March, 1917 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



219 



they were not suppressed and stamped out of ex- 

 istence lonff ago. They have numhered their victims 

 by the million, and the foolish faith reposed in their 

 nostrums by both real and imasjinary invalids has 

 cost many lives that might have been saved by 

 proper treatment, to say nothing of the multitudes 

 wlio have liocome slaves to drugs and alcohol. Tlie 

 Cliri.stian Herald has always been in active sympathy 

 with the movement to suppress these fakirs, re- 

 garding their traffic as immoral, unscientific, and 

 wliolly fraudulent. It' tlicy can now Ic excluded, not 



only from the mails but from the I'olumns of the 

 country newspapers, their source of revenue will 

 be cut off and they will .=oon disappear — a riddance 

 upon which the country is to be congratulated. 



A lioai'ty amen to the above, taken from 

 the Christian Herald, especially if it in- 

 cludes all advertisements that try to make 

 out that booze is ever, under any circum- 

 stances, a medicine. 



POULTRY NEWS 



THE EGLANTINE CHICKS. 



I have told you about the chicks I raised 

 in Ohio, about the getting of them down 

 liere, etc. Well, if this strain of Leghorns 

 are going to lay in 4 or 5 months, I figured 

 that if I could save up enough eggs to start 

 an incubator, say in November, I could tlien 

 have pullets laying- (at least to some ex- 

 tent) before we sitart back north, say 

 about May 1st. Therefore I saved up 6 

 dozen eggs, packed them in a valise in bran, 

 and carried them with me on the train, and 

 managed to avoid breaking a single egg. 

 Now let us go back a little. About the time 

 I began saving up these eggs, friend Abbott 

 wrote me a man wanted to buy my small 

 Buckeye incubator. Mr. Abbott has been 

 using it for a year or two and altho he has 

 two or more machines that cost a lot more 

 money, if I am right, the greater part of 

 his thousand or more chickens were hatch- 

 ed in the little Buckeye. His remarkable 

 success with it is Avhy the man wanted to 

 buy it. On p. 1042, Nov. 1st issue, I told 

 you of my visit to Spring-field. Well, while 

 there I visited the Buckeye factory. I was 

 not only a.stonished at the volume of their 

 business but also as well at the wonderfully 

 fine workmanship of their work in wood 

 and metals. I got hold of a lot of points 

 on hatching eggs that were new to me, and 

 I ordered sent to Florida one of their latest 

 small incubators, and a brooder stove to 

 match. Here is one point : Their smallest 

 and cheapest machine will do just as good 

 work, and hold as many eggs, as a much 

 higher-priced one. Some people prefer to 

 pay more for style, ornaments, etc., but I 

 don't. Their cheapest machine is handsome 

 enough for me. 



Well, when we started for Florida my 6 

 dozen eggs were some of them about a month 

 old; they were all from pullets only 6 or 7 

 months old, and they had to stand a ship- 

 ment of about 1500 miles. Altlio the new 

 machine worked beautifully, only 27 of the 

 72 eggs proved fertile, and of these 27 we 



got only 18 chicks. Two of the 18 had 

 to be helped out of the shell, and one came 

 from an egg that was not even pipped. I 

 made a small opening near his bill (on the 

 Pliilo plan), let him breathe about 24 liours 

 and then helped him clear out, and now 

 when the flock is over 3 weeks old I can't 

 tell the ones I helped out of the shell from 

 the others. 



Well, it wouldn't pay to start the brooder 

 stove for only 18 chicks. This is what I did. 

 I found a rock where the men had been 

 blasting, about as big as I could carry. It 

 would just go into the kitchen stove oven. 

 During- the cold days in November it cost 

 nothing to get this stone hot. When it 

 would almost burn the paper I tied it 

 upon heavy paper, then outside of that 

 wrapped it with clean empty grain-sacks. 

 A barrel was laid on its side, some sticks 

 l^ut across, and the wrapped-up stone laid 

 on the sticks. It kept hot 48 hours, when 

 we had our coldest weather. One or two 

 nights I put more sacks over the outside of 

 the barrel, and spread oilcloth over all 

 when it rained. Why does anybody want a 

 better brooder for, say, 2 or 3 dozen chick- 

 ens'? They spread out on some soft straw 

 under that hot stone, and when too warm 

 they came out in front. A barrel - hoop 

 covered with poultry - netting kept out 

 prowlers nights. The hot stone was needed 

 only about a week or 10 days; after that, 

 only some blankets over the cross - sticks. 

 Before they ever saw a mother hen they 

 could scratch, fly, and run like a flock of 

 quails. They have now, at a little over 3 

 weeks old, the run of the garden, and they 

 follow Wesley in his spading under the 

 matted vines of velvet beans, from daylight 

 till dark. Sometimes it is critkels they get, 

 but oftener grubs, cut - worms, and other 

 pests; and not a spadeful is turned over and 

 ))ulverized without careful insi?ection from 

 18 pairs of Avonderfully keen little eyes. 

 AVho knows how much this has to do with 

 our beautiful thrifty garden just now? 



