MAY 1, 1916 



375 



A. I. Root 



OUR HOMES 



Editor 



Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have 

 entered into the heart of man, the thiners whifh God 

 hath prepared for them that love him. — I. Cor. 2:9. 



Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. — Matt. 

 22:39. 



Thou God seest me. — Gen. 16:13. 



I suppose most of onr readers have 

 noticed an item in the papers concerning a 

 I'emarkable hen named Lady Eglantine^ 

 tliat laid 314 eggs in the year ending Oct. 

 31 at the Delaware Experiment Station. 

 Not only the agricultural papers but the 

 daily and religious joapers have been freo 

 to comment on the performance. The thing 

 that particularly got hold of me was the 

 statement that this hen was " manufactured 

 to order," if I may so use the term. For 

 some years past, INfr. Tom Barron, ofl 

 England, has been furnishing the laying 

 hens that broke the record in America. I 

 have for some time been urging that we 

 wanted hens to lay eggs, or at least a part 

 of us do. We did not care how they looked, 

 or whether they conformed to the standard 

 or not. We want them (to furnish human- 

 ity food — good and wholesome food — at a 

 reasonable price) not only for men, but for 

 women and children who love chickens. 

 George A. CosgTove, in the Bural New- 

 Yorker, says in regard to Mr. Barron : 



I frankly admit that Mr. Barron has not paid as 

 much attention to beauty as I wish he had; but the 

 great body of American poultrymen are far more 

 interested in having their hens lay an extra couple 

 of dozen eggs per year than in having their cocker- 

 els " carry their tails lovr." If he had so done, his 

 birds would not have been able to make a record for 

 egg-laying year after year in all the egg-laying 

 contests, that no man in the world has been able to 

 equal. 



It was the Rural New-Yorker, also, I 

 think, that said that Tom Barron and a 

 poultry expert in Maryland had been work- 

 ing together for some time past along the 

 line of the Mendel theory concerning the 

 laws of heredity ; and as a result of their 

 experiments they sent five hens to the Dela- 

 ware College. There are two points here 

 that will be of interest. The test was made 

 by the college, and was, therefore, of course, 

 unbiased. Secondly, she was one of five 

 furnished, and the other four made a record 

 well up toward the 300 mark. If the re- 

 sults were from a single hen we might 

 consider it a freak or an accident ; but if 

 four of the sisters proved also to be tre- 

 mendous layers, it begins to look as if the 

 poultry world had finally got hold of some- 

 tliing. 1 said to Mrs. Root one day that I 

 would give a dollar apiece for a setting of 

 eggs from Lady Eglantine; but pretty soon 

 the papers said the eggs were bringing five 



dollars apiece; later, ten dollars; and final- 

 ly the Christian Herald, in writing up Lady 

 Eglantine, said, " It is said that her eggs 

 sell for sixty dollars each." I soon ascer- 

 tained that this was a mistake; and, by the 

 way, I wish our periodicals, all of them, 

 when they begin to write up things out of 

 their regular line, would be a little more 

 sure that they are right. Submit the mat- 

 ter, for instance, to somebody who ought to 

 knoAv, or some one who is posted along the 

 line in question. Well, I finally wrote to 

 the owners of Lady Eglantine, and found 

 I could get one of her eggs, with fourteen 

 others thrown in, these latter being eggs 

 from her sisters, for $20.00; and, further- 

 more, they offer eggs from her sisters, or 

 hens nearly related to her, at only $2..50 per 

 15. In due time the eggs came by express 

 on a long trip away down to Florida; but 

 I was greatly disappointed to find, after 

 the seventh day, only three eggs that show- 

 ed clearly fertile, and I succeeded in hatch- 

 ing the three chicks. They came out about 

 the first of April. I wrote, explaining the 

 matter, and the company very courteously 

 expressed to me at once another setting. 

 From this setting I secured six lively 

 chicks, making nine in all. On Monday, 

 April 17, I put the nine chicks, three of 

 them three weeks old, and six about one 

 week old, into a market-basket, and sent 

 them by express to Medina. By the way, 

 I was gi-eatly pleased to find it cost only 69 

 cents. I suppose the express company was 

 figuring clown close because of the inroads 

 that parcel post has made 'on their ti'ade. 

 The chicks were on the route four days; 

 but they came to hand bright and lively, 

 and ravenously hungry for water and bread 

 and milk. I supposed I put sufficient 

 wheat, rolled oats, and grit in their basket 

 to last them; but it seems it did not hold 

 out. .lust now they are out in the bright 

 April sunshine here in Medina, making 

 explorations in every direction, and even 

 over on to the neighbors' premises. After 

 their long hours of being shut up, and espe- 

 cially the last day without food or water, 

 they appreciated the Ohio angleworm in a 

 way that I never saw chickens do before; 

 and I am about as happy as they are to see 

 them scamper about, helloing them out of 

 their troubles when they get into them. For 

 instance, a door was left open, and they 

 got in on the clean cement floor of our 

 basement. Mrs. Root not only had a time 

 in getting them out, but also in sweeping 

 up after them. 



