620 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
September 16 
Its animal hPat, and. second, to reduce ltB temperature to a point not 
abo^e 50 denrees and not below 40 degrees Fahrenheit; said tempera¬ 
ture to be acquired within 45 minutes after the milking, and main¬ 
tained wttbln the above ltmits while beld for shipment, during Its 
transportation and until It Is deliver'd to the purchaser The cool¬ 
ing of the milk shall not be conducted in the same building In which 
It Is drawn, ror In an atmosphere tainted with animal odors. The de¬ 
tails of cooling the milk shall include all the foregoing provisions 
concerning the cleansing and condition of vessels, containers or uten¬ 
sils employed In the said cooling process. It is furthermore agreed 
that no milk shall be represented as certified that has been changed 
or reduced In any way by the addition of water, or any solid or liquid 
substance, in or out of solution; or the subtraction or removal in any 
manner of any part thereof. 
As soon as a canful of milk is obtained, it is sent on 
a little cable to the dairy house, which is built over a 
fine spring 1 at some distance from the barn. There it 
is well stirred and poured into the tank of the bottle¬ 
filling machine. Mr. F. has not, up to date, used an 
aerator. The can is set in the spring or in ice water 
and the milk well stirred. This reduces it to the proper 
temperature easily and quickly. The design is to get 
it into the bottles as soon as practicable. 
The Milk in the Bottles. 
All the “ certified milk ” will be sold in bottles which 
have long and narrow necks. The necks are graded 
with marks giving the percentage of cream. It is easy 
to glance at them and see just how much cream they 
contain. According to agreement the following rules 
must be lived up to : 
It Is hereby understood and agreed that all milk to be represented 
as certified milk shall be packed In flint glass quart jars immediately 
after it Is cooled; said jars o be of the most approved pattern. It Is 
furthermore agreed that the bottles or jars shall, before they are 
used, be cleaned by hand, separately, with the aid of hot water, alka¬ 
line sraps, rotating brush and boiled water; and that they shall be 
rinsed In two separate batbs of clean water, and then baked In hot 
air at a temperature of not less than 180 degrees Fahrenheit, and kept 
Inverted until used, without covers, in a clean, dry atmosphere free 
from odors. It Is agreed that the jars shall be filled by a method ap¬ 
proved by the parties of the llrst part; that they 
shall be sealed, after all air has been excluded, by 
the most approved device for closing them. The 
bottles, after being filled, shall be labeled across 
the cap, bearing the words “ Certified Milk,” with 
the names of the dairyman and distributing agent, 
together with the date ot milking. It Is fur.hermore 
agreed that no milk shall be sold as certified milk 
that is more than three hours old when bottled, nor 
more than 24 hours old when delivered. 
A picture of the apparatus used for 
bottling is shown at Fig. 208. The milk 
is poured into the vat and the bottles 
are arranged in rows in the vat below 
it. A number of little tubes run from 
the vat exactly over the bottles. By 
touching a spring all these tubes are 
opened and the milk runs into the bot¬ 
tles. When one row is filltd, the vat is 
rolled on over another, and so on until 
all are filled. The bottles are then 
covered by a device much like that of a 
beer bottle, and a seal is put on over it. 
Then the bottles are packed in small boxes and cov¬ 
ered to the neck in chopped ice. This will keep 
them perfectly. _ 
A CHAPTER ON POULTRY. 
WHAT’S THE BEST INCUBATOR? 
In a recent number of The Rural New-Yorker I 
saw an inquiry asking which was the best incubator, 
and the editor named several. In recommending them 
he did not make a mistake, as incubators, like sewing 
machines, are mostly good, and when they do not give 
satisfactory results, the trouble is oftenest in the 
operator. I have had much experience with artificial 
incubation, and spend a large part of my days in an 
office where in< ubators and brooders are the principal 
subjects of conversation, as it s the office of one of the 
largest manufacturers of incubators and brooders in 
the West. We get hundreds of letters from all puts 
of the United States, an !, of course, get a good many 
communications from those who are using other makes 
than the one we are interested in. Besides this, I have 
some incubators of different makes myself, and raise a 
rather large number of fowls for my own profit and 
interest. I am interested in the incubator business 
just to the extent of my salary in the office and the 
profits that are derived from my own private poultry 
yards, and therefore am free to say that one who knows 
how to operate an incubator can take either of those 
named in that issue of The Rural and get a good 
hatch from it, provided he knows something about 
the operation that must be gone through with in the 
hatching of a chicken. I have made some original in¬ 
vestigations in this direction myself, and have broken 
a lot of eggs from the 12th hour after they had been 
set until the 21st day, and I know just how the process 
of hatching progresses. Of this I will speak at an¬ 
other time. 
On a Leghorn Bias. 
I think the editor has a bias in favor of Leghorns 
from reading the editorials carefully, and this is an¬ 
other point on which I agree with him entirely. I am 
not prejudiced in this matter, for I am not ready to 
say with some that the Leghorn is the best not only 
for eggs, but also for market and for table use. The 
Leghorn hen is my favorite simply because she is more 
profitable for me to keep than any other breed. To 
make her profitable, she must be well fed. This is a 
point that she insists on, or she will feed herself by 
taking what garden truck and grapes there may be 
within reach. I have about 200 of the breed about my 
place at present, and am compelled to treat them very 
nicely to keep them from going right over a six-foot 
netting fence into the garden. But as long as I can 
buy wheat screenings that are nearly all shriveled 
grains of wheat, at 30 cents per 100 pounds, those Leg¬ 
horns shall have no reason to complain about fhe size 
of their rations. Think of that, you poultrymen 
“down East” where prices are high—12 bushels of 
good egg-making poultry food dumped into my granary 
for just SI 50 ! I can afford to feed my hens well and 
take lower prices for my eggs with feed at these prices. 
I can get as good wheat as grows for 50 cents a bushel, 
and corn at 40 cents. With prices as at present, I can 
keep a hen for much less than 50 cents a year, and, 
when I count up the eggs at the end of the year, I ex¬ 
pect to find that each of my hens has paid me a clear 
profit of more than $2, for I sold a lot of eggs this 
spring at $1 for 15, simply because people have got to 
believe that my hens lay more than those of anybody 
else. This shows the good effects that come to any 
one who studies his business. It is the same in any¬ 
thing else. The man who offers a superior article can 
make his own price, while he who keeps up to only 
the average must take what is offered. Next year I 
shall get $1 for 15 eggs and sell all I have to one man 
who is an extensive breeder, and he will fill his orders 
for Leghorn eggs from my yards. 
I do not have advertising bills to pay and get the 
best of the bargain. I make no pretentions to putting 
on style in raising poultry. It is not a nice work nor 
is it an agreeable one, and any one who claims it is 
does not tell the truth or else does not do the work 
himself. Once I was standing in a large barn with the 
owner, watching the hired help load the manure which 
was being hauled out to the fields. 
“ That is a kind of work I always despised,” I re¬ 
marked. 
“Oh, I don’t,” answ-red the owner of the farm. “ I 
have a way of getting along with it that makes it 
pleasant.” 
“ I should like to know your way,” I said. 
“ Well, I simply hire hands to do it for me.” 
This man was like those who talk of the niceties of 
poultry raising—they must hire a hand or they find a 
great deal that is disagreeable about it. T. B. Terry 
once said that some one remarked to him that haul¬ 
ing out manure was hard, dirty work, and he replied 
that it brought in good clean dollars, and so it is with 
poultry raising, it is hard, dirty work, but brings in 
more hard, clean dollar^ than any other work in which 
the farmer can engage in thes^ times, and if every 
farmer in the country would raise more poultry and 
sell lets 50-cent wheat, eat more poultry and less pork, 
more eggs and less patent process flour, his mortgages 
would grow smaller and his physician poorer at a rate 
that would encourage him to sleep nights and keep his 
attention fixed on the Sunday sermon, instead of tak¬ 
ing time that ought to be solely devoted to these 
occupations in studying how to meet the next call for 
money. 
The Easy Part of Poultrying. 
If things are done on time it is as easy to raise 
poultry as anything else, but once a person allows 
himself to get behind, it takes great effort to catch up. 
Lice never bother me at all because I take a can of 
kerosene at frequent intervals and pour some of the 
oil around in the cracks and crevices where these 
insects are likely to congregate. With oil at seven 
cents a gallon, this is not a costly way to keep the 
pests away, and if they are not allowed to make head¬ 
way they will never bother the fowls. My poultry are 
fed and watered as regularly and as often as my horse 
and cow and the care of them is a regular part of the 
work, and really I do not miss the time. I make as 
much mornings and evenings before and after offi'ie 
hours out of my poultry as the ordinary fa~m laborer 
does from working from morning till night, and it 
seems curious to me that so many farm bands who 
have—in this country at least—the privilege of raising 
poultry do not pay more attention to it. I began life 
as a hired man, and for a pretty hard-working master 
too, and I doubled my income from the poultry I kept 
and the truck patch that was a part of the considera¬ 
tion. I am a hired man yet, but I own my own home 
and get wages—they call it salary these days—that 
are more than t^ree times as large as the farm hand 
gets I began at about $200 a year on a farm and last 
year I got $1,500, in an office. I am not smarter or 
better educated than thousands of other farm hands. 
I am not ashamed that I have been a farm hand. 
There is no mystery about the matter at all. It all 
began because I liked poultry ; poultry is to be cred¬ 
ited for it all. There is no business that will pay so 
v-ell; no business that will give a living from so small 
an investment; no business that has so bright an out¬ 
look for the future. harry carew. 
What They Say. 
Everbearing Blackberry —We grow this variety 
successfully. My neighbor grew $25 worth on one 
vine last season, and I myself have picked as nice ber¬ 
ries in November as any one would wish to eat. My 
vines are young yet; but will bear a few this year. 
They are evergreen here and hold their leaves all 
winter; but I don’t think they would do it in a cold 
climate. Three years ago I came to Washington and 
the first Christmas the lady with whom we were stop¬ 
ping went out to her vine and picked evergreen black¬ 
berries to make a pie for dinner. The 
vine is a very rapid grower, making a 
growth of from 15 to 20 feet in a year ; 
but I would not advise any one in the 
East to get any, f _r they are not hardy. 
Chico, Washington. A. E. L. 
Clover in Orchards.— On page 573, 
Secretary L A. Goodman speaks of the 
use of clover in Western orchards. He 
says: 
“ Sow the seed on the last snow, and 
in June run the mower over the land 
and let the hay lie on it and plow under 
the seed as soon as ripe.” I find but little 
good from clover treated in this way. 
My plan would be to plow the orchard 
on May 1, and plant field peas either in 
drilled rows or in hills 3% feet apart to 
correspond in width with the rows of 
trees in the orchard. The last of August 
I would plow under the pea crop, using a roller cutler 
to cut the pea vines to prevent choking the plants, and 
if my .and was much exhausted I would repeat this 
treatment year after year or until I had brought it up. 
I think land can be brought up more quickly in this 
way than with clover, and we plow the orchard twice 
in one year, and the land is shaded through the hot 
summer months, for it must be so treated (as Mr. 
Goodman says) that it will grow better rather than 
poorer. Crops cannot be taken from such land except 
at the expense of future yields of fruit.” 
Missouri. N. G. gano. 
I can neither add anything to this, nor take any¬ 
thing from it, for it tells just what I practice myself. 
I take nothing but the fruit off the ground, but put on 
all the ashes I can get. samuel miller. 
New England Hay Farms. —In an editorial of 
September 2, reference is made to New England farms 
and farming. The writer asks : “ Why not make hay 
farms of these worn-out pastures ? ” I am at present 
working a New England farm, and have about 200 
acres of rough pasture to manage. I can easily tell 
why I do not make hay land of it. It is simply im¬ 
possible to plow it in its present condition, and even 
if in good grass it would hardly pay for putting it 
into the barn, unless it was much more than an ord¬ 
inary crop, for it would all be hand work in cutting, 
raking and loading. With labor at from $2 to $3 per 
day in haying time, it would hardly pay to make more 
hay than can at least be raked with a horse ; for, as 
The Rural again says on the same page, “It is get¬ 
ting so now that hand work is profitable only on jobs 
that a machine cannot possibly do.” Therefore, most 
of the New England land cannot be worked at a 
profit under present conditions. 
Will it pay to clear New England farms of stone ? 
Is it strictly just to speak of these farms as worn-out 
and poor ? Do not the statistics show as large—or 
even larger—a yield per acre for some crops in New 
England as in any other section of the United States? 
Certainly no better farms west or south could be had 
than some here are capable of becoming if put into as 
good working condition. Neither are the farmers 
less enterprising or intelligent here than elsewhere. 
View of Bottling Apparatus. Fig. 208 . 
