62 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
January 18,1894. 
POULTRY PATTERING. 
While poultry farming on a large scale has so often failed, 
and the annual importation of both poultry and eggs is ever 
increasing, and farmers are asked ivhy they do not set them¬ 
selves to try and turn the golden stream flowing so steadily to 
the foreign producer into their own pockets, it is indeed refresh¬ 
ing to hear of the rapid growth of the Susses poultry trade, and 
to know that it is carried on in a manner so simple and so 
efficient, as to be upon a really sound basis, and capable of 
almost indefinite extension. It may be termed a rough and 
ready form of co-operation, shared profitably by the cottager 
who rears the chickens, the higg’er who collects and fattens 
them, and the salesman through whose hands they pass to 
consumer or shopkeeper. Some higglers only collect from the 
breeders for the fatteners ; very many of the breeders have only 
a rude hovel for the fowls to roost, lay, and hatch the eggs in, 
yet they contrive to rear early spring chickens, for the best of 
which—strong birds nine or ten weeks old—higglers pay as 
much as 38. 6d and 4s. apiece. If the cottag rs were able to 
provide thorough shelter, with warm food, and to hold in 
reserve a sufficient stock of pullets for early laying, they would 
be able to rear many more of the earliest and most profitable 
spring chicken. As it is, they purchase all the food, and realise 
a profit of £10 to £15 a year. This is what we have known our 
own workmen to do—the man feeding the early broods by lamp¬ 
light before he goes to work in the morning and after he returns 
in the evening, the wife attending to their wan s by day. The 
small farmer, or rather his wife, can, and does proceed upon a 
much larger scale, rearing coops, each with its brOod, being 
placed about the farm in every available spot. Sometimes so 
numerous are they that the labour of feeding, watering, and 
removal of coops is almost incessant from 5 a.m. till dusk. 
If only that terrible ailment “ Gapes ” can be avoided there is 
a good number of chicks ready for the higgler every week after 
the first batch of spring chickens is sold. The symptoms are 
frequent gaping and a short dry cough. The cause a parasitic 
worm, Sygamus trachealis, in the windpipe or trachea, where it 
congregates, always causing irritation, often blocking the air 
passages. It spreads from brood to brood with great rapidity, 
, causing heavy losses. It may be destroyed by fumigation, but 
we prefer to avoid it by perfect cleanliness in the poultry 
houses, and by placing the coops where there is no possibility 
of Sygamus eggs or worms being taken up by the chicks. 
When mention was last made of the Sussex poultry trade we 
told of a turnover of £80,000 a year at Heathfield. Thanks to 
an interesting paper by Mr. Edward Brown in the “ Live Stock 
Journal Almanack,” we are now able to show how marvellously 
the trade has grown. Quoting from the books of the railway 
company at Heathfield, he shows how from April, 1892, to March, 
1893, 1350 tons of dead poultry were sent from that one station. 
Taking the average weight of each bird at 4 lbs., which is con¬ 
sidered to be fair, that represents more than three-quarters of 
a million fowls (750,000). Precise information of the total 
extent of the Sussex trade in poultry cannot be given, but it 
probably exceeds 2000 tons per annum, which on the same ratio 
means 1,112,000 fowls. The exact value of the trade is not easily 
determined, the variation in value, both by reason of size and 
season, being great. But a large salesman places his average fo^ 
the twelve months at 3s. 9d. Allowing the odd 3d. off for carriage 
this would give us the total of £132,000 for Heathfield ; or, for the* 
entire county, if our approximation be correct, of £196,000, 
We commend these figures to the attention of those farmers 
who regard poultry rearing as beneath them. When a party of 
gentlemen from the Board of Agriculture and the Royal 
Agricultural Society, under the guidance of Mr. Brown, went 
through the district last spring, they saw the familiar fat¬ 
tening coops at every farm, and at many cottages. At the 
most extensive fattener’s, Mr. J. Olliver, who has three places 
for the work and turns out vast numbers of fowls, 500 dozen 
birds were being fattened, and he seldom has less than half that 
number. His weekly average of sales is from 1000 to 2000 
chickens, the majority of which are sent direct to the south 
coast watering places. Of these only one-third are native bh-ds> 
nearly two thirds of those fattened by Mr. Olliver coming from 
Ireland, at a cost for carriage alone of 4|d. each. The fact is 
significant, as showing what might be done in other counties 
with home-reared birds, cheap corn, and steady persevering effort. 
WORK ON THE HOME FARM. 
Do not allow fowls to run out at all now, but confine them to the 
warm, snug poultry house and dusting place. We recently saw a large 
cait hovel, which had been connected with the poultry house, where 
dust liy thick beneath carts and wagons. The hovel had the sides 
boarded to the ground, folding doors at one end, and shutters near the 
ground on the south side to throw open on warm bright days, wire 
netting being fastened over the openings. On the day we saw it—a 
cold, windy, wet day, the shutters were closed ; but there w'ere glass 
“slates” in the roof for the admission of light, and the fowls were in 
the full enjoyment of dust baths, and in searching for the corn which 
had been thrown among the dust for them. Peat moss litter makes 
capital dust for poultry in winter where ordinary dust cannot be had. 
See that warm food is given regularly and carefully in view of the 
maintenance of a full supply of eggs either for home use, for sale, or 
for sittings for early chicks. Nothing in the way of farm produce is 
more profitable than eggs at midwinter. 
Sitting hens must have the nests where the eggs cannot be frozen ; 
where large numbers of chickens are required an incubator is altogether 
preferable if only proper shelter can be afforded the chicks. As a guide 
to this w'oik we have to determine when spring chickens will be wanted. 
The calculation is then simple enough : three weeks for the hatching, 
and nine weeks for grow’th—not fattening. If fat chicks are wanted 
three weeks more will be required, so that we may say fifteen weeks 
are required from the date of placing the eggs in an incubatoT for the 
production of really fine plump birds. This involves shutting up 
selected chicks to fatten when they are nine weeks old. They are then 
crammed regularly three times a day with ground oats mixed with 
milk and melted suet into a thin paste, filling the crop each time, which 
is managed by keeping the left thumb upon the crop, and stopping 
instantly when it is full. Where cramming is not done the paste is 
fixed in a trough fixed to the front of the fattening coops ; in either 
case the chicks are fed three times a day. By careful observation it 
has been found that there is an average increase of 2 lbs. in weight in 
the three weeks. Many spring chickens are sent to table when nine or 
ten weeks old, but they are small and unsatisfactory. 
OUR LETTER BOX. 
Balry Utensils (Z>.).—By all means have a separator, you will 
then require no milk pans, and comparatively little dairy space. The 
most suitable for your purpose is the “ Baby,” which may be fixed on a 
table. Originally it would only do 15 gallons of milk per hour, but its 
improved form, termed the “Alpha Baby,” separates 30 gallons an hour. 
Write for a catalogue of dairy utensils to the Dairy Supply Company, 
Museum Street, London, W.C. 
METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 
Oamden Squarb, London. 
Lat. 51° 32' 40- N.: Loaer. 0° 8' 0- W.: Altitude, 111 feet 
Date. 
9 A.M. 
In the Day. 
1 
1894. 
January. 
1 Barometer 
at 32°, and 
1 Sea Level. 
Hygrometer, 
Direc¬ 
tion of 
Wind. 
Temp, 
of soil 
at 
1 foot. 
Shade Tem¬ 
perature. 
Radiation 
Temperature 
Dry. 
Wet. 
Max. 
Min. 
In 
Sun. 
On 
Grass. 
Inchs. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
Inchs. 
Sunday .. 7 
29-903 
21-8 
21-1 
N, 
35-3 
25-1 
20-2 
27-0 
16-2 
— 
Monday .. 8 
30-080 
24-4 
24-1 
E. 
35-0 
37-1 
17-1 
37-2 
15-3 
0-141 
Tuesday .. 9 
29-815 
36-1 
35-2 
E. 
34-9 
41-0 
24-1 
41-4 
23-0 
0-238 
Wednesday 11 
29-860 
40-6 
40 2 
S. 
34-6 
4S-7 
29-9 
50 8 
26-2 
0-026 
Thursday.. 11 
29-887 
46-2 
41-2 
s. 
35-1 
52-0 
41-2 
65-2 
36-4 
0-116 
Friday ., 12 
29-963 
47-4 
45-9 
s. 
37-1 
51-6 
41-0 
65-9 
34-9 
_ 
Saturday.. 13 
30-049 
45-1 
43-3 
s. 
33-2 
48 3 
42-6 
61-5 
37-0 
0-193 
2S-937 
37-4 
36-3 
31-7 
43-4 
30-9 
50-0 
27-0 
0-714 
REMARKS. 
7tli.—Fog all day, dense in afternoon and evening. 
8th.—Fine early, overcast after 10 A.M., fair afternoon and evening. 
Pth.—Continuous rain from 5 a.m. to 5 P.M.; overcast evening. 
10th.—Almost continuous drizzle all the morning; fair afternoon and evening, 
llih.—Fine, with frequent bright sunshine. 
12th.—Rain from 1.30 A.M. to 3 A.M. ; unbroken sunshine after 10 A.M. ; clear evening. 
13th.—Fair early with gleams of sun; bright sunshine from 10.30 a.m. to noon; overcast 
afternoon and evening. 
A wet week of nearly average temperature.—Q. J. SVMONS. 
