER WONDERFUL DISCOVERY IN THE CHICK- 

 EN BUSINESS. 



I did not make it, ray good friends; but in our 

 next issue I expect to introduce to you the man 

 who did make it; and if I am correct about it, even 

 he himself does not know exactly how much of a 

 discovery it is as yet; and this is to give notice that 

 I want you who love chickens to turn in and help 

 develop this new method of " forecasting " what a 

 pullet will do, without even a trap-nest. Of course 

 a trai>nest would be a help, but it is not absolutely 

 necessary. Astronomers predict the return of 

 eclipses, and they even forecast the visits of comets; 

 and now we are on the eve of a great discovery 

 whereby we can forecast the •200-egg hen while she 

 is yet a pullet. Some of you, no doubt, think you 

 have hens that lay an egg every day: but, if I am 

 right, there are very few hens that lay an egg ex- 

 actly every day. It takes most hens a little longer 

 than 24 hours to get up an egg. We will say it takes 

 a certain hen 27 hours (three hours more than a 

 day). Now suppose she lays an egg at 8 o'clock 

 Monday morning. Tuesday she will drop her egg 

 about 11 o'clock instead of 8; Wednesday, about 2 

 o'clock: Thursday, about 5 in the evening: and as 

 hens seldom lay after 5 o'clock she will probably 

 hold the next egg over night: and therefore on Fri- 

 day there will be a skip, or a day when there will be 

 no egg; but there would be an egg early on Satur- 

 day morning at perhaps 8 o'clock. Then if she is a 

 non-sitting Leghorn this might go on for a month or 

 more. I believe, however, the average laying hen 

 stops after she has laid some 20 or 30 eggs. Should 

 she happen to take a notion to sit, of course this 

 will make a break. 



Now, there are two points we want settled in this 

 business. First, does this laying hen outlined above 

 keep up her period of making an egg once in 27 

 hours as long as she lives— that is, when she lays 

 doesshe always get up an egg, when properly fed and 

 cared for, in about2~ hours? The inventor thinks she 

 does. Secondly, do all laying hens have a fashion 

 of laying an egg in about so many hours — some 27, 

 some 30, some 36, etc.? The hen that lays every other 

 day would, of cour.se. require about 48 hours to get 

 up a finished egg: and 1 think I have had hens that 

 laid only about once in three days.* Perhaps you 

 catch a glimpse from the above of what we are driv- 

 ing at. If hens really do generally follow the fashion 

 outlined in the above, I. am to give the inventor 

 8100 for the privilege of publishing it in Gleanings; 

 and I want all you who are interested to send me a 

 postal-card report in regard to the matter as soon as 

 you can. Mail your cards here to Medina if you can 

 get them off before November 1. After that date, 

 mail them to Bradentown, Fla. 



Later.— Since the above was dictated I happened 

 to remember that one of my employees, Mr. Mer- 

 win Spartord. kept tab on a hen of his two or three 

 years ago. that laid 197 eggs in 11 months. I hunted 

 him up. and the conversation was about as follows; 



" Merwin, do you remember the hen you had that 

 gave you almost 200 eggs inside of a year? Can you 

 tell now whether she laid an egg every day or for a 

 considerable period, and stopped, or about how it 

 went ? " 



" Oh! yes, Mr, Root. 1 remember very distinctly 

 that she laid two eggs and then skipped a day; two 

 more and another skip, and so on the greater part 

 of the time. When she wanted to sit, or when it 

 came moulting time, this, of course, threw her out 

 of her regular record. But the second year it was 

 just the same— two eggs and a skip, two eggs and a 

 skip: but she had longer resting-spells, and, of 

 course, did not lay as many eggs the second year." 



There you have it, friends. If a hen here in Me- 

 dina kept up that kind of regularity, and one or 

 more down in St, Augustine, Fla., followed the 

 same law. is it not extremely probable that the hens 

 all over the world have been doing it, perhaps, ever 

 since the time of Adam, and we have been so stupid 

 that none of us have noticed it till just before the 

 year 1912? 



• Our Ohio E.\periment Station had an exhibit at our recent 

 county fair. In that exhibit were life-sized pictures of two 

 Barred Rock hens. These were of the same age. looked ex- 

 actly alike, and had exactly the same care: yet one hen laid 

 198 eggs in a year, and the other one only 31. A placard read 

 something like this: ' How many 31-egg hens are you farmers 

 keeping year after year, and do not know it >. " You see this 

 ;U-egg hen laid only about once a week, and then she probably 

 took a good long rest while moulting, after which she started 

 out a^ain. taking about a iceek to get up an average-sized egg. 



