46o 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
July 8 
silos, the corn should be cut. It may be put whole in 
large ones. One man in the silo can keep the corn 
evenly distributed. Do not tread it, but keep the out¬ 
side about a foot higher than the center. He did not 
cover the silo last year, and there was only four inches 
lost by decay. Six inches burned, but that can be fed 
to young cattle. He did not think the loss sufficient 
to pay the expense of covering. 
The following claims are made for the silo : 1. It 
will reduce the cost of a pound of butter 13 cents. 2. 
It will save enough to build a silo every year. 3 It 
will let us sell all our Timothy hay, and at the same 
time let us keep three times the amount of stock and 
return more fertility to our farms than if the hay were 
fed. To prove the claims three cows were fed on 20 
pounds of Timothy hay and seven pounds of ground 
feed, corn and oats at a cost of $ 228 each per day. 
The same cows were afterwards fed on eight pounds 
of grain, two parts wheat bran, two parts ground 
feed, one part oil meal, tw -• pounds of Timothy hay, 
40 pounds of ensilage. They gave in three days 172% 
pounds of milk, which made 12 pounds of finished 
butter, a gain in three days of 23% pounds of milk and 
three pounds of butter, making a pound of butter 
from 14 375 pounds of milk, and making the cost of a 
pound of butter 9 57 cents, a saving of 13 23 cents on 
a pound of butter in favor of ensilage. In March he 
fed seven pounds of gram, two pounds of hay and 40 
pounds of ensilage at a cost of $.117 per cow per day, 
or 9.3 cents, for a pound of butter, and he fed the last 
of the ensilage the last day of April. May was wet 
and he had to feed Timothy hay through that month 
and increase the grain ration to nine pounds. The 
cost per cow, per day vras $ 232, making $49.91 the 
increased cost for 14 cows for May. The cows shrunk 
so that 134 pounds less of butter were made in May 
than in March according to the ratio. This at 25 
cents per pound would amount to $33.50; add the 
increased cost and there is a loss of $83.41 on 14 cows 
for one month, or $500 56 for six months, the number 
of feeding months in the year. Two tons of hay per 
acre will feed one cow 200 days and return $10.96 
worth of fertility. Twelve tons of ensilage per acre 
will feed three cows 200 days and return $14 worth of 
fertility. scribe. 
MAKING A LAYING STRAIN OF LEGHORNS. 
No Egg Record In the “Standard.” 
For a number o' years I have been studying over 
the problem of producing a laying strain of hens, and 
in pursuit of this desirable end I have read poultry 
papers without number, and carefully digested a large 
number of poultry books, but could not get much in¬ 
formation of a practical sort. 
Progress in this direction is full of difficulties that 
are not met with in trying to improve any other kind 
of stock, and the very first thing that the breeder of 
pure-bred poultry runs up against is The American 
Standard of Perfection, which is the only recognized 
authority in judging poultry, and it does not consider 
utility at all, but subordinates everything to shape 
and color of plumage. There may be something in 
the shape of a hen that will indicate whether she is 
a good layer or not, and I am inclined to think there 
is, but the Standard does not refer to this matter at 
all, but prescribes the shape that a fowl shall be from 
an arbitrary ideal that the American Poultry Asso¬ 
ciation has agreed shall be the ideal of a perfect fowl. 
This ideal shape and color are fixed at so high a stand¬ 
ard that it is impossible to find a perfect fowl, and I 
have nevei yet seen one in any show room that was 
not cut in some section for deficiency in shape. It is 
the same with color, for the standard of color is im¬ 
possible to attain. 
I wanted to breed Standard fowls, or those that 
would score as high as possible ; but eggs are where 
the profit comes in, and I wanted the greatest possi¬ 
ble egg-producing capacity in my hens. If I could 
not get hens that would score up in the nineties—100 
being perfection—I could not sell eggs for hatching 
at an increased price, and if I could not get hens that 
would produce the greatest possible nurrber of eggs, 
I would be losing the benefit of what I might have 
had at the end of the year. I have always bred Leg¬ 
horns, and much of the time some other breed, and 
part of the time several other breeds. I did this in 
order to know for mjself whether my fancy for Leg¬ 
horns was a misdirected one, or whether they were 
really the best egg producers to be had. Having sat¬ 
isfied myself on this point, I began to study the ques¬ 
tion seriously in an endeavor to make my Leghorns 
better layers than they naturally were. 
Mixed Blood in any Flock. 
Now in breeding any other kind of stock the excel¬ 
lence of individual animals may be easily discovered and 
a strain founded on the blood of that one animal, but 
in a flock of poultry this is well-nigh impossible, and 
the breeder is left to grope in the dark. I never keep 
a large number of hens because of territorial limita¬ 
tions, having but a small place, and I have always 
kept prettv well informed about each one of them, 
and often I would find that one hen was a good layer, 
and would keep her till age rendered her useless. But 
this did not make the average number of eggs from 
my flock increase very rapidly. Then I began to 
theorize something after this manner : If a floek of 
hens be fed in such a manner that they will lay more 
than the usual number of eggs in a year, they will 
transmit to their progeny some tendency to lay more 
eggs, and if this is kept up for a series of years, this 
tendency will become hereditary, and become char¬ 
acteristic of the strain. Here I encountered another 
difficulty, for it has been proved that inbreeding 
decreases egg production after it has been practiced a 
few years, and new blood must be infused into any 
flock to keep the number of eggs produced in a year 
up to the normal number. Then I began to purchase 
good cocks. These I would breed on my flock for two 
years and then change for new blood again, and this 
system I have followed for six years. 
I have had so many theories that were advanced by 
other breeders prove a failure when I tried them that 
I had but little faith in my own, and l never said a 
word about what I was working for, and this is the 
first time I have ever mentioned it to any one. The 
plan was a success, and my flock of Leghorns have 
made a record of 179 eggs in a year for each of 35 hens. 
I am perfectly aware of the fact that this is not a 
remarkable showing when we read the circulars of 
some breeders who say in a genera way that Lieghorns 
have been known to produce an average of 200 eggs 
each in a year, but the authors of these circulars fail 
to mention time, place and circumstance, so their 
statements may be well taken with several large grains 
of salt. My experience is that a Leghorn hen that 
produces 130 eggs in a year is a pretty good one. My 
friend Jacobs, of Hammonton, N. J., calculates that a 
good hen will lay every other day and that during the 
100 days that she is moulting she 'vill not lay at all. 
This leaves 265 working days, and one egg for each 
two days is 132 for the year, and I think this is above 
the average. 
There's a Good Deal In the Feed. 
I feed my hens every day in the year, and try to give 
them a ration that is rich in albumen, and at the same 
time furnishes them with enough fat elements to keep 
them in good conditon. This I accomplish by feeding 
corn freely in cold weather, and not so freely in warm 
weather, with bran, shorts, ground bone, meat, oyster 
shells and all the milk they want. I give them free 
range, and feed a full feed night and morning every 
day in the year. I try to give them all they will eat 
with a good appetite, and the result is as stated. This 
is not guess work, but is the result of keeping a pen¬ 
cil and tablet in the egg basket and putting down 
every egg that was brought in. 
It costs me 55 cents, approximately, to keep a hen a 
year, here in Ohio, and the average price of eggs is not 
far from 15 cents in our home market, so my hens pay 
me something like $1.75 each in a year above the cost 
of feeding them. I don’t have to count the manure to 
make it profitable to keep them, but in gardening it 
saves me buying several dollars’ worth of commercial 
fertilizers, and it is really a cash item to the credit of 
the hens. 
I don’t want to convey the idea that the different 
foods enumerated above are all that I give to my hens, 
for they are not. I give them, in winter, chopped vege¬ 
tables of any kind that are handy, from turnips to 
squashes, and they usually have as much well cured 
clover hay as they can eat. Last winter was an ex¬ 
ceptionally severe one, but I got eggs all winter ex¬ 
cept three weeks, when the weather was coldest. 
During that time I kept the hens in the house all the 
time, and they stopped laying. 
I bought some Light Brahmas, and fed them the 
same as I did the Leghorns, and they refused to lay 
at all until I cut down the supply of food until they 
began to fall off in weight, and all this season they 
have been laying regularly, though closely confined. 
I feed them a handful each of wheat screenings in 
the morning, and as much more at night, with corn 
occasionally as a change, and through the day all the 
freshly cut clover they will eat. There are three of 
them, a cock and two hens, and the hens lay about 10 
eggs a week, or an average of 1% a day. I have not 
yet determined whether one of them lays every other 
day and the other daily, or whether both have some¬ 
thing to do with the extra eggs. Neither has shown 
any desire to sit yet, and I am pretty well satisfied 
that my theory of how to produce a strain of layers is 
based on reason. harry carew. 
One cent will buy a postal card on which to send us 
your friend’s name for a sample copy of The R. N.-Y., 
if you wish to preserve your copy. 
A MAMMOTH CLOVER FARMER. 
IT BEATS THE COMMON RED IN A THREE YEARS’ 
ROTATION. 
How He Came To Grow It. 
Mr. Wm. Markle, a farmer of Pickaway County, 
Ohio, has a great local reputation for his success with 
Mammoth clover. 
“What induced you to commence growing it?” I 
asked him. 
“ I began it as an experiment.” 
“What points about it led you to continue its growth ?’ ’ 
“The principal point was that I could grow it and did 
not have to stop to make hay when busy with other 
crops, as I did when I grew Medium clover; more¬ 
over, I liked it as a forage plant and for the seed crop.” 
“ Does it start any earlier in the spring than the 
Medium.” 
“ No ; it starts about the same time.” 
“ Its growth is more rapi 1, is it not ? ” 
“It is much more so, and I believe I get about 
twice as much pasture from it in a given length of 
time as can be had from the Medium ? ” 
“WiL it stand the winter any better than the latter?” 
“The first winter after it is sown it will stand it 
just as well, but the second winter it will not.” 
“Do you think it roots deeper than the Medium ? ” 
“ I think the roots run down deeper and are heavier, 
thicker and larger in every way; in fact, they are 
correspondingly heavy with the tops.” 
“ How much do you grow every year—how many 
acres ?” 
“For the last 10 years f have been growing about 
70 acres a year. I have one farm of 160 acres t at I 
have divided into three equal parts. I grow wheat, 
corn and clover on one of these each year, practicing 
a three-year rotation, following clover with corn and 
corn with wheat, and wheat with clover.” 
“ Under this system do you find the land improving?” 
“ The farm is admitted by every one to have doubled 
in value for producing crops since I took hold of it. 
The same is true of this farm he-e on which I live.” 
How It Built Up the Land 
“ Before you can grow it successfully, the land 
must be drained naturally or artificially, must it not?” 
“ I have grown fairly good crops on pretty wet 
land, but after it is tiled I can see the clover is much 
better over the tile. On this land the roots during 
the winter will come up and lie on top.” 
“Do you use any commercial fertilizer on this land?” 
“ When I first started with this 160-acre farm it was 
in very bad condition, and I used commercial manure 
on wheat, but after I had got a good stand of clover 
I quit using it. On the home farm I used the clover 
before the use of commercial manures was commenced 
in this neighborhood, and when their use was begun 
I did not need them.” 
“ You grow only for pasture and seed ? ” 
“Pasture and seed, and the benefit of the land as 
fertilizer.” 
“ Which of the three is worth the most to you ? ” 
“The seed; I mean that fills my eye bettor than 
the others. The seed crop alone has brought me 
more money since I have been growing it than either 
the corn or wheat crop. It not only fills my eye, but 
my purse.” 
“ When do you begin pasturing it ?” 
“As soon as the wheat crop is off. I do that to 
keep the field mice from eating it the first winter, and 
for the money there is in the pasture.” 
“ Do the stock ever injure it by tramping it so soon 
after harvest ? ” 
“ I think not. They never kill the stand. It might 
be better not to pasture it if it were not for the field 
mice.” 
“ Does any seed form the year of sowing ?” 
“ Yes, I believe there would often be a crop of seed, 
although I have never cut any. I have sometimes had 
plots that I could not pasture, that would fill with 
seed the year of sowing.” 
“ Do you pasture till after frost ?” 
“ Yes, sir.” 
“ Do the animals hurt the frosted clover by tramp¬ 
ing over it ?” 
“ I think not; but when frost becomes regular I 
take the stock off.” 
“You pasture in the spring as soon as the land is 
solid and the growth is good ?” 
“ Yes, and pasture till about June 10, sometimes a 
little later, and sometimes take off the animals a little 
sooner.” 
“ Do you want it pastured short ?” 
“ I want it pastured short; if I have not stock of my 
own, I borrow some. The owners generally pay me 
for it, but I often take stock in when I know I shall 
not get anything for it ?” 
“Then you pasture again in the fall after the seed 
crop has been taken off ?” 
“Yes, the spring crop is most valuable for pasture.” 
