38! g 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
ARTIFICIAL CHICKEN HATCHING. 
I entertain the idea of attempting to raise 
chickens by some artificial process, and as I 
have understood that the business was success¬ 
fully carried on in portions of our country, I 
would be obliged to you if you would give me 
some information on the subject. Perhaps a 
statement in your valuable paper would be ac¬ 
ceptable to your numerous readers, embracing 
the following : 
1st. General arrangement and size of a Hatch¬ 
ing for turning out 200 or 300 chickens. 
2d. What degree of heat should be employed, 
and whether hot air, or steam, &c., or by warm 
water ? 
3d. Will eggs brought from a distance hatch 
well ? 
4th. The kind of food most suitable, together 
with any other information relative to the con¬ 
duct of the business. 
Geo. D. Pleasants. 
Henrico Co., Va., Aug. 30, 1854. 
-- 
THE EGYPTIAN GOOSE. 
Among the truly ornamental, the Egyptian 
goose stands first. They are a part of the hie- 
roglyphics of the Egyptians, a favorite article 
of food for the priests, and their eggs are con¬ 
sidered of delicious flavor. They are hardy, 
and easy to raise; laying seldom over seven 
eggs at one time. They are very pugnacious 
over their nest and young, and woe be to the 
intruder. Three broods can be brought off in 
one season, by setting their first and second lay¬ 
ing of eggs under a hen. 
The plumage of the Egyptian Goose is most 
beautiful; the base of the bill, and the space 
surrounding the eyes, is a chestnut brown; 
cheeks, crown, chin and throat, yellowish white. 
The neck is yellowish brown, paler on the fore¬ 
part, and on the back reddish brown; the up¬ 
per part of the back, the breast, and flanks, 
pale yellowish brown, minutely waved with a 
darker tint; center of the breast and belly 
nearly white, with a dark patch (a horse-shoe) 
of chestnut brown, where these parts may be 
said to join, vent and under tail coverts buff 
orange ; the lower back, rump, upper tail cov¬ 
erts, and tail, black, wings as far as the greater 
coverts, pure white, the latter having a deep, 
black bar near their tip ; the scapulous or wing 
feather and tertials, chestnut red, with greyish 
brown color on the inner webs; secondaries, 
black at the tips, and with the outer webs, a 
brilliant, varying green. 
They are a rare bird, hard to be obtained, 
but when obtained, easily kept. Their weight 
is about twelve pounds the pair. They stand 
high on the legs, which are of a pink color. 
John Giles. 
THE “GONE GOOSE.” 
Messrs. Editors: —In April, 1852, an attack 
was made on my poultry-yard by dogs, and 
much of my best stock killed—including Bremen 
and wild geese, various kinds of wild ducks, 
prairie hens, &c. This disaster was mentioned 
in your paper about the time it occurred. In 
looking over my geese which had escaped the 
slaughter, I missed a favorite, one of a lot im¬ 
ported by me from Bremen, in 1821. For twenty- 
nine years she had bred regularly on my place, 
having laid from twelve to sixteen eggs each 
year. As she was not to be found after the at¬ 
tack, l feared the dogs had carried her off.— 
There was, however, a chance that she had 
been sent by mistake to some one who had pur¬ 
chased geese of me, and I did not fail to make 
diligent inquiry for her. After more than two 
years of unavailing search, I have lately had 
the good fortune to find her, alive and well, and 
she is now in my yard. She was readily iden¬ 
tified by her peculiar looks, and especially by a 
hole in the outside web of her right foot, which 
I made on the 26th of June, 1826. It is about 
thirty-three years since this goose was imported 
(how old she was at the time I cannot tell,) but 
her prolific powers are unimpared. She laid 
seventeen eggs and reared a fine brood of gos¬ 
lings this season. One of the goslings was 
killed in July and weighed thirteen pounds. 
Samuel Jaques. 
Ten Hills Farm, near Boston, Sept, lsf, 1854. 
We have seen the old goose, and four of her 
last brood, fine large birds, equal to any of the 
famous Bremen or Embden breed wc ever saw.— 
Boston Cultivator. 
-• • •- 
For the American" Agriculturist. 
ASPARAGUS AND COW PEAS. 
Sodus, Sept. 11th, 1854. 
I send you a statement of my experiment 
with the Cow and Asparagus Peas, which you 
were so kind as to send me last Spring. I 
planted about the 1st of June. The Asparagus 
Peas were badly eaten by the bugs, so that but 
five of them vegetated. They grew finely dur¬ 
ing the hot dry weather, and produced an 
abundant crop. The pods were from one to two 
feet in length—many of them twenty inches. I 
gathered the first ripe seed from them the mid¬ 
dle of August, and they have continued to ripen 
and grow ever since. There is no difficulty in 
raising them successfully here. 
The Cow Peas all came up and grew finely. 
They seemed to revel in the drouth. They were 
planted at the same time as the Asparagus, but 
ripened the first seed about two weeks later. 
The last of August, they were growing and 
bearing, seemingly as fresh as earlier in the sea¬ 
son. They are great yielders. There were 
ripe pods, green ones, and flowers at the same 
time. I shall obtain seed enough to make other 
experiments on a larger scale next season. I 
have not tried their cooking properties, because 
I had so few, and wished to increase them as 
rapidly as possible. S. A. Collins. 
We cultivated the Cow Pea in our own gar¬ 
den with success last year. It is a southern 
product, and looks very much like our garden 
beans. There are a great many varieties of 
them, and at the South they grow with great 
luxuriance. 
MARROW SQUASH. 
This delicious vegetable is grown in great 
abundance on the fertile fields of Marblehead. 
While the crops in other places are cut off by 
the bug on the leaf, or the Maggot at the root, 
there it would seem, the plants find no obstacle 
in the way of going ahead. 
Perhaps it may interest some to know how 
this isffirought about. As I passed the field of 
Mr. Hathaway, situate on the right-band side 
of the road as you go from Lynn to Marblehead, 
I saw more than two acres covered with 
squashes, as luxuriant as though no drouth had 
prevailed. On inquiry of the proprietor, I 
learned that the sod was turned in the spring, 
and pulverized with a fair coating of compost 
thereon, and the seeds were planted in hills 
eight feet apart, leaving three plants in a hill. 
Now the ground is covered with an abundance 
of squashes, varying in size from three to ten 
pounds each, estimated to exceed ten tons to the 
acre, commanding in the market $35 a ton— 
amounting to $300 an acre. This was not the 
only field that I saw; others of like character 
arc to be seen. On the ground of Mr. Wash¬ 
burn, Mr. Mason, Mr. Howe, Mr. Stone and Mr. 
Brower, and others in the neighborhood— 
though not so abundant. Whether those crops 
are brought about by a peculiarity in the soil— 
or in the manure applied, or in the vigilance 
with which they are tended—there they are to 
be seen by any one who will look at them.—P., 
in Hew-England Farmer. 
- • • •- 
The Ohio State Fair has been postponed till 
the 17th of October. 
CURRANT TREES. 
Having noticed that currant bushes may as 
well be made trees as shrubs, I conclude to tell 
you how I have seen it done. In the spring of 
1831 my father commenced a garden, and among 
other things set cuttings for currant bushes. I 
determined to experiment on one of those cut¬ 
tings ; and as soon as it grew, I pinched off all 
the leaves except the top tuft, which I let grow. 
The cutting was about fourteen inches long, and 
during the summer the sprout from this grew 
ten inches. 
The next spring I pinched off all the leaves 
to about half way up to the first year’s growth, 
so as to leave the lowest limbs two feet from the 
ground. It branched well and became a hand¬ 
some little dwarf tree. When it came to bear 
fruit, it was more productive than any other 
bush in the garden and the fruit larger. 
It was less infested with spiders and other 
insects; hens could not pick off the fruit, and 
grass and weeds were more easily kept from the 
roots, and was an ornament instead of a blemish. 
Now I would propose that currant cuttings be 
set in rows about four or five feet apart each 
way, (let them be long and straight ones,) and 
trained into trees .—Michigan Farmer. 
Tomatoes. —We were recently in a garden in 
this city where were some twenty or thirty 
tomato vines—all but two had been trained up 
to lattice-work, some standing in the garden 
without any other support and some standing 
near a fence. The branches had been so care¬ 
fully tied up, that scarcely one had been allowed 
to reach the ground, the vines growing some six 
or seven feet high when their tops had been cut 
off’ and trimmed. The fruit on these vines was 
abundant, though not very large, and in nearly 
every instance it was fair and smooth as an ap¬ 
ple. The two vines which had been allowed to 
have their own way, kept pretty close to the 
ground, and were as crooked as they well could 
be, but the fruit on them was nearly, if not 
quite, twice the average size of the fruit on the 
vines which had been trained, and the largest 
tomato lay on the ground, almost entirely ex¬ 
cluded from light and air. While the fruit on 
the vines which had been trained was smooth, 
that on these was pretty much the shape of the 
vines—very crooked and ill shapen .—Hartford 
Cowant. 
How to Get the Real Flavor of Coffee.— 
In Knighten’s “Foreign Life in Ceylon,” are the 
following hints on the preparation of coffee, 
derived from long experience : 
The subtle aroma which resides in the essen¬ 
tial oil of the coffee berry, is gradually dissi¬ 
pated after roasting, and of course still more 
after being ground. In order to enjoy the full 
flavor in perfection, the berry should pass at 
once from the roasting pan to the mill and 
thence to the coffee-pot, and again after having 
been made, should be mixed when almost at 
boiling heat, with the hot milk. It must be 
very bad coffee indeed, which, if these precau¬ 
tions be taken, will not afford an agreeable and 
exhilarating drink. 
Catching Flies. —The Prairie Farmer tells 
how they catch flies in England. It is done by 
“ fly papers,” and the process is called “ fly-tor¬ 
ture,” on account of the manner in which the 
insects have their feet fastened in the “ stocks.” 
The article used is rosin and sweet oil mixed, 
and spread over the surface of a newspaper, 
then slightly sprinkled with sugar dust. The 
moment the fly puts down his foot he is fast. 
They are thus caught with great rapidity. 
The “torture” appears to consist in a want of 
liberty to go where they please. 
- * - 
Robert Hall said of family prayers, It serves 
as an edge and border to preserve the web of 
life from unraveling. 
