VOL. L. NO. 2162. 
NEW YORK, JULY 4, i89i. 
PRICE, FIVE CENTS. 
$3.00 PER YEAR. 
POULTRY IN THE TOOL HOUSE. 
Free Homes for the Hens. 
ARMER, does cur illustration strike you P Have 
you such a place on your farm ? If so what do you 
call it P It may be a poultry-house or possibly an 
implement house; but if a poultry house, have you not 
put in rather costly roosting-poles P Or, if an implement- 
house, had you not as well leave your binder, drill, and 
machinery in general stand out beneath some spreading 
tree and devote the building entirely to poultry-raising P 
Sunshine and rain can scarcely injure your implements 
more than to have poultry roost upon them. Besides, if 
the building were given up entirely to the fowls it would 
be far more convenient, as 
it is no pleasant task to 
make one’s way through a 
jumble of farm machinery 
packed and piled together 
in “every which” order, 
upside down or otherwise 
so as to take the least pos¬ 
sible space. And, further, 
there is a great deal of 
valuable fertilizer that 
would otherwise be wasted. 
It is a good thing some¬ 
times to' have fertilizer In 
your drill, but you may 
have enough scattered over 
it and your binder to go 
over a 20 acre field and still 
have some left, and your 
wheat crop is apparently 
none the better for it. 
There is one more point 
that perhaps you had bet¬ 
ter ask your hired hand or 
the boys about. It is the 
cleaning before using. If 
your farm hand is an ex¬ 
traordinarily good one he 
may refrain from the use 
of bad language, but in 
any case you might save 
him some painful moral¬ 
izing and meditations if 
you would only keep your 
implements and your 
poultry apart. “There is 
a place for everj thing,” but 
not on your binder or drill- 
box. 
You might just as well 
invite the hens in to roost 
on your wife’s sewing ma¬ 
chine. How long would 
they stay there P Not very 
long, we can tell you, be¬ 
cause your wife has far 
more sense about such 
things than you have. And 
your wagons—even the car¬ 
riage in which you take 
your family to drive ! What 
a great respect you have 
for the hens 1 The ungrate¬ 
ful things don’t show a 
proper appreciation, for 
they never “pay.” When 
hot weather comes, some of 
them are just as liable as not to take the limb of a tree for 
a roosting place. You can’t break them of this habit 
when the weather gets cold. And the horses and cows ! 
If they could talk wouldn’t they tell tales of disgust 
though ? Come now, make the hen stay in her proper 
place or get rid of her. A hen out of place is a nuisance, 
however good she may be “ at home.” 
The trouble is that a good many farmers do not provide 
any “ proper place ” for the hens. That’s one reason why 
they are found roosting anywhere and everywhere. They 
have no particular love for a grain drill or a binder, but 
you can’t hire them to stay in the miserable sheds that are 
provided for them, so they make a bee line for the place 
where they can most easily peck the farmer’s pocket-book 
and make him wake up. Fix up that hen-house so that 
the hens will recognize it as “ Home, Sweet Home l ” 
DRINKS FOR THE HARVEST FIELD. 
DR. GEO. G. GROFF. 
There are times when, subjected to exhaustive labors, 
men desire other foods and drinks than those in common 
use. This is because under the stress of severe labors, 
there is a waste of the body which ordinary foods and 
drinks do not replace. Thus, when men are perspiring 
profusely, they will often prefer vinegar and water, mo¬ 
lasses and water, oat meal and water, lemonade, tea or 
coffee. In some of the above drinks there is little nourish¬ 
ment. Some of them may check the violence of the per¬ 
spiration ; some may restore the rapid waste of the body. 
The writer has long believed that it is frequently be¬ 
cause of cravings of the system for nourishment, that men 
are led to indulge in alcoholic beverages. Hence, every¬ 
thing which will lead to the better feeding of the people 
tends to lessen the evils arising from the use of alcohol. 
It is with this in mind that I call attention to the need of 
some thought in supplying the men in the harvest field, 
and at thrashing times with suitable drinks. I recommend 
a trial of cold tea and coffee, lemonade, vinegar and water 
flavored with nutmeg, molasses and water, home-brewed 
beer, but especially farinaceous drinks, which are at once 
food and drink. I quote in reference to them from Naval 
Hygiene, by Dr. Joseph Wilson, of the United States 
Navy: 
“ On board the steamships, the firemen employed about 
the furnaces are sometimes greatly exhausted by heat. 
Their profuse perspiration renders a large quantity of 
water necessary to supply the waste. The ingestion of 
clear water under these circumstances appears to answer 
very imperfectly the wants of the system. It seems to 
pass through the circulation to the skin, percolate as 
through a sieve, and flow over the surface of the body in 
streams. A large drink of cold or even cool water, under 
these circumstances, on an empty stomach, is very danger¬ 
ous, and liable to produce death with almost the sudden¬ 
ness of an electric shock. Great practical advantage has 
been obtained by mixing farinaceous substances, particu¬ 
larly oat meal, with the water to be used by the men em¬ 
ployed at this kind of labor. 
“ The oat meal is mixed in the proportion of three or 
four ounces to the gallon of 
water, and used according 
to inclination by the fire¬ 
men and coal heavers. It 
might be difficult to deter¬ 
mine why oat meal, for this 
purpose, should be letter 
than corn meal, or buck¬ 
wheat, or rye, whea mil¬ 
let, etc., but the 1 omen 
themselves seem to ti ink it 
has the effect of d aking 
them as strong as orses. 
We may safely alloy some¬ 
thing for this sort of pre¬ 
judice, which we know to 
be very potent among the 
Influences on health and 
disease. The peculiar odor 
of the oats is probably as¬ 
sociated with a pleasant de¬ 
gree of stimulation of the 
alimentary mucous sur¬ 
faces in such a way as to 
promote its complete diges¬ 
tion. It seems to fill the 
blood vessels without in- 
sreasiog the amount of 
cutaneous exhalations. The 
men occasionally try acid, 
saccharine and alcoholic 
drinks as substitutes for 
the oats, but always with 
unsatisfactory results, ex¬ 
cept that they find molasses 
and water better than clear 
water, and those who are 
disposed to insist on the ex¬ 
cellence of rum and whisky, 
under all circumstances, 
petition for those, and ex¬ 
perience after ingestion a 
momentary relief, followed 
by additional profuseness 
of perspiration and addi¬ 
tional exhaustion. 
“The attoley of our In¬ 
dians is a nutritive beverage 
of this kind, used prin¬ 
cipally at the South and 
throughout Mexico. It is 
made by parching their 
corn (maize) or other grain, 
pounding it to meal in a 
suitable cavity of rock, with 
a smooth stone, and mix¬ 
ing it with a little sugar if 
they have it. About a tablespoouf ul of this is stirred with 
a pint of water from the spring, and swallowed at two or 
three drinks, according to inclination. An Indian, pro¬ 
vided with about two pounds of attoley in a little bag, is 
prepared to perform the most fatiguing and dangerous 
journey of two or three weeks, without expecting assist¬ 
ance or supplies by the way except water from the spring 
or brook twice a day. He appropriates, of course, any little 
food which comes in his way, but when this amounts to 
next to nothing he comes out of such an expedition with¬ 
out much apparent suffering or inconvenience. Nearly 
any other grain or grass seed seems to answer the purpose, 
though the Indian corn Is generally preferred. A very 
small quantity of food, fully digested and assimilated, is 
capable of supplying the waste of the system even through 
extraordinary labor and fatigue.” 
