NOV. 27 
THE BUBAL MEW-YOBKEB. 
783 
that Col. C. means to charge me with that. I 
hope be will now admit that I was not even 
careless. Regarding the question of the whole¬ 
someness of Jersey milk, it seems that between 
him and me there is no difference. But I think 
he is mistaken in thinking there is none be¬ 
tween us and Dr. Sturtevant. If what the 
Doctor has meant is only that Jersey milk 
needs more watering than Ayrshire when fed 
to babies, he has said it in a very obscure way. 
®||f jstac-getii. 
ECONOMY IN FEEDING PIGS. 
COL. F. D. COBTIS. 
Economy in feeding is necessary if there is 
to be any profit in the making of pork. More 
flesh and fat can be extracted 
and urinary organs. The bran or.meal should 
be mixed with vegetables and cooked with 
them to absorb the natural excess of water. 
When this is done there will not be such a vol¬ 
ume of liquid taken into the stomach, but the 
food will be more concentrated and healthful. 
Vegetables—beets, mangels or pumpkins— 
may be fed raw in connection with grain and 
they will be found to aid in digestion and at 
the same time they will keep animals in a 
healthy condition. When fed in this manner, 
they tend to increase the appetite and to pre¬ 
vent fever which is the natural result of feed¬ 
ing grain alone. They are cooling and laxa¬ 
tive in their nature and therefore serve as an¬ 
tidotes to the beating and costive effects of 
grain. Sloppy food of all kinds makes soft 
and flabby meat, while dry food tends to make 
it firm and solid. A judicious mingling of the 
two kinds of feed always makes better meat 
by making it Arm enough and at the Bame 
down nearly to the freezing point, while in the 
incubator the temperature was 105 degrees. 
The little chick’s hair stood on end and he was 
panting for dear life. He mnst come, ont of 
there, and as his brothers and sisters were 
following him out of the shells, we began to 
prepare all sorts of receptacles for them. 
We rigged up a mother on the heater 
and put in it several chicks that lived 
a few hours and then died. We de- 
c'ded it was too cold, so we put others in a 
box and put them back in the incnbator, where 
some of them were smothered with the heat. 
It was evident something must be done or we 
would soon have no chicks to experiment with, 
I determined in my own mind that a tempera¬ 
ture of about 90 degrees would be correct, so I 
ri.-ged up the brooder and started the lamp, 
put iu the thermometer, and when the proper 
degree of heat was reached put what was left 
of the young chicks into the brooder and they 
poured over it and is stirred until it takes up 
all the water. I mix two handfuls of soaked 
bread, with the water squeezed out, with one 
handful of this oat-meal, and dry it all with un¬ 
bolted corn meal until it crumbles freely. A 
little salt is mixed with it. This, with a little 
meat once a day, is their sole feed, and it is 
given about every three hours until the chicks 
are a week old, or until the wings are large 
enough to cover their backs, when they are 
put in a pen. This third lot is fed the above 
mixture five or six times with meat or worms 
once a day, and a head of cabbage is hung in 
the pen for them to peck at. The bottom of 
this pen is covered with dry sand and ashes 
with a pile of old mortar and broken oyBter 
shells to be picked over. 
For a water fountain I use a small tin pan, 
covering with a stone all the top except jnst 
enough to allow the chicks to drink, as shown 
at tig 384. Turn the open part next to the wall 
so the little things cannot 
i scratch dirt into it. Chicks 
, are very fond of scratching 
the feed out of the pan. To 
prevent this I take a sheet of tin 
—fig. 385—bend it over and put 
the feed under the bent part. 
This prevents their treading on 
,/ ji or scratching out the feed and 
caters to their natural taste for 
■I, hunting under things for food. 
It is also cleaned more readily 
Jj; !' ! \ than a pan. 
The body of the brooder—fig. 
j!,jh : !. 886—is made of zinc with an air 
} chamber over and under the 
it];':!; back end. The lamp setting 
■! ander ^ sends the heat up 
/j l''i ' through the heater and ont 
f jjf : i' : through the top where a nursery 
for young or sick chicks is 
7 ;/ placed to utilize the waste heat. 
jTiiJv: This form of brooder, with a 
f a , : , warm chamber and the chicks 
.'AVJj feeding in the open air, I be- 
g V Ueve to be better than those 
where the chicks are never sub- 
jectcd to a cool atmosphere, 
gfe.' '-,j The short stay while they feed 
ln tbe open air tends to harden 
iMv' 7S and invigorate them. All brood- 
- '1^ ere, boxes or pens, used to keep 
^ large numbers of chicks in, 
should have the bottom lined 
'fr&i’jp with zinc, as wood or earth is 
\ sure in time to become saturated 
with excrement, no matter how 
clean ymi try to keep it, and t 
is the ammonia arising from 
these tainted floors that causes such pens in 
time to prove fatal to the chicks. 
I promised to tell the truth about my exper¬ 
ience in hatching the eggs, and here it is: The 
last eggs that hatched out were bought Oct., 
10. Up to that time I had purchased 105 eggs 
at 30 cents a dozen. About one-third of these 
proved unfertile and were cooked and eaten 
or hard-boiled and fed to the young chicks, 
leaving about 75 eggs for the incubator to 
work on. Out of these I now have 27 as fine 
chick6 as 1 ever saw. By my own awkwardness 
and want of experience I have killed or 
from food of any kind when it 
Is cooked. Some things are com¬ 
paratively valueless when fed in 
a raw state, but when cooked 
are excellent food and deci¬ 
dedly fattening in character. 
The most remarkable of this 
class of food are potatoes, 
which require to be cooked in 
order to bo digestible. When 
cooked the starch iu them, the 
fattening portion — is readily 
assimilated in the stomach; but 
when fed raw, it is otherwise. 
Raw potatoes are therefore 
among the poorest kinds of 
feed for swine ; but when cook- , 
ed they are amoDg the very 
be6t. The nutritive value of |V 
corn is also nearly doubled by 
being thoroughly cooked. When 
fed raw a couBideruble portion 
passes tbrough the stomach, es¬ 
pecially if it is dry and hard, . 
without the least chemical 
change and quite a percentage ) ‘ ' v $ 
is not digested. Where , corn V 
is very cheap and fuel and labor ^ 
dear, it will pay best to feed 
raw, but where the relation is •' "fy? 
otherwise and corn is high in 
price and fuel and labor cheap, s' ; 
it will always pay best to cook 
it. Whether this important ar- 
tide of food should be fed raw * V ' ^ 
or cooked depends therefore 
upon circumstances which must 
govern every farmer, rather 
than upon any arbitrary rules. 
Next to cooking, grinding is the most im¬ 
portant condition iu the preparation of grain 
of any kind. All ground food is better fitted 
for digestiou in the stomach and assimilation, 
especially if it Is fed whole. No animal when 
hungry will feed slowly enough to properly 
masticate grain, but it will rather hasten to fill 
the Btomachas rapidly as possible. Such a 
mass of unmasticated food will not be fully 
digested and, of course, will be voided without 
the animal receiving the full benefit from it. 
It serves to stop hunger, but does not make its 
proper quota of fat. Half the quantity put in 
a condition to be fully digested, would add 
more to the growth of the body than the whole 
quantity. As pigs are usually fed, it may 
be set down as an assured fact that there 
Is a loss of fully one-half of the food unless 
we give the credit to the manure, which is au 
expensive way of adding value to it, How¬ 
ever cheap corn may be, this Is not a profit¬ 
able way of feeding, for in such localities man¬ 
ure has a proportionately small value, as it is 
not needed. The miller’s toll—one-tenth for 
grinding—must be taken into account and the 
expense of taking to and from the mill, In 
considering the cost, so that the value of 
ground feed is a relative one, and must also be 
determined by the circumstances. 
Soaking the grain to a condition of softness 
so as to make it mo.e readily digestible, will 
save the miller's toll and make it more profit¬ 
able iu some eases than to have it ground. 
When grain is thus prepared pigs wJll do well 
on it. Iu cool weather it uiuy be soaked for 
48 hours and should bo fully this length of 
time to put it in the best condition for feeding. 
In hot weather the time for soakiug should be 
lesB, or else the grain may become taiuted and 
unpalatable for pigs. The first degree of fer¬ 
mentation, an acid state, is the proper one, 
the most palatable and healthful for pigB. Be¬ 
yond that fermentatlou is not healthful. When 
food reaches a vinous condition—that of vine¬ 
gar it is not fit for pigs or any other animals 
to eat. 
The preparation of food, therefore, requires 
careful attention that It may be properly and 
profitably utilized. Most vegetables may bo 
rendered more valuable by cooking, and when 
thi» Is done, they should be mixed with bran 
or meal to absorb tho juices, otherwise there 
will be too much liquid and this form of food 
will be found to be washy and weakeulug. 
loo much liquid in the food of pigs acts as a 
diuretic and is too stimulating for the kidneys 
V'-i) cxttwWw \t\ 
-n.— FKOM LIFE.—1TTG. 382. 
began to brighten up. The problem was 
solved, though its solution cost me the lives of 
many fine chicks. 
With further experience I find the following 
treatment a complete success: After the chiek 
breaks the shell let him scramble around and 
dry himself in the incubator, which will gen¬ 
erally take a few hours, though some are much 
strouger than others. After too much exercise 
they hegin to pant, and should, of course, be 
removed. I have a box 13 inches square and 
six inches high. To the lid of this tack strips 
of woolen cloth an inch wide and two inches 
apart. These rags should hang within two 
inches of the bottom. Put a half inch of dry 
sand in the box. The brooder is kept at a tem¬ 
perature between 80 and 90 degrees. The young 
chicks, when perfectly dry, are takeu from the 
oven and put in the box and tho box put in the 
brooder where the oilier chicks are. Air-holes 
should be cut in the lid of the box, for if cut in 
the side tbe other chicks peck out the feathers 
of the little ones through these holes. This box 
keeps the chicks warm and they soon brighten 
up, and at the end of 12 hours are ready to take 
the first lesson in eating. Take a hard-boiled 
egg and chop the white and yelk up together as 
fine as grains of wheat; with it cover the bot¬ 
When pigs are fed corn on the ear they do 
not eat it so ravenously as if shelled for them, 
and they masticate it better. More hogs are 
fattened In this manner than in any other; 
but we believe that it would be more economi¬ 
cal to grind the ears, cob and all, and feed it in 
this form. There is fully five per cent, of nutri¬ 
ment in the cob, as has been tested by repeat¬ 
ed experiments, besides its containing chemi¬ 
cal properties conducive to health, and it 
also tends to promote a distension in the bow¬ 
els and action similar to that of raw vege¬ 
tables. Every farmer, if he wishes to feed bis 
pigs for any length of time, should nnite the 
cob with the corn to keep them in good health. 
If fed In this mauuer they would not bo liable 
to founder, the effect of the feverish condi¬ 
tion. When cob is united with corn in the 
stomach the food is not so compact in the 
stomach and is more readily penetrated by the 
gastric juices, hence digestion can be more ra¬ 
pid and complete. 
Shelled corn should be scattered thinly on the 
ground so that it may be picked up slowly, 
which will cause the pig to more thoroughly 
chew it. If thrown in a mass pigs will swal¬ 
low it whole, when it will not be digested as 
the gastric juice will not penetrate the un¬ 
broken shell of the kernel. Such feeding is 
exceedingly wasteful. 
water 
fig. 384. 
lost fully one dozen. My machine was an old 
one and the battery was worn out. The guage 
never was worth a cent. All defective parts 
have been renewed except the guage and I 
have learned lo doctor that. Owing to 
the above faults the temperature in the 
oven has run too low for days at a time, 
and for hours it has been at 82 degrees, 
while it has taken short trips as high 
as 110 degrees. The only wonder is that I 
got a chicken out of any of the eggs. It is as¬ 
tonishing how much au egg will stand. 
From my experience with hens I am satis¬ 
fied I will be able to get more chicks from a 
given number of eggs with the incubator than 
RAISING ARTIFICIALLY - HATCHED 
CHICKENS. 
tom of a little pan—the top of a blacking box 
will do. Place this in the box with the chicks 
and while tapping with the finger in the feed, 
repeat “tuck, tuck,” like the clucking of a 
hen—fig. 383. A little patience and one chick 
will see something and peck at it, when the 
others will follow suit, and in a few minutes 
the first leBsou is learned. After a few meals, 
with this process repeated, it will be ouly nec¬ 
essary to rap on the box and the little fellows 
will be ready for their meal, and also be spry 
enough to be put out of the box and run with 
the others iu the brooder. 
The next lot of chicks I feed as follows: 
Stale wheat bread is soaked in water. A cup¬ 
ful of oat-meal or rice has boiling water 
L. S. HARDIN 
fig. 385. 
I ever could with hens. It would be a poor 
hand who could not raise from a fourth to a 
third more chicks with brooders than with 
the best hens. 
LIME FOR LAYING HENS 
The shell of a hen’s egg is composed of al¬ 
most pure lime which she is obliged to fur- 
