1906 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



369 



"WHAT TO DO, AND HOW TO BE HAPPY 

 WHILE DOING IT," 



I have been young, and now am old: yet have I not 

 seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging 

 bread.— Psalm 37: 25. 



Years ago I wrote a book with the above 

 title, and ever since then it has been to me 

 a great pleasure to point out to the unem- 

 ployed the various means of obtaining a 

 livelihood that God in his loving kindness 

 has provided for hi-; children. 



Once while travelirig, a real estate vender 

 who had been rather mquisitive finally ask- 

 ed if he might inquire what I was really 

 seeking in going over the world so much. I 

 told him 1 was looking up " God's gifts." 

 He stared at me, evidently wondermg if I 

 was not some new sort of crank. I tried to 

 explain, but I think he decided I was not the 

 chap he was after. 



Well, dear friends, I am still finding much 

 happiness and reward in looking up God's 

 gifts; and during the past few weeks I have 

 found something in this southern clime that, 

 while it amazes me, it fills my heart with 

 joy to think it is my privilege to share the 

 good news with you or many of you. On p. 

 236 of Gleanings for Feb. 15, 1906 I men- 

 tioned friend Shumard's 150 Buff Leghorn 

 fowls; and before I give them a write-up I 

 think we had better have a heading some- 

 thing as follows: 



POULTRY- keeping ON THE FLORIDA KEYS. 



My eye caught on to the poultry almost 

 the minute I landed; and as I took a shine to 

 them (and they to me, evidently) at once 

 ("love at first sight"), and have studied 

 and loved them every day since, I think I 

 know pretty well what I am writing about. 

 Now, the wonderful secret (it is a very 

 "open secret ") I am going to give the poul- 

 try-keepers of the world is this: Friend S. 

 has never invested one penny in buildings or 

 structures of any sort for his chickens, and 

 yet they are the healthiest and handsomest 

 flock of fowls I ever saw in my life. At 

 night they roost in the trees, and during a 

 storm they find shelter under the tropical 

 foliage all around them. Their greatest lack 

 seems to be a place to lay their eggs. It is 

 true they can make nests in the dense under- 

 brush all around them; but they have a great 

 fancy to get near the two dwellings on the 

 island, possibly because of the coons and some 

 other enemies that bothered them before 

 Mr. S. with his gim and steel traps banished 

 the foes, and here is one advantage of an 

 island. It is not a very big job to "clean 

 out" the "varmints." I mentioned their 

 preference for our tool-house as a place to 



lay. We thought at one time it wouldn't 

 do any great harm to let them use it; but 

 Mrs. R. soon declared that she would go 

 crazy if they must keep up such an everlast- 

 ing "celebrating" every time one of the 150 

 laid an egg. The cackling was " crescendo, ' ' 

 "staccato," but never " diminuendo " until 

 it had been echoed and re-echoed by every 

 one of the dozen males, and then given with 

 " variations " by all the females. I myself 

 had to admit I never before saw so much 

 enterprise and new " quirls " in the cackling 

 line. I suggested to my wife it was simply 

 their method of " praising God " for givmg 

 them this beautiful clime in which to be 

 "fruitful and multiply;" but she insisted 

 the "praise service" was altogether over- 

 done, especially as many of the young pul- 

 lets started all that cackling when they left 

 the nest without laying an egg at all. 



Now, I once had the "hen fever" when I 

 was a boy, and such cackling makes me hap- 

 py yet. The nice clean red-combed and 

 bright- eyed pullets seemed to "catch on" 

 to the fact that I admired them, and they 

 accordingly took greater liberties and cack- 

 led harder yet. If any kind of box was put 

 on the porch or brought on the premises, one 

 of the roosters, with a "delegation" of 

 hens, marched into it. Stoddard, in his 

 ' ' Egg- farm, ' ' had some complicated machin- 

 ery to get his fowls to "take exercise." If 

 he would just come down here he would 

 throw all his "machines" on the junk-pile. 

 As scratchers, I am sure they can challenge 

 the world. There isn't a green thing-, scarce- 

 ly, unless it is fenced up, nor a live thing 

 within an eighth of a mile of us in any di- 

 rection. When our good friend Poppleton 

 ^v^ote that piece about "ants" he did men- 

 tion poultry ; but why in the world did he 

 not say, ' ' If you have chickens enough there 

 will never be an ant, little or big, black or 

 red, or any other color, anywhere in that 

 region"? I could hardly believe it until one 

 day I found a nest of ants between two bot- 

 tom boards that, some way, were put under 

 a hive. One of my feathered friends that 

 are always near saw them as quickly as I 

 did. and the whole "outfit" was gobbled up 

 with a speed and precision that can come 

 only with long practice. Not a bug, moth, 

 nor any thing in the way of insect life can 

 escape the keen eye and swift foot of these 

 150 eager explorers. I have greatly feared 

 they would get after the bee?, but Mr. 

 Shumard had his five colonies up on a bench 

 with legs to guard against ants before he 

 had so many chickens, and the fowls can not 

 well reach them. Every thing in the line of 

 garden stuff must be fenced in with netting, 

 for they eagerly devour tomatoes, beets, 

 Irish potatoes, and everything except sweet 

 potatoes. It is the young tender shoots they 

 seem to care for most; and. although he has 

 half an acre or more of garden inclosed, he 

 has cleared and gotten ready to plant nearly 

 an acre on the other side of the house. My 

 own garden (one- eighth acre) is fenced with 

 two-foot netting; and this so far answers 

 every purpose. Of course, a two-foot fence 



