48 



tHE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[March,] 



be 6ub6tituled, and then a Wyandotte. Entirely new 

 blood from different breeds will thus be introduced 

 annually, invigorating the flock and improving it in 

 all respects, but only pure-bred males should be 

 used. A dash of Brahma blood, now and then, 

 keeps up the size, but too frequent use of Brahma 

 cocks conduces to legginess of the growing chicks, 

 though the adults may be compact. The crossing 

 with a Plymouth Rock cock every alternate season 

 would not do harm ; for heavy weight of chicks 

 smaller breeds should be avoided, as they transmit 

 their qualities to their offspring very strongly. Those 

 who breed chicks for market would do well to make 

 use only of the special breeds for the purpose, as 

 very often the profit expected may depend entirely 

 upon such judicious management of the flock. First 

 select well, and then feed well. — American Agricul- 



Fowls Must Have Green Stuff. 



It must not be forgotten that our poultry need 

 some sort of green food at all seasons of the year. 



In winter we can give them cabbages or chopped 

 turnips and onions from time to time ; short, late- 

 dried hay (or rowen) is very good for a change ; 

 corn-stalk leaves chopped flne, they will eat with a 

 relish. 



In early spring-time, when the ground first softens 

 from the frost, pasture sods thrown into their pens 

 will be ravenously eaten by them ; and as soon as 

 the new grass starts (unless they have free access to 

 th( fields or lawn) they should be supplied with this 

 excellent succulent daily. For the young chickens 

 notling is so beneficial and so grateful as a run upon 

 the Lewly grown grass ; and next to this indulgence 

 they ihould have an ample supply of cut or pulled 

 grass wery day. 



But )f course while Jack Frost bears sway " this 

 sort ol truck" is out of the question. Some careful 

 poultry keepers sprout oats in boxes of earth, and 

 allow ch lice birds to pluck the tender blades. The 

 common Swedish turnip and the carrot are excellent 

 for winttr green poultry feed, and probably the 

 most available and the cheapest vegetables that can 

 be procured. If the fowls do not "tackle kindly" 

 to them, when offered in a raw state, cook and mash^ 

 and mix wit \ bran and am\.— Co operative Poultry 

 Post. 



bility of their sons undertaking the work of poultry 

 raising as a business. We have sometimes replied to 

 these communications privately, and are knowing of 

 several instances where our recommendations in 

 favor of this project for young men have been adopt- 

 ed, and, we are happy to add, have been successfully 

 prosecuted by parties who have gone about this 

 work sensibly and in earnest, as we advised. We 

 still often have before us similar appeals, which we 

 briefly answer, as follows : 



The young men whose friends now ask us " if they 

 begin this business upon a moderate investment of 

 capital, can it be made to pay them by close atten- 

 tion and care," we answer yes, provided the young 

 men have sufficient knowledge of the better methods 

 in vogue for handling such live stock. If they have 

 not, then we advise them to read up and study a lit- 

 tle before commencing upon too large a scale. And 

 when they shall have made some acquaintance with 

 the details of the work they embark in, they can 

 go forward with good hopes of success. 



Our advice is, always buy books and subscribe to 

 poultry papers before buying fowls or building poul- 

 try^ houses. Our hooks entitled " An Egg Farm," 

 price 50 cents, and " How to Raise Poultry on a 

 Large Scale," 25 cents, will save their cost twenty 

 times over, if read and " inwardly digested." 



There is yet more reading matter that we are pre- 

 paring for the benefit of the young men to whom 

 this article is devoted. We shall begin in the Poul- 

 try World for March a series of "Poultry Farm 

 Papers," by W. H. Rudd, of South Scituate, Mass., 

 proprietor of the Orrocco Poultry Farm, which has 

 been in successful operation for twelve years. This 

 series of papers will be valuable beyond price to any 

 one contemplating raising poultry and eggs for 

 market on a large or small scale. 



LITERARY AND PERSONAL. 



Coal Ashes for the Dust-Box. 



Though road dust composed largely, as it is, of 

 comminuted gr vnite, is perhaps the most effectual 

 destroyer of ver.nic that can be placed in the fowl's 

 dusting box, it sometimes happens that undue ne- 

 glect on your part in securing it early, or the unex- 

 pected and peremptory setting in of winter, prevent 

 your having any on hand, and then the next best 

 thing must be procured as a substitute. Some re- 

 commend wood-ashe.i, and perhaps if it could always 

 be kept free from moisture, it might serve the pur- 

 pose ; but when it becomes damp, a caustic lye is 

 formed, injurious to the eyes, mouth and feet of the 

 fowls, and it is therefore unfit for use, though possi 

 bly a very small portion mixed with sand, which 

 may be attainable even in winter, would not be ob- 

 jectionable. 



Coal-ashes are really the best substitute, as they 

 are not only free from caustic qualities, but contain 

 burnt slate and other kinds of pure earthy matter, 

 which the fowls like to scratch for and devour. 



Even if your dust bin is properly filled with suit- 

 able earth, coal-ashes, when attainable, is an addi- 

 tion to the general arrangements of your fowls" 

 quarters, which should not be neglected. TaKen 

 from the stove they are necessarily dry, a very de- 

 sirable point in winter ; and In case of accidental 

 lack of supply for egg-shells, x'arious bits of silica 

 and other inorganic matter ca \ be gathered from 

 them to furnish the needed elements, and they ar^ 

 thus of value in more than one .'irection.-— Pottid-J/ 

 Post. 



Poultry Raising for Yoi. ng Men. 

 The editor of the Co operative Pc Utry Post says : 

 We frequently receive letters from j, irents in differ- 

 ent parts of the country, asking advlM upon the feasL 



The Lite Stock Mosthlt, with the motto, "We 

 lead all, but follow non§." (Such a motto per se 

 may be nothing very specially of which to boast, as 

 it may savor altogether of self-sufficiency, and in 

 spirit may antagonize the admonition uttered 

 " long, long ago," by one who spake, as 

 never man spake, "Follow Me") is pub- 

 lished at Portland in the State of Maine, at one 

 dollar a year. A royal-quarto of 16 pages, in tinted 

 embellished covers, and splendidly illustrated. 

 When we say splendidly, we mean no empty compli- 

 ment—those dappled roadsters on the first page of 

 the March number (1884) look, " for all the world" 

 as if they were about passing off the paper page- 

 but a deserved recognition of the delineator's art^ 

 that recalls the best efforts of Rosa Boneure. The 

 quality, the make up, the letter press, and the liter- 

 ature, are all of the better class ; a creditable repre- 

 sentative of the specialty to which it is devoted, 

 " Come to the old pine tree." 



Report upon the numbers and values of farm 

 animals : On certain causes affecting wages and 

 farm labor, and on freight rates of transportation 

 companies. Fifty-six pages octavo, Department of 

 Agriculture, Division of Statistics, February, 1884. 

 Fifth annual descriptive and illustrated catalogue 

 of small fruits, grapes, etc.; 20 pp. 8 vo., hand- 

 somely illustrated, spring 1884, Newark, Wayne 

 county, N. Y. 



Improved Apparatus and Supplies for Cheese 

 Factories, Creameries and Dairies; Child & Jones, 

 Utica, N. Y.; established in 1865; square octavo of 

 56 pages, profusely illustrated. If anything were 

 necessary to illustrate the progress of the period, in 

 the manufacture of cheese and its corelatives, it 

 might be found in this catalogue. Here are enum- 

 erated, figured and described, nearly a hundred 

 different implements— from a 75 cent "cheesetrier" 

 up to a $.500 steam engine, with any number of 

 pans, churns, presses, &c., &c., as intermediates; 

 with an additional list of chemicals, employed in the 

 manufacture of " Butler and cheese and I." And 

 yet many people arc eighing, sorrowing and yearn- 



ing, for a return of the " good old times" — Emo- 

 tional vanity. 



Female Hygiene and Female Diseases.— By J. 

 K. Shirk, M. D., member of the Lancaster City and 

 County Medical Society. 107 pp. demi-oetavo, in 

 handsome muslin binding. Published by the Lan- 

 caster Publishing Company, Lancaster, Pa. " Know 

 thyself," is just as legitimate, as essential, and as 

 imperative in its application to the physical, intellec- 

 tual and moral condition of a woman, as it is to that 

 of a man — indeed it is a very doubtful whether any 

 intelligent being can wilfully disregard this old man- 

 date without involving themselves in at least physi- 

 cal criminality, and most certainly in a life of physi- 

 cal suffering. This excellent little work is divided 

 into sixteen appropriate chapters, each pertaining to 

 the different phases of female diseases, and briefly 

 treated in plain language, as much as possible, 

 divested of mere scientific technology ; so that even 

 " those who run may read," and not only read, but 

 understand. The older we become the more we feel 

 the conviction that the world will never become 

 physically and morally regenerated, until it becomes 

 so through the instrumentality of morally and 

 physically educated wives and mothers. As a gen- 

 eral proposition it is questionable whether the moral 

 and physical relations existing between mothers and 

 daughters has advanced much lieyond what it was 

 one hundred years ago, and the same may be said of 

 their domestic and social relations. There is perhaps 

 not a really intelligent mother in the land who does 

 not see and acknowledge this, after age and experi- 

 ence has crept upon them, and when it is too late to 

 rectify the blindness and the derilictions of their 

 early lives. But, " it is never too late to learn ;" 

 and if, through prejudice and false modesty, they 

 have failed to properly educate their daughters, it 

 may not be too late to apply themselves to their 

 granddaughters, and as an auxiliary to that end we 

 know nothing more suscinct and comprehensive 

 than the little volume we have under review. The 

 mind that is too impure to peruse this little work, is 

 certainly " fit for stratagem, for treason, and for 

 spoils." All that is required is to elevate the mind 

 of the reader above that morbid sentimentality, 

 which too extensively prevails, even among those 

 well instructed on other subjects, entirely ignoring 

 the moral maxim, that " to the pure all things are 



pure, 



' and. 



* blessed are the pure in heart, for they 



shall see God." 



The Northwestern Farmer.— A monthly jour 

 nal for the farm, orchard, and household; Fargo, 

 Dakota, March 1, 1884; a royal-quarto of sixteen 

 pages, finely illustrated in live stock subjects, and 

 rich in local and eeneral agricultural and domestic 

 literature. We can scarcely realize that Dakota ha 

 become the great bread producer of the country, and 

 seeming to appreciate the divine maxim that " man 

 cannotlive by bread alone," she is in the effort to 

 produce some of those other things which equally 

 proceed from the divine energies. Fargo, Dakota- 

 neither of which had " a local habitation and 

 name" (save in the traditional lore of the tawny 

 sons of the forest), a hundred years after Lancaster 

 was recorded as the largest inland town on the 

 northern continent, before many years may become 

 the provider in chief, of our "daily bread." B 

 Published by Edward A. Webb, No. 15 Seventeenth 

 street, at ?1 a year ("invariably in advance.") 



Report of the State Board of Agricclturb 

 for 1883. 383 pages royal octavo, with indices of 

 subjects and of authors, and liberally illustrated ; 

 containing the addresses, essays, and other papers 

 read before the society during the year, and a syn- 

 opsis of the discussions had thereon, together with 

 tabulated meteorological records of the year, a list 

 of the county and local agricultural societies through- 

 out the State, with names and addresses of their 

 secretaries, and dates of holding fall exhibitions ; 

 from which we are informed that sixty-five local and 

 county fairs were held in Pennsylvania during the 

 year 1883. Other counties either held no fairs, or 

 made no report. Also a tabulated analysis of fer- 

 tilizers issued by the Board of Agriculture, from 

 March to December, 1S83, and also for the same 

 period in 1882, from which we learn that the Board 

 has had 813 analysis of different fertilizers made 

 under its auspices, which, had it done nothing more, 

 would be ample compensation to the agricultural 



population for the meagre 



nount it has cost them. 



The quality and mechanism of the work are superior. 



