4*48 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[December, 
farming arc absurd, and ought to be avoided by 
a simple exercise of common sense on the part 
of farmers themselves. If we will make a 
resolution not to change the system of our 
business with each change of the market (and, 
having made it, will stick to it), we may be sure 
of a good average result. Those who are con¬ 
stantly changing lose in a panic more than they 
make in a rise. It is the steady goers that win 
in the end. It is all very well to say that you 
can’t afford to winter cattle that you could only 
sell in the fall for half their value. Unless you 
are obliged to sell, you need pay no attention to 
the price, but quietly wait until they will sell 
for their real value. Cattle will not go out of 
fashion in our day, nor will they ever, for many 
months, together, sell for less than they have 
cost to raise: so, when they get down to low- 
water mark, as they now are, it is the wisest 
plan to take good care of them and have them 
in condition to sell when the reaction comes 
and they will fetch more than they are worth. 
The spasms that attend the business of cattle- 
growing are still more marked in the case of 
swine. These are slaughtered so unmercifully, 
and their breeding is so much suspended when 
they get*below a certain price, that they are 
quite sure, within a year or two, to rise far 
beyond their real value; then the extraordinary 
price stimulates an excessive over-production, 
and this in its turn brings on a depression. Of 
course, we can not do much to counteract this 
tendency, but if we are shrewd we can do 
something toward profiting by the rise, without 
losing too much by the fall. My plan would be 
to keep always on hand a certain number of 
breeding sows, and to keep them breeding as 
steadily as possible. After each period of high 
prices, when jt began to be eyideqt that tJjQ 
Change was coming, I would sell the pigs as 
“ roasters” at six weeks old, and sell them for 
wliat they would fetch. If no one wanted them, 
I would kill them as fast as the sow’s 
health would allow, and in either case would 
let her take the boar again as soon as she 
would. After a few months of such prices as 
are now prevailing, when everybody is “ going 
out of pork,” and when it is selling for less than 
the cost of production, I would commence to 
save all my litters and to raise every thrifty pig 
I had, even if I had to buy feed for them. In 
this way I should feel quite sure of meeting a 
reaction that would enable me to sell my whole 
product at much more than an average price. 
Especially would it be well to have a good stock 
of young breeding sows for sale, as the demand 
for these is always very active after the price 
gets well up again. 
I have been annoyed more than once, when 
I have spoken of the price at which I have sold 
my butter, by the remark that I received such 
a price only because I happened to live in New¬ 
port, where there are rich and extravagant 
people who do not care what prices they pay, 
but that my experience is no criterion for farm¬ 
ers who are not so situated. Now, in the first 
plaee, the richest and most extravagaut men I 
have lcn«wn are far from being the most care¬ 
less of the price they pay for butter. Their 
purse-strings fly utterly loose in the matter of 
wine and cigars, and all manner of luxuries, 
but a difference of ten cents a day in the cost of 
their butter is a serious matter with them. The 
fact is, our American training has been “ thrifty,” 
and its effect still shows itself. We have been 
brought up to keep a close watch of the spigot, 
and even when, in the days of our prosper¬ 
ity, we knock the bung entirely loose, force of 
habit makes us still holdfast at the smaller vent. 
Hence it is natural for us, all our lives, to con¬ 
sider it a sort of personal triumph to save as 
much on our month’s butter as we spend on 
our day’s cigars. 
In the next place, it is by no means a limited 
class that is willing to pay a high price for good 
butter. Indeed, the people to pay such prices are 
much more abundant than the butter to supply 
them. This is a theory I have always lield, and I 
am glad to be able to bring practical proof of its 
soundness, by stating that I have just closed a 
contract for my entire supply with one of the 
largest butter and cheese dealers in Boston, a 
man who is handling tons of “ best” butter at 
30c. to 35c. per lb. He pays me, to begin with, 
75c., and promises an advance when winter sets 
in. After I had made this engagement I was 
offered 85c. by another customer. My man not 
only pays me this price—he makes an .adver¬ 
tisement in the Boston papers of “Ogden Farm 
Butter,” and behaves generally as though he con¬ 
sidered it a good thing to have got hold of it. 
Now, why is it that my butter commands at 
wholesale more than twice the retail price of 
“best” butter? Simply because it is of extra- 
good quality; hard, firm, high-colored, well 
flavored, and well worked. It is put up in neatly 
ornamented half-pound cakes; each of these is 
wrapped in a square of damp muslin, and they 
are packed on shelves in an ice-box, so that they 
reach the market in the most attractive form. 
No pains are spared to make everything as appe¬ 
tizing as possible, and the butter really costs as 
much as two cents a pound more than it would 
if put up in the ordinary way. 
Notwithstanding all this, I could not possibly 
make such butter as I do from any other than 
Jersey cows, nor could I be sure of having it 
always good if I did not set my milk in deep 
cans, immersed iit Cold spring water. 
For the majority of my readers the foregoing 
account of my butter business will be only so 
much chat to be taken in at one ear and let out 
at the other; but there are a few who will try 
to take a hint from it, and these few do not need 
to have its lessons pointed out for them. They 
will see that a Jersey bull, a set of deep milk- 
cans, and the utmost thoroughness in all the 
little details of making and marketing, will en¬ 
able them to sell their butter at twice their pres¬ 
ent prices. There need be no fear of overstock¬ 
ing the market with really “ gilt-edged” butter. 
It will always be scarce and high. For instance: 
Mr. Sargent, of Brookline—at whose feet I sit in 
dairy matters—sells his whole product toHovey 
(my customer) for $1.15 per pound, and Hovey 
sells it for $1.25. I hope, in time, to equal him. 
An Egg Farm. 
bt h. h. Stoddard —Eighth Article. 
Vigor and thrift in chickens depend, in the 
first place, upon the quality of the eggs set. 
Those obtained from breeding stock managed as 
described in the preceding article, will hatch 
strong and healthy chickens; observing one 
precaution. Care should be taken never to set 
eggs laid near the close of the season, when the 
liens have been very prolific, for such will pro¬ 
duce chickens deficient in vigor. The produc¬ 
tion of eggs in great numbers is, in the best lay¬ 
ing breeds, abnormal. The wild jungle fowl, 
in common with all birds in a state of nature, 
lays no more than she can cover, and this is true 
of domestic hens of sitting breeds, that steal 
their nests. It is the daily removal of the eggs 
by the keeper, and the supply of an abundance 
of nutritious food, that causes great prolificness. 
There are some species of wild birds that will 
produce from three to ten times their usual num¬ 
ber of eggs, during a season when their food is 
abundant, if their nests are continually robbed. 
But when hens lay twenty or more per month, 
for several months, the eggs are impaired. This 
is one reason why chickens hatched in summer 
are sometimes so deficient in vigor, compared 
with those produced in early spring. For the 
sake of economy it is important to have as few 
non-impregnated eggs as possible. Over ninety 
percent will be impregnated if the breeding 
cocks arc strong and sprightly, and no more 
than ten hens are allowed in a flock. It is a good 
plan to keep two cocks for each group of breed¬ 
ing liens, and shut them up, alternately, one day 
at a time, in a small but comfortable coop, entire¬ 
ly out of sight of the hens. The eggs should 
not be kept more than a week or a fortnight be¬ 
fore being set. Those laid the same day should 
be given to one hen, so that the whole brood 
may hatch simultaneously, for new-laid eggs 
hatch several hours sooner than those that have 
been laid a considerable lime before being set. 
Artificial hatching and rearing are not eco¬ 
nomical. Even if incubators should become so 
perfected as to be capable of hatching as great 
a proportion of eggs as liens, there is no way of 
rearing the chickens artificially, and securing 
ventilation, warmth, cleanliness, and room for 
exercise, without greater outlay in labor and 
building materials than is necessary when hens 
are employed. Young chickens can not be kept 
warm enough, during cool nights, under an arti¬ 
ficial mother, by-their own heat, unless they are- 
in a small apartment, kept so close as to pro¬ 
duce very foul air. If good ventilation is at¬ 
tempted, there must be artificial heat supplied, 
and this needs an apparatus very nicely regulat¬ 
ed, or the chickens will suffer from extremes of 
temperature. The cost of fixtures for heating, 
and of fuel, and of separate inclosures large 
enough for each brood to exercise in, would be; 
great, and, what is of more consequence, the 
amount of attendance involved would make the 
plan entirely impracticable, except in case of 
high prices for early chickens or blooded fowls. 
The nests of sitters should be made at bottom 
of damp earth, packed to a concave shape. It 
is not necessary to place them upon the ground* 
or to sprinkle the eggs with water, if this rule 
is followed. It is proper that the eggs should 
be in some way exposed to moderate dampness 
during incubation, as otherwise too much of the 
water in their composition evaporates. An 
elevated box furnished with nothing but dry 
litter is not suitable. Cover the earth with 
straw, bruised until pliable and broken short. 
Long straw is apt to become entangled with the 
feet of the hen, causing breakage of eggs. It 
should not, however, be cut by a machine, be¬ 
cause the sharp ends of the pieces will come in 
contact with the skin of the hen, or that of the 
delicate chickens. In very cold weather line 
the nest with feathers. We have successfully 
hatched eggs by preparing a nest thus, in a room 
where during part of the time of incubation the 
temperature was below zero. Set hens in large 
numbers at a time, having kept some of them 
upon artificial eggs till all are ready. Of course, 
an entry must be made in a book of the family 
or strain, and other particulars of each clutch. 
There are various methods of managing fowls 
while sitting, of which one of those securing a 
separate room for each will answer for a small 
establishment, but keepiug them with the rest 
of the flock in a house such as was described 
