1907 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Ill 



of top soil, some one sowed sweet clover 

 there, and after a few years of sweet clover 

 other grasses have taken its place. The 

 sweet clover produces the humus to bring 

 about the result, and this spoils the soil for 

 its own growth. A. Chas. Armstrong. 

 Warner, N. Y., Aug. 17. 



And let fowl multiply in the earth.— Gen. 1:22. 



So God created man in his own image; in the image 

 of God created he him; male and female created he 

 them; and God blessed them, and God said unto them. 

 Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and 

 subdue it, and have dominion over the tish of the sea, 

 and over the fowl of the air. and over every living 

 thing that moveth upon the earth.— Gen. 1:27, 28. 



I don't suppose it ever occurred to you, 

 friends, that there was a chapter in the Bible 

 that particularly referred to the "chicken 

 business:" but here we have it, and it is the 

 very first chapter of all. Besides the verses 

 I have quoted, there is mention in three oth- 

 er places in this chapter (six in all) of the 

 feathered tribes; and. as you will notice, it 

 was God's will and plan that poultry should 

 "multiply," especially with man's assistance, 

 for he is in particular to "have dominion 

 over " them. 



Most of you are aware that I have all my 

 life had a leaning toward poultry. In fact, 

 my first hobby, and almost the first money I 

 ever earned, was with chickens. Well, my 

 enthusiasm has been recently kindled by sev- 

 eral things. One is that my daughter (Mrs. 

 Arthur L. Boyden, or "Blue Eyes" of thirty 

 years ago), with her two bright promising 

 boys, has recently got a regular craze for 

 chickens. The whole family, almost, talk of 

 nothing else, and read nothing else; and it 

 was a treat to me to look over with them the 

 beautiful new books and periodicals now de- 

 voted entirely to poultry. These books and 

 papers suggested making an experiment I 

 have had in mind more or less all the past 

 summer — viz., seeing what may be done in 

 the way of 



POULTRY - KEEPING ENTIRELY W^ITHOUT 



BUILDINGS OR STRUCTURES OF ANY 



KIND. 



I object to buildings, because, without very 

 great labor, they become sooner or later un- 

 tidy and uninviting, and, almost in spite of 

 you, harbor insects and disease-producing 

 contagion. And while I think of it I do not 

 know but that humanity as well as poult^ry 

 would escape a lot of ills if it moved out- 

 doors and stayed outdoors. I once had in 

 mind coops and nests made so cheaply they 

 could all be burned up once a year or 

 oftener. 



Well, about Dec. 1 I wrote my good friend 

 Shnmard here on our island to save every 

 sitting hen for me till I got around about 

 Dec. 15. A little later, when I began to re- 

 flect that my whole "enterprise" was going 

 to depend on unreliable sitting hens I began 

 to cast about for a cheap incubator that could 

 be made to sit when the owner was ready. 

 Of course this incubator was a departure 

 from strict "nature;" but when I saw an in- 

 cubator advertised that could be run outdoors 

 right down o?i the ground I sent for it foi'th- 

 with; and as it weighs only 10 lbs. I packed 

 it in my trunk without trouble. I reached 

 here Dec. 17, and found there was only one 

 sitting hen on the island, and the family had 

 been able to save only 41 eggs for my 50-egg 

 incubator. 



The weather had been exceedingly hot and 

 dry (no rain of any account for months), and 

 the hens simply wouldri't lay. I am told it 

 is hard to get them to lay here in summer. 

 The laying season in this climate is winter. 

 The directions with the incubator said, " Set 

 a hen if possible the day you start the incu- 

 bator, and roll the eggs, cool them off, etc., 

 just exactly (or as nearly as you can) as this 

 sitting hen does it." That commended it- 

 self to me at once, and I "made haste" to 

 get on good terms with that Brown Leghorn 

 sitting hen. I doubt if any of the young men 

 who first get an eye on a nice girl take more 

 pains than I did. Nnw listen! I gave the 

 hen 15 eggs, and the rest of the 41 to the in- 

 cubator, adding eggs every day as they were 

 laid until I had 51 in the machine. Well, 

 when we came to test them, on the seventh 

 day, there were eighteen of the 41 that had 

 been "saved up " that were not fertile. Ev- 

 ery egg that was taken from the nest as soon 

 as laid, and put into the incubator, proved 

 fertile. So much in favor of fre^ih eggs for 

 hatching. Three of the eggs under the sit- 

 ting hen were unfertile, so the fault was not 

 with incubator or management. We dated 

 the added eggs with pen and ink, and this 

 helped me to find out that unfertile eggs can 

 be detected as soon as the third day without 

 waiting until the seventh, as given in the di- 

 rections. It is true my old eyes are hardly 

 sharp enough to see the "spider web" so 

 early; but the sharp young eyes of the chil- 

 dren (Flossie and Clara) were a great help 

 in testing out rapidly. By the way, how 

 many of our rural people use an egg- tester 

 when setting hens? Why, it is just along 

 the line of our recent "corn talks. " We can 

 " count our chickens before they are hatched" 

 — at least in a measure, if we use our l)rains as 

 God intended we should use them to have 

 ' ' dominion, ' ' etc. I ran across a tremendous 

 illustration just now as follows: 



Some years ago Mr. Shumard procured a 

 choice male Plymouth Rock (as he supposed), 

 gave him to a nice flock of hens, and his good 

 wife started ten sitting hens with 15 eggs 

 each. Not a chicken hatched from all those 

 150 eggs. The male was no good. Now, all 

 this time, money, and disappointment <!Ould 

 have been saved in just three days with the 

 first hen that started to sit. We bee-folks 



