154 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[April, 
raised by women, was awarded to Mrs. Tay¬ 
lor, the mother of the late Bayard Taylor, 
who is in her eighty-second year. This shows 
that the raising of silk worms is an occupa¬ 
tion suited to the old as well as to the youug. 
Feeding Poultry; Raising Chicks. 
BY D. Z. EVANS, JB. 
One of the secrets of successful poultry 
raising is the art of feeding properly, not 
merely at regular intervals, but on the most 
suitable food, and keeping the chicks growing 
as rapidly as possible from the very start. It 
is very poor economy to stint the poultry, es¬ 
pecially young growing stock, for, when once 
stunted, it takes a long while to recover, if it 
does occur at all. For the first twenty-four 
hours after the chicks emerge from the shell, 
they should remain under the hen unmolested, 
both to dry and gain strength and hardiness. 
They do not require any food, as the store 
nature provides will last over this time. As 
the chicks hatch sometimes irregularly, the 
older ones can be cared for in the house un- 
Jil the others are ready to be taken away, 
when the hen and her brood can be removed 
to a roomy coop, with a tight-board bottom 
and a rain-proof roof. They should be fed 
five times daily, but only just what they will 
eat up clean. The first food should consist 
of stare bread moistened in water or in fresh 
milk—the milk is decidedly preferable. Do 
not ivet the food, as very moist or sloppy food 
will cause sickness and a high rate of mor¬ 
tality among young, tender birds. Keep the 
water (for drinking) away from them until 
they are six to eight weeks old, but if milk 
can be spared, give them occasional drinks 
Fig. 1.— STEPS IN A GRANARY. 
of it. The too lavish use of corn meal has 
caused more death among young chicks than 
has cholera among grown fowls. Until the 
chicks are half-grown, corn meal should 
be but sparingly fed, but after that time, 
when judiciously used, is one of the very 
best and cheapest foods for fowls and chicks. 
Nine-tenths of the young turkies and guinea- 
fowls, which die when in the “ downy” state, 
get their death blow from corn meal, as it is 
a very common practice (because it is so 
“handy,” and suits lazy people so well) to 
merely moisten, with cold water, some raw 
corn meal and then feed it in that way. 
Young chicks relish occasional feeds of 
cracked wheat and wheat screenings, while 
rice, well boiled, is not only greedily eaten 
by the chicks, but is one of the very best 
things that can be given. It frequently hap¬ 
pens that damaged lots of rice, or low grades 
of it, can be bought, at low figures, in the 
cities. As it increases so much in bulk in 
cooking, it is not an expensive food for young 
chicks, even at the regular retail price, 
though it would not, ordinarily, pay to feed 
it to full-grown fowls very liberally or very 
frequently. In the absence of worms, bugs, 
etc., during early spring, cheap parts of fresh 
beef can be well boiled and shreded up for 
the little chicks, but care must be taken not 
to feed more frequently than once in two 
days, and only then in moderation. This 
feeding on meat shreds is very beneficial to 
young turkey and guinea chicks when they 
are “shooting” their first quill feathers, as 
then they require extra nourishment to repair 
the drain on immature and weakly bodies. 
Granary Conveniences. 
BY L. D. SNOOK, YATES UO., N. Y. 
Portable Steps. —The better plan of con¬ 
structing grain bins is to have the upper 
front boards movable, that the contents may 
Fig. 2. —A SIEVE RACK. 
be more readily reached as they lessen. But 
as there are tens of thousands of granaries 
where the front bin boards are firmly nailed; 
a portable step, like that shown in figure 
1, is almost a necessity. It should have two 
steps of 9 inches each, and be 1 foot wide, 
and 2 feet long on top. It is light and is 
easily moved about the granary. 
A Rack for Sieves. —Every owner of a 
farm needs a few extra sieves, which, when 
not in use, are usually thrown in some cor¬ 
ner, or laid on a box or barrel to be knocked 
about and often injured by this rough hand¬ 
ling, besides being frequently in the way. A 
little rack, which may be readily made above 
one of the bins in the granary, as shown in 
figure 2, is convenent to put sieves out of 
the way, and keep them from injury. 
A Place for Grain Bags.— Grain bags are 
too expensive and valuable to be scattered 
about the buildings. A simple mode of 
securing them is shown, which is at once 
cheap and safe. In the ceiling over the bins, 
staples are driven about 4 feet apart, to 
which are attached pieces of wire 2 feet in 
length. To these wires is fastened a pole 5 feet 
in length, over which the bags are thrown 
when not in use, and they are then out 
of reach of mice from the bins and wall. 
Gumption on the Farm. 
PROM TIMOTHY BUNKER, E8Q. 
Mr. Editor. —I went down to Shadtown 
yesterday, to hold a court on a liquor case, 
and after court was over, stopped at Deacon 
Jehiel Johnson’s to get my horse shod. 
Deacon Jehiel, or Jiel as they call him for 
short, is one of the characters of Shadtown, 
and as good a sample of the sort of folks the 
Connecticut farm makes, as you will find in 
our eight counties. He is a farmer to begin 
with, and is not fairly out of the age of 
Homespun yet, for he produces almost every¬ 
thing that his family consumes or uses, that 
the soil and climate will mature. Then he is 
a carpenter, wheelwright, wagon maker, 
blacksmith, shoemaker, stone cutter, runs a 
saw-mill, and deals in lumber. And to top 
all, Deacon Jiel is a model citizen, a magis¬ 
trate, a school visitor, prominent in church 
affairs, plays the organ, cleans the pipes, 
regulates the sexton, and is ready for every 
good word and work. I found him, and Ms 
son Ike, at work, in the blacksmith’s shop 
ironing a sleigh. The shop was an open 
shed, which served the double purpose of 
smithy, and wagon house. In one corner 
was the forge and bellows. The forge was 
made of granite, taken from a stone wall, 
and laid up with mortar, by his own hands. 
The chestnut trough in front was dug out 
with his own tools, to hold water for cooling 
his iron, and tempering his steel. The anvil 
block grew on his farm, and was put in place 
many years ago with his own hands. He 
confessed to having bought the anvil, and 
the sledge and hammers, and the files, and 
the screw cutter, but the most of the tools 
he had made himself. He used to make his 
own charcoal, he said, until he found it less 
trouble to buy soft coal in the village, which 
answered the purpose rather better. He got 
into blacksmithing, he said, mainly to save 
time. He used to have to go three miles to 
a blacksmith’s shop, for every little job he 
wanted. If he needed a horse shod it would 
take a full hour to go and come, and some¬ 
times he had to wait an hour before his turn 
would come, and when the smith got at his 
horse, he would have to look on for nearly 
another hour, to see it done. It was pretty 
much in this way with all the jobs he wanted 
done. It set him to cyphering, and he cal¬ 
culated that he should save lots of time and 
money, in the run of a year, if he made him 
a forge under the shed, bought him some 
blacksmith’s tools, and did his jobs himself. 
He said that all the apprenticeship he ever 
had was just in looking on, and seeing how 
the blacksmith did his work, while he was 
waiting. After he had found out that he 
could do the common jobs he wanted done for 
himself, his near neighbors began to come to 
him for repairing and mending, and he had 
all the work he wanted for rainy days and 
odd spells. He said he took to carpenter’s 
tools when he was a boy, and did pretty ; 
much every tiling that was wanted in the 
way of making and mending wood work, 
before he was twenty-one. Pretty soon after ' 
he got started in business for himself, he 
thought he could make his own lumber for 
sheds and for repairing buildings if he had a 
saw-mill. He dammed a stream that ran 
idle through his pasture and started a mill, 
which had been a great convenience and a 
source of profit. It was much cheaper to cut 
his own logs, and saw them at home, than to 
