1892 
The  rural  new-yorkeR. 
669 
A  Prospective  Hen  Business. 
FEEDING  FOWLS  BY  ELECTRICITY. 
Why  do  so  many  people  who  attempt  to  keep  poultry 
on  a  large  scale  so  soon  give  up  in  disgust  ?  I  am  no 
novice  in  the  business,  having  kept  a  flock  of  from  50 
to  300  for  the  past  20  years,  but  find  that  I  still  have 
the  hen  fever.  For  years  it  has  been  my  ambition  to 
be  able  to  send  at  least  one  crate  of  eggs  to  market 
every  day  and  guarantee  each  egg  to  be  not  more  than 
24  hours  old.  At  last  I  see  my  way  clear  to  make  the 
venture  with  full  confidence  of  success. 
Here  are  a  few  of  the  facts  I  have  demonstrated  to 
my  entire  satisfaction  from  actual  experience. 
1.  A  flock  of  50  hens  with  unlimited  range  over  the 
fields  can  be  kept  at  a  profit,  one  of  the  conditions 
being  that  they  have  a  comfortable  house,  dry  and 
warm,  in  which  to  roost  at  night  and  to  which  they 
can  repair  in  cold  or  stormy  weather.  They  are  the 
best  judges  as  to  whether  they  shall  go  out  or  stay 
inside.  I  speak  of  full-grown  hens. 
S.  If  two  such  flocks  are  kept  in  houses  eight  or  ten 
rods  apart,  they  will  almost  invariably  go  home  to  roost. 
3.  If  convenient  and  attractive  nests  are  provided 
inside  the  house,  the  hens  will  lay  in  them  instead  of 
stealing  their  nests  outside  My  practice  has  been  to 
keep  the  hens  confined  part  of  the  day  occasionally 
during  the  summer — probably  about  once  a  week. 
The  result  is  that  practically  all  the  eggs  are  laid 
inside  the  hennery. 
4.  Ordinary  hens  well  fed  will  lay  at  least  100  eggs 
each  per  year. 
5.  The  cost  per  hen  for  feed  is  less  than  St  a  year. 
0.  I  have  shipped  eggs  to  the  New  York  market 
once  a  week  for  two  years  and  received  an  average  of 
22  cents  per  dozen.  I  believe  that  when  I  am  prepared 
to  guarantee  every  egg  not  more  than  24  hours  old,  I 
can  secure  an  advance  of  at  least  two  cents  per  dozen, 
making  $2  per  year  from  each  hen  for  eggs  alone. 
7.  Ordinarily  the  only  attention  each  flock  requires 
is  to  be  fed  in  the  morning  and  supplied  with  drink 
for  the  day  ;  the  door  is  then  opened  and  they  thus 
get  access  to  all  parts  of  creation  which  they  wish  to 
explore.  They  get  a  feed  of  whole  grain  about  4  p. 
m  and  the  door  is  closed  after  they  have  gone  to  roost. 
I  have  plenty  of  dry,  stony,  and  somewhat  bushy 
pasture  land,  and,  putting  the  above  seven  proposi¬ 
tions  together,  I  can’t  for  the  life  of  me  see  what  is  to 
prevent  me  from  covering  it  with  small  flocks  of  hens, 
which  would  thrive  as  well  as  though  on  adjoin¬ 
ing  village  lots.  My  idea  is  to  experiment  with  40 
hens  in  each  flock  and  place  the  houses  eight  rods 
apart,  allowing  about  100  hens  to  the  acre.  I  believe 
one  man  can  attend  to  50  flocks,  and,  if  my  calcula¬ 
tions  are  correct,  the  product  should  be  $4,000  worth 
of  eggs,  half  of  which  should  be  profit.  I  expect  the 
manure  to  pay  for  the  labor  of  gathering  it,  and  also 
the  interest  on  the  investment. 
By  the  way,  under  the  old  plan  of  building  yards 
and  keeping  hens  confined,  it  has  been  preached  that 
one  must  clean  out  the  droppings  every  day.  This  re¬ 
quires  lots  of  labor  and  away  go  the  profits.  Another 
trouble  has  been  that  in  keeping  large  numbers  in 
confinement  the  health  of  the  hens  is  sacrificed. 
Here  are  two  points  which  I  hope  to  avoid  by  giving 
the  flocks  free  range. 
I  have  just  completed  my  ideal  of  a  poultry  house  to 
accommodate  40  hens,  using  cheap  land  for  free 
ranges,  instead  of  building  yards  to  keep  the  flocks 
separate,  so  that  I  need  ordinarily  make  but  two  visits 
per  day  to  each  flock — one  in  the  morning  to  supply 
them  with  their  morning  feed  and  fill  the  drinking 
fountains,  while  the  evening  feed  of  whole  grain  can 
be  placed  in  an  elevated  feed  box  or  hopper,  and  the 
door  be  opened. 
That  is  all  until  4  p.  m.,  when  the  touch  of  an  elec¬ 
tric  button  in  my  dining-room  will  cause  the  feed  in 
each  elevated  feed  box  to  fall  to  the  floor  simultane¬ 
ously  in  all  the  houses  and  ring  an  alarm  as  it  falls.  I 
expect  to  see  each  biddy  hurry  away  to  her  own  home 
for  her  supper,  provided  she  is  not  already  there  wait¬ 
ing  the  scattering  of  the  grain.  The  next  visit  will 
be  for  the  purpose  of  gathering  the  eggs.  By  the  time 
I  have  got  them  started  for  market  and  eaten  my 
supper,  the  biddies  will  all  be  on  their  roosts,  when  I 
can  again  touch  my  electric  button,  causing  each  door 
to  close,  thus  making  all  secure  for  the  night. 
When  I  have  the  whole  50  flocks  established,  a  horse 
and  wagon  will  be  necessary  at  the  morning  visit  to 
carry  a  supply  of  feed  and  drink.  Whether  the  con¬ 
tents  of  the  egg  basket  will  call  for  the  horse  and 
wagon  at  night  remains  to  be  seen.  The  whole  can 
be  put  in  operation — electrical  appliances  and  all — for 
the  cost  of  a  modern  barn  stocked  with  25  good  cows. 
#  #  #  O.  W.  MAPES. 
Eggs  in  a  Hen. — Greyelin,  a  high  authority,  says 
the  ovarium  of  a  fowl  is  composed  of  600  ovules,  or 
eggs  ;  therefore  a  hen  during  her  whole  life  can’t  pos¬ 
sibly  lay  over  800  eggs,  which  in  the  natural  course 
are  distributed  over  nin«  years.  Is  he  right? 
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Scraping  Bark  from  Fruit  Trees. 
Have  you  ever  found  It  necessary  to  scrape  the  bark  from  your  fruit 
trees?  If  so,  for  what  purpose?  Under  what  circumstances  would 
you  advise  others  to  scrape  trees? 
Here  in  Ohio  I  have  never  had  need  of  adopting  the 
practice  to  promote  the  healthy  growth  of  fruit  trees 
in  my  30  odd  years’  experience.  I  have  no  doubt  that 
in  certain  locations,  this  is  necessary  in  order  to  grow 
healthy  trees  and  good  fruit,  but  I  have  had  no  ex¬ 
perience  in  that  line.  N.  ohmer. 
Here  in  Vermont  we  scraped  the  bark  from  a  part 
of  our  trees  some  years  since,  for  the  purpose  of  re¬ 
moving  the  bark  lice,  and  we  then  washed  the  trunks 
and  limbs  with  unleached  wood  ashes  and  water.  I 
prefer  ashes  to  lime  as  the  application  is  not  so  try¬ 
ing,  and  I  think  it  has  a  better  effect  on  the  insects. 
Trees  should  be  washed  in  June.  I  have  also  used 
whale-oil  soap  as  well  as  home-made  soft  soap,  mak¬ 
ing  the  wash  quite  thick  and  applying  it  with  a  swab 
of  rags  on  a  stick  for  a  handle.  But  a  much  better 
way  of  getting  the  insects  off,  is  to  keep  them  off  by 
good  cultivation  and  keeping  the  trees  in  a  good 
thrifty  condition.  Fruit  trees  are  like  all  kinds  of 
fine  stock — if  kept  in  a  thriving  condition  vermin  will 
not  trouble  them  very  much.  w.  H.  holmes. 
Here  in  Ontario  County,  N.  Y.,  I  have  scraped  my 
apple  trees  for  two  reasons  :  first  to  destroy  the  bark 
louse  and  to  make  the  surface  of  the  tree  smooth,  or 
nearly  so,  for  the  purpose  of  washing  to  destroy  the 
same  pest.  I  put  on  a  preparation  of  crude  carbolic 
acid  and  soft  soap  and  water,  and  if  applied  with  a 
brush  it  is  almost  necessary  to  scrape  some,  but  not 
enough  to  injure  the  young  bark.  Second,  a  light 
scraping  destroys  the  shelter  of  millers  and  other  in¬ 
sects.  This  scraping  and  washing  I  do  in  the  spring, 
some  time  in  May.  Many  people  do  not  fully  under¬ 
stand  the  damage  done  by  the  bark  lice.  There  are, 
in  fact,  many  people  that  do  not  know  that  they  exist, 
when  the  truth  is  that  they  can  be  found  on  nearly 
every  tree  in  western  New  York.  T.  b.  wilson. 
1  have  never  had  any  experience  in  scraping  the 
bark  of  fruit  trees  except  in  the  case  of  some  old  and 
neglected  trees  which  had  accumulated  a  growth  of 
lichens  on  the  outer  bark.  The  lichens  were  scraped 
off  and  the  bark  washed  with  lime  wash,  with  enough 
lampblack  in  it  to  prevent  its  being  a  whitewash.  I 
do  not  know  that  the  lichen  per  se  was  injurious,  but 
I  considered  that  its  abundance  indicated  an  unthrifty 
condition,  and  in  fertilizing  the  soil  and  otherwise 
helping  the  trees,  1  took  it  off  to  improve  their  looks, 
and  applied  the  lime  wash  as  a  means  of  retarding 
future  fungoid  growths.  While  lichen  is  not,  strictly 
speaking,  parasitic  on  the  tree  which  sustains  it,  there 
is  danger  that  it  may  harbor  at  times  eggs  and  larvae 
of  some  kinds  of  insects,  or  at  best  it  is  undesirable. 
The  best  time  for  doing  it  is  the  first  opportunity  you 
may  have.  The  scraping  of  the  surface  of  the  outer 
bark  (dead  bark)  of  a  tree  cannot  affect  the  tree  at 
any  time,  and  the  scraping  should  never  go  to  the  ex¬ 
tent  of  disturbing  any  living  bark.  w.  F.  masset. 
I  must  say  that  my  experience  is  not  so  wide  as  my 
observation.  There  is  nothing  to  scrape  on  trees  in 
a  vigorous  or  well  cared  for  orchard  until  they  have 
reached  from  25  to  30  years  of  age,  for  the  bark  does 
not  begin  to  exfoliate  to  any  considerable  extent  until 
they  get  older  than  that.  Trees  will  become  scrubby 
on  poor  land,  and  their  bark  will  become  more  or  less 
unhealthy  and  rough  while  they  arc  quite  young  ;  but 
it  is  not  scraping  that  such  trees  need  so  much  as 
nourishment  and  judicious  pruning.  Trees  in  old  and 
more  or  less  neglected  orchards  are  benefited  by 
being  freed  from  loosely  adhering  bark  and  scrubbing 
with  weak  lye,  in  connection  with  tillage  and  enrich¬ 
ment  of  the  ground.  Scraping  at  least  makes  them 
look  better,  and  removes  hiding  and  nesting  places  for 
various  insects — some  of  which  may  be  harmful,  while 
others  are  beneficial,  such  as  the  Ladybugs,  and  other 
insectivorous  species.  But,  to  put  it  briefly,  a  well- 
kept  orchard  of  any  kind  of  fruit  trees  furnishes  but  a 
small  amount  of  work  for  a  scraper,  t.  ii.  hoskins. 
Here  in  Sangamon  County,  Ill.,  I  have  never  scraped 
the  rough  bark  from  my  trees,  but  instead  I  use  twice 
a  year  a  wash  that  leaves  the  bark  smooth  and  clean. 
The  original  use  of  the  wash  was  to  protect  from  mice 
and  rabbits  in  the  winter,  and  apple  borers  in  the 
summer.  It  will  not  protect  against  the  peach  borer. 
One  pound  of  dissolved  copperas  to  a  bucket  of  white¬ 
wash,  well  thinned  and  applied  with  a  large  brush, 
will  do  it  all.  Apply  in  the  fall  and  late  spring. 
I  have  used  it  on  thousands  of  trees  and  have  seen  n 
ill  effect.  Scraping  for  insects  is  too  much  like  hand 
picking  potato  bugs.  B-  B- 
Old  apple  and  pear  trees  sometimes  get  very  I’ough- 
barked,  and,  aside  from  the  bad  looks  they  cause,  these 
rough  places  furnish  nesting  places  for  various  in¬ 
sects  and  fungi.  Several  times  I  have  scraped  off  as 
much  as  possible  of  this  bark  in  February  or  March, 
and  then  washed  the  trunks  with  strong  soapsuds; 
once  with  a  weak  potash  lye,  which  was  also  sprayed 
on  all  the  branches.  This  treatment  has  always  re¬ 
sulted  in  a  clean,  smooth,  thrifty-looking  bark  and  ap¬ 
parently  more  health  and  vigor  in  the  trees.  I  have 
never  found  occasion  to  scrape  peach  trees  from  the 
fact  that  in  the  borer  wash  which  we  annually  apply 
to  the  bases  of  the  trees  there  is  considerable  potash, 
and  we  generally  swab  a  little  into  the  crotches  of  the 
main  branches,  and  later  rains  wash  this  down  the 
trunk  and  give  us  always  a  smooth,  clean  bark. 
J.  H.  HALE. 
What  Is  the  Grass  P 
J.  V.  L.,  LaCrosse,  IFis.— Six  or  seven  years  ago  I 
found  growing  in  one  of  my  fields  a  certain  kind  of 
grass  that  bore  blossoms  earlier  than  any  other  kind 
I  know  of.  The  blossoms  were  very  fragrant  and  were 
frequently  picked  and  kept  in  the  house  on  that  ac¬ 
count.  A  city  man  who  is  somewhat  of  a  botanist, 
after  examining  the  blossoms  as  well  as  the  plants 
and  roots,  said:  “It  is  a  poa  :  Spear  Grass,  Meadow 
Grass,  Poa  crevifolia,  Short-leaved  Meadow  Grass.” 
Without  any  further  description  of  it,  has  it  any  par¬ 
ticular  value,  and  is  the  name  right  ? 
Ans.— Spear  Grass  is  Blue  Grass— Poa  pratensis. 
Rough  Meadow  Gras*  is  Poa  trivialis,  while  Smooth- 
stalked  Meadow  Grass  is  Poa  pratensis.  Then  we 
have  Poa  serotina,  Fowl  Meadow  Grass  ;  Glyceria  ner- 
vata,  Nerved  Meadow  Grass,  and  others.  Perhaps  it 
is  Sweet-scented  Vernal  Grass,  Anthoxanthum  odora- 
tum.  This  is  sold  by  all  seedsmen.  All  are  valuable. 
Prices  for  Evaporated  Fruits. 
C.  O.  A.,  East  Orland,  Me.— Evaporated  raspberries 
are  quoted  at  19  cents,  blackberries  at  five  cents.  Is. 
there  any  profit  in  blackberries  at  this  price?  I  should 
suppose  that  at  19  cents,  it  would  pay  to  plant  rasp¬ 
berries  for  the  sole  purpose  of  drying.  But  can  such 
a  price  be  expected  in  the  future  ? 
Ans. — Evaporated  raspberries  a  year  ago  were 
quoted  at  15  to  17,  two  years  ago  at  from  28  to  32 
cents.  Of  course,  one  cannot  predict  for  the  future, 
but  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  price  will  not  go  below 
the  above  quotations  materially  in  the  next  few  years. 
In  some  sections  in  Ohio,  they  are  grown  solely  for 
evaporation  and  in  sections  where  pickers  can  be 
obtained  at  moderate  figures  the  business  is  fairly 
profitable.  Blackberries  do  not  dry  away  so  much  as 
raspberries  and  hence  the  discrepancy  in  price  is  not 
so  great  as  it  would  seem,  but  we  do  not  think  they 
can  be  profitably  produced  at  five  cents  per  pound.  If 
you  have  kept  your  Rural  for  May  28  you  will  find, 
on  page  348,  an  excellent  statement  of  the  facts  about 
this  industry. 
Fish  Offal  for  Potatoes. 
C.  R.,  Emerson,  Mich. — I  can  get  with  little  cost  fresh 
fish,  such  as  suckers,  and  offal  from  others.  1.  Will  it 
do  to  apply  them  fresh  in  +he  trench  system  ?  2. 
What  is  the  best  way  to  reduce  them  to  fertilizer?  3. 
Will  they  make  a  complete  manure  ?  If  not,  what 
shall  I  add  and  in  what  form  ?  4.  What  element  of 
plant  food  do  strawberries  take  from  the  soil  ?  My 
land  is  sandy  loam  and  new. 
Ans.— 1.  We  should  not  look  for  satisfactory  results 
from  fresh  fish  or  offal  on  potatoes.  If  such  fertilizer 
were  used,  we  would  add  phosphate  and  potash,  as  the 
phosphoric  acid  of  fresh,  unground  fish  would  not  act 
soon  enough.  2.  By  composting  or  drying  and  grinding. 
3.  Answered  above.  4.  All  elements.  Liberal  dress¬ 
ings  of  unleached  wood  ashes  and  raw  bone  will  suit 
them. 
Miscellaneous. 
F.  H.  R.,  Perry,  N.  Y. — The  Abundance  and  the  Lin¬ 
coln  plums  will  be  likely  to  thrive  as  far  north  as  Buf¬ 
falo,  N.  Y.  So  will  the  Lincoln  Coroless  pear. 
W.  H.  L.,  Oil  City ,  Pa.— The  mildew  on  your  Vir¬ 
ginia  Creeper  vines  may  be  remedied  by  spraying  them 
with  weak  Bordeaux  mixture.  Perhaps  the  damage 
is  due  to  a  damp  or  confined  position. 
Killing  Dewberry  Vines.—  J.  M.  C.,  Mauricetown,  N. 
J. — To  kill  dewberry  vines  in  your  15-acre  field,  plow 
it  up  and  cultivate  hoed  crops  in  it  for  one,  two  or 
three  years— whatever  time  may  be  found  necessary 
for  the  work  of  eradication.  Usually  thorough  culti¬ 
vation  for  two  consecutive  seasons  will  accomplish  the 
work. 
The  Pawpaw  Tree—  W.  H.  C.,  Orange  County,  Fla.— 
This  tree  (Asimina  triloba)  is  a  native  tree  growing 
in  the  Middle  Southern  and  Western  States.  It  is 
easily  raised  from  seeds.  We  do  not  know  of  any  nur¬ 
serymen  who  offer  it.  Perhaps  P.  J.  Berckmans,  of 
Augusta,  Ga.,  may  furnish  plant*.  Thorburn  &  Co., 
15  John  St.,  N.  Y.,  offer  the  seeds. 
