916 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 1 



Take the treatment before you go to bed at 

 night, and another early in the morning. 

 Spread out your toes and let the clover- heads 

 (wet with dew) pull through between them. 

 If this treatment does not make your feet 

 sweet and clean, and make them feel pleas- 

 ant all day long, your experience will be dif- 

 ferent from mine. Soaking them in hot wa- 

 ter, and washing them with soap, does not 

 come anywhere near giving the refreshing 

 results. 



Later. — I am sorry to be obliged to ac- 

 knowledge, friends, that since the above was 

 in print we have pretty good reason for con- 

 cluding that this new swarm that was doing 

 such a "land-office business" before any of 

 the others were stirring, was simply sending 

 bees back to the parent hive for supplies, the 

 hive they came out of being very heavy with 

 stores. This is the first case, exactly like it, 

 / have ever met, but our Mr. Wai'dell says 

 he has seen one transaction of the kind, 

 where he pinned them right down to it, so 

 there can be no mistake. So my fond antici- 

 pations of finding another $200 queen are 

 exploded. 



HIGH pre:ssure 

 GADDENING 



A.LI^OT 



SPROUTED OATS — THE $5.00 SECRET, ETC. 



The editor of PouUr'y Husbandry, in the 

 June issue, asks Mr. C. T. Hatch, of Water- 

 ville, N. Y., who has been remarkably suc- 

 cessful in his White Leghorn poultry-yards, 

 to give him a write-up of the duties of one- 

 single day in his extensive and successful 

 poultry-plant. Fi'om this very valuable re- 

 port I clip the following in regard to sprout- 

 ed oats: 



At one o'clock in the afternoon each day the hens 

 are Riven a feed of green oats. This food has proved 

 itself to be for us a most excellent egg-producer. It 

 serves as a green food all the year round, and the 

 fowls are extremely fond of it. The way this feed is 

 prepared is as follows: 



Take a quantity of clipped oats and soak them in 

 water for 24 hours. Then pour off the water and put 

 the oats in a pile in an ordinary box which has holes 

 in the bottom to let the water drain off. The oats are 

 watered with a sprinkling-pot night and morning, us- 

 ing very hot water— the hotter the better. As soon as 

 the oats begin to sprout we spread them out in the box 

 to the thickness of about two inches, and still contin- 

 ue to water them night and morning. In about ten 

 days or two weeks, depending upon how warm the 

 room is in which they are kept, they will be ready to 

 feed. When in the proper condition to feed, the sod 

 will be about three to four inches thick, and the 

 growth of the green feed on top of this will be about 

 six or eight inches high. We feed a block about six 

 or eight inches square of this to each pen of 25 fowls. 

 I have been using this feed throughout the winter, 

 and must say that my birds have never laid so well as 

 this winter. We have averaged a flfty-per-cent egg 

 production all winter long. This can be fed also to 

 young chicks, although it should be fed at a time 

 when the sprouts are an inch or two inches long. To 

 keep the oats from growing into stalk as it grows in 

 the field it is necessary to turn it once or twice a day. 



Thiff will make the sprout grow very long, and pre- 

 vent the stalk from starting. 



After this feed of sprouted oats we prepare the 

 day's shipments, eggs for hatching, market eggs, and 

 breeding stock. 



The reader will probably notice that we have allow- 

 ed no special time for watering the fowls. On the or- 

 dinary poultry-plant the watering of t^e fowls is a 

 part of the work that is most tiresome and takes the 

 longest time, especially in a big poultry-plant. To do 

 away with this really unnecessary drudgery we have 

 installed a watering system which provides running 

 water in each pen. The saving in labor soon pays for 

 installing sucq a system. We figure that on our 

 plant the saving in labor amounts to between twenty 

 and thirty dollars a month. 



This afternoon feed begins at 4 o'clock, winter and 

 summer. This consists of whole white corn scattered 

 in the litter, what they will eat up clean before they 

 go to roost. 



We figure that our total monthly feed-bill, includ- 

 ing beef scraps (coarse beef scrap is before the fowls 

 continually in hoppers), grit, oyster-shells, charcoal, 

 dry mash, and all, averages nine cents per laying fowl 

 per month, as nearly as we can figure it. 



The above account of the whole process of 

 sprouting oats is more elaborate, and better, 

 thao that given as a secret in the $5.00 book. 

 At present writing I am unable to say wheth- 

 er friend Hatch got his information from the 

 book or whether the author of the book got 

 it from friend Hatch. That would not par- 

 ticularly concern us just now. 



The above extract illustrates the folly and 

 injustice of selling secrets. Our Gleanings 

 readers ai'e perhaps well aware that I have 

 for years past been spending money in buy- 

 ing "secrets" in order to obtain valuable 

 information in regard to different rural in- 

 dustries; and after paying out hundreds of 

 dollars I can say, with our experiment sta- 

 tions, that nothing new or valuable ever 

 comes to the world in this way. Our class 

 journals and our good books very soon con- 

 tain every thing that is valuable; and in this 

 way thousands of people get information at 

 an insignitii-ant cost compared with the plan 

 of buying and selling secrets. Let me give 

 you some examples. 



A man advertised extensively a recipe for 

 artificial honey. He said it was equal to the 

 best honey made by the bees, and could be 

 produced for 4 cts. per lb. I sent him $1.00, 

 and found his great secret was copied from 

 Dr. Chase's recipe-book. 



Another man advertised a "natural-hen" 

 incubator — in fact, he is- still advertising It; 

 but I believe he has some sort of patent on 

 it, and advertises individual rights at $3.00 

 each. You will get for your $2.00 a single 

 sheet of paper, with the idea of giving every 

 sitting hen a little pen by herself (so that 

 other hens can not bother her) such as has 

 been described and illustrated in our agricul- 

 tural papers for years past, and is in com- 

 mon use more or less by all up-to-date poul- 

 try concerns. These single sheets of paper 

 could be sold at a good" profit for ten cents. 

 Of course, the vender puts a rubl)er stamp 

 on his advertising matter, and says if you 

 will remit inside of thirty days you can have 

 all the secrets for just an even dollar. 



There are still other books claiming to 

 give wonderful seci'ets, but you must first 

 sign a contract not to show the book to any 

 one, and keep it out sight of the neighbors, 

 etc. One such book claims to be able to tell 



