48 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[March, 1876. 



fits are men who devote their time and attention 

 strictly to the business, and do not expect the bees to 

 take entire care of themselves, and then yield a pro- 

 fit. It is said that the income of J. S. Harbison, the 

 great California honey magnate, derived from the sale 

 of surplus houey, is more than ^3.5, 000 per annum, 

 over and above all expenses. In the State of New 

 York, Capt. Hetherington, of Cherry Valley, sold 

 last year fifty-eight thousand pounds from his own 

 apiaries. Adam Grim, of Jefi'erson, Wis., as much 

 more. But perhaps a better idea will be conveyed by 

 more general figures. The seventy thousand bee- 

 keepers of this country own, on an average, a little 

 more than twenty-eight hives apiece, or in round 

 numbers, two millions in all. Twenty-two pounds of 

 honey to the hive is considered a reasonable yield of 

 surplus, worth twenty-five cents per pound, or 88,- 

 800,000 for the crop. The wax produced is estimated 

 at twenty million pounds, worth at least Jl(),0O0,O0O, 

 making the grand total revenue presented us by our 

 industrious little friends, annually, -S14, 800,000. We 

 annually export $1,200,000 worth of honey, and ?700,- 

 000 of beeswax. 



So much for what our honey crop is. That it may 

 be increased almost indefinitely, we have no doubt, 

 but it is a business which requires as much care to 

 insure success, as is needed in any other business. 



We would recommend to every farmer or gardener, 

 to keep a few bees; but we would caution him tliat 

 unless he will watch and study^ and care for them, 

 they will prove a dead loss. Kightly cared for, they 

 will make a very desirable addition to his income. — 

 Practical Farmer. 



A Large Poultry Yard. 



The Fancieri^^ Journal gives this account of the 

 largest poultry establishment in this country: "It is 

 at Greene, Chenango county, N. Y., and is kept by 

 Mr. A. B. KobesonT He has 6,000 ducks, 4,000 tur- 

 keys, and 1,200 hens. They consume daily sixty 

 bushels of corn, two barrels of meal, two barrels of 

 potatoes, and a quantity of charcoal. The meal, pota- 

 toes and charcoal are boiled together and form a pud- 

 ding, which is fed warm. He has commenced to kill 

 them olf, and employs fifteen hands to pick, two to 

 kill, and one to carry away and pack on racks until 

 frozen. Then they are ready to pack for shipping. 

 He also employs two men to cook the feed and feed 

 them. He has twelve buildings for his fowls, from 

 one to two hundred feet long, fourteen feet wide, and 

 seven feet under the caves, with a door in each end 

 of them. 



" Mr. Robeson bought most of his ducks in the 

 west, and had them shipped in crates — three dozen 

 in a crate. He also has an egg house, 3.5 by .50 feet, 

 and four stories high. The outside is eighteen inches 

 thick, and built of cut stone, laid in mortar, boarded 

 up on the inside and filled in between the outside and 

 inside wall with sawdust, it taking three thousand 

 bushels. .Mr. Kobeson claims that he can keep eggs 

 any length of time in this building. He also keeps 

 the poultry that he is now dressing until ne.xt Mayor 

 June, which he sells at eighteen to twenty-five cents per 

 pound, and it cannot be told from fresh dressed poul- 

 try. He gets ten cents perpound forturkeys' feathers, 

 twelve for hens', and sixty-five for ducks'. He says 

 there is money in poultry, and he thinks he can make 

 out of his 6,000 ducks enough to pay for his egg 

 house, which cost S7,000. He intends to keep a great 

 many more next season, and has agents all over the 

 country buying up poultry and eggs. 



How to Get Eggs in Winter. 



The American Agricnltiirisi, answering this ques- 

 tion, says : " With a warm shelter and suitable food, 

 pullets that begin to lay in the fall will continue to 

 lay through the winter. It is mainly a question of 

 feed. The staple feed is Indian corn, because it is the 

 most plentiful and the most convenient. It furnishes 

 plenty of fat, and keeps up the heat of the fowls, but 

 is poor in albumen and the phosphates. They want a 

 variety of grains and vegetables, and, to do their best, 

 one feed daily of warm cooked meal and vegetables. 

 Most farmers have milk, and if this can be added it 

 will be all they need. Butchers' scrap cake is good, 

 and may safely be kept in the poultry yard where the 

 fowls can help themselves at pleasure. Boiled pota- 

 toes or turnips, mashed and mixed with Indian meal, 

 make an excellent feed lor laying hens. Fowls are 

 particularly fond of cabbages and turnips at all stages 

 of their growth, and eat them raw greedily every day, 

 if they can get them. We have found so good results 

 from feeding cabbages to laying hens, that we always 

 lay in a large supply for winter. Refuse from the 

 butchers, and offal from the fish market, also furnish 

 good material for making eggs. These are accessible 

 to most villagers, and can be had at small cost. A 

 hen is only a machine for producing eggs. If you 

 want the finished product you must put the raw ma- 

 terial into the hopper. It should not be forgotten that 

 there is a liberal grinding going on in the gizzard, and 

 the laying bird should have free access to gravel with 

 sharp grit, broken oyster and clam shells, which as- 

 sist in reducing the grains and forming egg-shells. 

 With the plentiful supply of egg-producing food hens 

 will lay well in winter, when eggs bring the highest 

 price." 



Small Potatoes for Seed. 



Says a correspondent : I have made an experiment 

 the past season, the result of which, I think, explodes 

 the theory that small potatoes for seed will only re- 

 turn a small crop of small potatoes. Cut seed planted 

 under our burning July sun is sure to rot, while the 

 use of whole potatoes involves considerable expense. 

 A square of ground containing 3, .500 square feet, 

 from which a crop of cauliflower had recently been 

 taken, was prepared and planted, July 13th, with 

 white Peachblow culls. Few of them, if any, 

 were larger than pigeon eggs. As is always the case 

 here, some of them failed to grow, say five per cent. 

 The plants began to show themselves early in August, 

 at which time heavy rains set in and so continually 

 saturated the soil that no working was possible until 

 Septemljer ■5th. Then a plow was run through the 

 rows and a dressing out with a hoe was given them. 

 Soon after the vines so covered the ground that further 

 cultivation was impossible. The patch was harvested 

 October 30th. The product was a fraction over 

 twenty bushels of the finest potatoes ever grown in 

 this section. With the exception of two and a half 

 pecks of small potatoes, about the size of the seed 

 sown, all are large. Fully one-h.alf average one 

 pound each in weight, and the remainder are of full 

 marketable size and fine appearance. This yield was 

 at the rate of 3.50 bushels per acre. A heavy coat of 

 barnyard manure was applied to the previous crop, 

 but no additional fertilizer was used. 



Care of Lambs. 



Sheep should be closely watched in order that the 

 lambs may be taken proper care of and receive any 

 necessary assistance immediately afterbirth. More 

 lambs die when less than twelve hours old than at any 

 other time, and if the farmer wishes to increase the 

 number of his sheep, he must watch his flock very 

 closely until the lambing season is past. Unless the 

 new born lambs receive prompt attention there is dan- 

 ger that they will get chilled and live but a very short 

 time. If the sheep have been well fed, and are kept 

 in a warm place, almost every lamb can be saved, 

 and without any great amount of trouble. A few 

 minutes' attention at the right time may save the life 

 of a lamb, which in a few months, and a small ex- 

 pense, can be made worth several dollars. At lambing 

 time the sheep should be closely watched, and if any 

 lambs are dropped which are unable to take care of 

 themselves, they should be assisted. After they have 

 sucked a few times they will generally get along very 

 well. Not only should the sheep be looked to during 

 the day, but also in the evening, as feeble lambs which 

 are dropped at that time will not be likely to live until 

 morning. It is certainly very poor policy to let a lamb 

 die for wantof the little care which wouldsave its life. 



Correctives in Feeding Poultry. 



Two admirable correctives, for use in poultry feed- 

 ing, may he found in charcoal and Cayenne pepper, 

 judiciously provided and not given too often, to both 

 young and old fowls. The best way to administer 

 these condiments efficaciously, is to pulverize the char- 

 coal to a powder and mix it with soft food. In this 

 shape the birds eat it freely, and it is a grand purifier 

 of the system. The Cayenne should be procured of 

 the best quality (always the cheapest in the end), and 

 a tahlesi)Oonful should be thoroughly mixed through 

 a pail of water and given them to drink. This last 

 method is an admirable preventive of gapes in chickens, 

 and for older fowls it is found an excellent thing in 

 cold or chilly weather. 



Neither of these aids should he used oftener than 

 every other day in the week, and only for a week or 

 two at a time, any way to be effective , but if managed 

 with discretion they are more valuable, as a common 

 preventive to disease, and a corrector to the internal 

 composition of domestic poultry, than all the medi- 

 cines that can be given fowls after they once get sick. 

 Both charcoal and Cayenne can thus be easily very 

 used, and after a little while, it will be found that 

 the chickens become fond of this change for their 

 benefit . — Fanciem^ Jonntal. 



A Profitable Experiment. 



A correspondent of The I'wiiltry Xation having be- 

 come thoroughly disgusted with the purchase of stale 

 and spoiled eggs, resolved to keep hens enough to 

 supply the family with fresh ones, and with this ob- 

 ject in view he fenced off a small yard, 30x.50 feet, 

 and in one corner he built a coop 8x10 feet, and 8 feet 

 high in front and 6 in the rear. It faced the south 

 and east. One New Year's day, 1874, he went to 

 the market and purchased eight hens and one rooster 

 for 84.30. Taking them home and putting them in 

 the coop with the run of the yard, he fed them all 

 the wheat screenings they would eat and w'hat water 

 they wanted. They commenced to lay at once, and 

 he kept a correct account of all the eggs, also the 

 cost of feed. In January he got 31 eggs ; February, 

 91; March, 129; April," 123; .May, 98; June, 93; 

 July, 46 ; August, .54 ; .September, 19 ; October, 13 ; 

 November, 20 ; December, 29 ; total number of eggs 

 for the year, 744 — 62 dozen. He also raised 43 

 chickens. 63 dozen eggs, at 30 cents, 812.40 ; 43 

 chickens, at 50 cents,''821..50 ; 9 old fowls, 84.30; 

 total $38.20. Feed for the year, 818.44 ; 9 old fowls, 

 ?4.30 ; total, $33.74. Profit, 815.46, 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



The London Garden, published by Wm. Robin- 

 son, London, is the most complete weekly epitome of 

 horticulture and pomological facts published in either 

 continent. Each issue now contains a full-page col- 

 ored plate, executed in the highest stvle of the art. 

 Price, $8.66, in gold. 



W. A. Burpee's Catalogue of High-Class 

 Land and Water FovrLS. — A little 12 mo. illus- 

 trated pamphlet of 20 pages. It contains pictures of 

 fifteen of the leading varieties of chickens, ducks and 

 pigeons, and brief descriptions or notices of over forty 

 varieties. In the matter of "Fancy Pigeons" we 

 "outside barbarians" are able to form very meager 

 opinions from the names alone. We may instance 

 Pouters, Carriers, Barbs, Owls, Turbits, Jacobins, 

 .Archangels, Fantails, Bald-head Tumblers, Short- 

 faced Tumblers, Inside Tumblers, Outside Tumblers, 

 Booted Tumblers, Big-eye Tumblers, Black-crested 

 Tumblers, .Magpies, Swallows, Nuns, Moor-caps, 

 Priests, Quakers, Trumpeters, Runts, Dutchies, Hom- 

 ing Antwerps, Short-faced Shows, and many others 

 " too numerous to mention." 



Of course, we are too verdant to appreciate the 

 highest aims of " colombo-culture," but we presume 

 there must be something useful in it. Things are not 

 to be valued according to the appreciations of any 

 one set of men, or we should have a very prosy and 

 onesided world. Variety is the spice of the life of 

 anything, and especially in gallinoculture, columbo- 

 culture, or any other kind of culture; and anyone 

 who desires to engage in them, to any extent, will do 

 well to consult this little catalogue, and then call 

 upon Mr. Burpee personally, without going any 

 farther, or address him at Philadelphia. 



Pacific Rural Press. — This is the title of a royal 

 quarto journal, published by Dewey & Co., San 

 Francisco, California, in the interest of agriculture, 

 horticulture, and miscellaneous affairs. It has six- 

 teen pages of four columns each, well filled with ap- 

 propriate reading matter on a variety of subjects ; 

 and, like every other thing of that far-off region, it is 

 gotten up on a large and most magnificent scale, as 

 to quantity and quality. The embellishments are 

 superb, from its ornamental head down to its last ad- 

 vertisement. On the first page is a fine illustration, 

 the " New Grange Headquarters," a beautiful three- 

 story building, built of brick and cut stone, in the 

 highest architectural stj'le of art, and very substan- 

 tial. Although its columns are replete with choice 

 literary and domestic matter, yet it devotes a large 

 space to the interests of the Patrons of Husbandry, 

 both statistical, local and historical — indeed the mag- 

 nificent building it illustrates is covered with such 

 signs as the " Grangers' Bank," "Farmers' Mutual 

 Fire Insurance," "State Grange," "Granger's Busi- 

 ness Association," "Grange Buildings," "Country 

 E. Association," &c., &c., indicating that the Grange 

 in the " Golden State," has attained a status that is 

 seen and felt. We almost envy the public spirit that 

 can produce such evidences of progress, and could 

 heartily wish that the farmers of Lancaster county 

 might be infused with a little of the enterprise that 

 distinguishes the Pacific coast, in its institutions and 

 its enterprises. 



Lepidoptera, Rhopaloceres and Hetero- 

 oeres. — Indigenous and exotic, with descriptions and 

 colored illustrations, by Herman Strecker. Read- 

 ing, Pa. 1876. Quarterly .50 cents per part. This is 

 a quarto serial, commenced January, 1872, and is is- 

 sued as above, and in plain English is simply an il- 

 lustrated and descriptive history of butterflies and 

 moths. It is published at such a low price, compared 

 with other scientific works on the same subject, that 

 every institution of science, literature and learning, 

 ought to patronize it, if not every literary man, who 

 pays any attention at all to the subject of natural his- 

 tory, and especiallytothatof entomology. The author 

 and publisher of this work, is, in some respects, an 

 extraordinary man. We have heard of him almost 

 from his very boyhood, and have corresponded with 

 him, but never have had the pleasure of a personal 

 interview. Lepidopterology seems io \vii\e become a 

 second nature to him, and he cannot forgo it, any 

 more than a duck can water. His collection is en- 

 riched by 50,000 specimens of native and foreign but- 

 terflies and moths, and comparatively speaking he is 

 still a ?/0H^if7 man. We have received part 13 of his 

 work, issued in January last, and in our opinion it ex- 

 cels any that he previously issued, and they are all 

 good, containing 18 colored figures and descriptions 

 ofthatmany species of the family Sphingid.e (Hum- 

 ming-Bird and Hawk Moths) . Mr. Strecker makes 

 all his drawings from nature, lithographs them him- 

 self, and colors them by his own hands. But this is 

 not all; he writes out all his own descriptions, giving 

 their bibliography, and sets up his own letterpress. All 

 that is done outside of his own manipulations is the 

 printing. L'nder these circumstances the representa- 

 tions must be as accurate as the objects before him, 

 or as nearly so as human skill can make them. He 

 also occasionally finds time to step aside and note 

 what is going on elsewhere in the world of entomolog- 

 ical authorship, and to express opinions that are some- 

 times anything but complimentary to the " notions" 

 of others, in which he exliibits originality, or inde- 

 pendence at least. 



