MARCH 45 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
473 
£1)£ Pouitnj Jarir. 
RAISING FOWLS FOR THE TABLE. 
MASON 0. WELD. 
Johnnie Crepeau excels everybody else in 
the world in profitable poultry keeping. His 
table fowls are excellent in themselves—well 
formed, quick-growing (and hence tender), 
well and quickly fattened, and most attraot- 
ively dressed, and when exposed in the mar¬ 
kets they are prepared for the table. The 
French cook, therefore, skillful as he is known 
to be, has really less to do than an English. 
German or American cook to present a fat 
pullet or capon upon the table in the highest 
style of his art. 
There is, indeed, a great difference in 
chickens, starting from the eggs, and I would 
be unwilling to have it inferred that all eggs 
are alike either in quality or flavor, for they 
are not. It is, however, the rearing and 
marketing of the chicks and young 
fowls that chiefly determine the profitable¬ 
ness of the undertaking. We are gradually 
learning some things in this country—at least 
some of us are, though the great mass of 
poultry raisers are confirmed know-nothings, 
and will long remain so. How otherwise can 
people be characterized who, having 100 or 
200 chickens and turkeys to sell, will feed 
them for a month or so, and when they dis¬ 
cover that they are no longer gaining, if they 
are not actually losing flesh, and that the 
weather is tolerably cold, first give them a 
full feed of corn, then kill them with their 
crops and inwards full of food, scald, pluck 
(probably let them get cold), and then barrel 
them in a careless way, and finally blame the 
commission merchant , who has a lot of heated, 
sour poultry to sell, for not getting better 
prices. The flesh is per meated by the odor of 
the fermenting food, the fowls are jammed 
and pressed out of shape by the manner in 
which they are shipped, many of them proba¬ 
bly over-scalded, and perhaps frozen besides. 
Such fowls, even if fat, which they rarely are, 
are poor food, and yet the great mass of 
poultry sent to market is no better than I have 
described. 
There is little profit in mourning over things 
as they are—the question is: “ How may they 
be bettered?” The case is one which needs 
improvement in every pa rtieular. We do not 
keep the best breeds of poultry. Fowls and 
ducks, at least, are not hatched in the best 
way, not cared for in their infancy in the best 
way, not fed and raised to broiler-hood, or 
later marketable size, in the hest way: not 
fattened, killed, plucked and marketed in the 
best way, and so, of course, they give poor 
satisfaction to raiser, poulterer and consumer. 
Such poultry is like second or third-rate but¬ 
ter or any such thing—sold at a poor price— 
which is generally too good for the article. 
There are certain breeds of fowls particular¬ 
ly adapted for raising broilers. The same are 
fairly good for market poultry. Direct crosses 
of some of the flesh-producing breeds give rise 
to chickens which are superior to those of any 
pure bred ones as broilers, growing more 
quickly and early taking on some fat, notwith¬ 
standing their rapid growth. Such is the 
cross of Brahmas and Plymouth Rocks, Games 
and Asiatics, or Games aud Plymouth Rocks. 
Other breeds crossed surpass these, according 
to the evidence we uow have, for Autumn and 
Winter poultry. The crosses most highly re¬ 
commended are Game and Dorking, Game and 
Houdau, Plymouth Rock and Dorking for 
quality; and Plymouth Rock and Brahma. 
Dorking and Brahma, Dorking and Lang- 
shan for size. The fowls selected for breeding 
market birds, need not be the best of their re¬ 
spective breeds; but only pure-bred, good, 
well-grown, healthy fowl*. They should be 
paired early, and the earlier the first dutches 
or settings are off the better. 
Any person raising many fowls or ducks 
will do well to obtain the best incubator he 
can. Unfortunately the price will deter many; 
still incubators are really economical. But 
whether they be Used or not, no hen should 
ever be allowed to brood her own chicks. 
The artificial brooder is almost sure to be a 
success, whether the warmth be communicat¬ 
ed by hot. air or hot water, from beneath, 
above, or the side. The chicks do well in all 
f not kept too warm, and if they have fresh 
air. gravel, excessive cleanliness, and good 
feed and water or milk. A simple form for 
these brooders, and oue which any one can 
make with the aid of a tinner, consists of a 
shallow box—say three feet long, two wide, 
and ten inches high A width of eighteen 
inchee of the top slope* to the front, has seve¬ 
ral panes of glass sot in it, and is hinged to a 
fixed part of the top, which is six inches wide, 
The rear also slopes slightly to the rear, is ulso 
hinged to tho fixed part, and must fit tightly. 
Underneath this is placed a flat tank for water. 
This is set on a slope, supported upon cleats. It 
should not fill the entire width of the box, nor 
should it go quite to the back end; but an air 
space for ventilation should extend all around. 
This tank is rectangular, made of zinc or gal¬ 
vanized iron, for the sized brooder we are 
contemplating measures about one foot wide, 
22 inches long and four inches high, holds, 
when full, nearly four gallons of water, and 
is closed by a "screw-top” at one of the upper 
comers. It should be entirely jacketed in 
felt or several thicknesses of old blanket or 
carpeting, and should rest two-and-a-half 
inches above the floor at the rear, aud four 
inches above it at the front end, where a cur¬ 
tain of flannel should hang from the top of 
the brooder down nearly to the floor. In the 
frout end there should be an opening four 
inches high and wide, closed by a wire screen 
and also by a wooden sliding door. It is well 
also to have augur holes covered witb wire 
cloth in the front part for ventilation. This 
is easily secured, however, by raising the front 
lid an eighth of an inch in cool nights to an 
inch or more in warm weathor, unless there is 
danger from vermin. 
The chicks should be taken from the hen as 
soon as dry, be well greased upon the heads, 
upon their throats and under their wings with 
lard, and put iuto the brooder, the tank of 
which is tilted with moderately hot, but not 
boiling, water, by day. Atnight, if it is very 
cold, and the brooder is out-of-doors, and there 
are not many chickens in it, boiling water 
may be used. After a few days they will 
learn to come out from under the tank if it is 
too hot. They quickly become attached to 
their foster-mother. 
Chickens thus raised escape the various ills 
of chicbenhood—lice, gapes, pip, etc. They 
are not trodden to death by clumsy hens, or 
dragged through wet grass, or exposed to 
storms, and they grow better, faster and ev- 
ener than if raised under hens. 
So-long as the brooder is not crowded, big 
and little ones do well all together, but when 
it is too full, the larger ones may be separated 
by partly closing the door, so that when once 
out they cannot get back, but must find 
shelter in a box without heat, placed adja¬ 
cent. Here they will do very well 
with no artificial heat except in very 
cold weather, when a pad of hot water 
may be set in to temper the air and a horse- 
blanket be thrown over the box. When they 
out-grow this box they will be fit for broiling, 
or. i f to be raised, it will be time to separate 
cockerels from pullets and thereafter to keep 
them apart, each with a good range. 
As to the matter of feed, the most important 
thing is variety of grains, if chickens have the 
free range of farm or meadow land. If con¬ 
fined, they must not only have a variety of 
ground and whole grains, but meat also. 
Pork scrap-cake is a good source of animal 
food; soaked and chopped fine it may be fed 
to young or old chicks without barm, and takes 
the place of worms and insects which they 
would get in freedom, and which might con¬ 
stitute fully one-third of their diet. 
Chickens, indeed all fowls, should be fed 
regularly: four times a day is not too often, 
and the last feed should always tie wheat 
screenings, wheat, barley, or cracked corn- 
some form of hard grain, so that the process 
of digestion will tie going on all night, and that 
they may thus be warmed after the heat in 
the hot water tank goes down. 
WESTERN STOCK AND FARM NOTES. 
JONATHAN PERIAM, CHICAGO, ILL. 
The average far-western shelter is too 
often the lee side of the annual straw’ stack 
us it comes from the thrasher. These, how¬ 
ever, are being yearly supplemented l>y the 
growth of plauted groves. Simple sheds, 
open on one side, constitute the average stock 
shelter. If deeply littered with straw and 
covered from the leakage of rain, stock with 
plenty of food are undoubtedly better off in 
these shelters than if confined iu barn stables 
with nothing between them aud the weather 
but board siding with mi battened cracks half 
an inch wide. Why! In the first case the 
animals have tho privilege of moving about to 
got up circulation. In the other they must 
grin and bear it whether the wind and snow- 
sift in or not. If fanners would but remem¬ 
ber this fact, that in a still atmosphere ani¬ 
mals retain au atmosphere of heat next the 
skin, but that in a current of air the bodily 
heat is constantly blown away, the means of 
prevention would easily suggest themselves. 
In this light a wind-proof yard and dry, 
deeply littered and regularly cleaued sheds 
wi h plenty of feeding, are not bad winter- 
quarters. Yes, there is oue thing more, and 
this of fully as much importance as feeding— 
that Js, plenty of water where animals may 
take it at least twice a day. It should be 
supplied in troughs, and from wells if possi¬ 
ble. The usual means of watering is from 
holes cut through the ice. The water is 
deathly cold and animals instinctively dread 
it, and often will not drink until nearly fam¬ 
ished, and then to such a degree as to seri¬ 
ously chill and shock the whole body. If they 
have to be driven perhaps half a mile to get 
it, there comes an added horror. 
*** 
When feed is plentiful and cheap the neces¬ 
sity for especially warm shelter is not stronglv 
felt. Extra grain compensates for the waste. 
How few act on this principle. The average 
idea is to get the stock through the 
Winter somehow. They lose all the 
fat and much of the flesh gained the 
previous Summer, aud require half the 
next season of grass to recover. There is no 
profit here. The wise feeder knows it. His 
stock keep gaining from the day of birth, 
and are ready for the butcher or the milk pail 
always. The man who feeds his working oxen 
a few extra nubbins just before Spring work 
commences, who lets bis teams shrink and 
neglects to give them exercise through the 
Winter, is always behind with his Spring 
work; his steers are never ready for shipping 
t when beef is high; bis hogs are always fat¬ 
tened on soft corn when there is a glut of 
pork: bis sheep always carry weak and patchy 
wool, and his hens never lay when eggs are 
wanted. He isgonerally in the market with 
ten-cent butter. Is there a constant reason - 
Yes. He does not believe in “book farmin'.“ 
He sometimes borrows a paper to look over 
the “picters.” His father’s ways are good 
enough for him, and the world moves on be¬ 
yond him. 
*** 
I am an advocate of using the means at 
hand. If a man cannot afford to buy im¬ 
proved stocks, he can at least improve such as 
he has by proper shelter and food. If he can¬ 
not buy the latest improved implements, he 
can carefully house and care for such as he 
has. He can carefully fall-plow when the 
soil is in proper condition for work. He can 
learn by observation that it is bad policy to 
have stock poaching meadows and pastures in 
soft weather; that horses, cattle and sheep 
gain nothing by being turned into the fields to 
nibble and gnaw each time the ground is 
bare; that it is cheaper to feed in the yards a 
little longer in the Spring rather than turn the 
animals out before the grass affords a fair 
bite. He will find that the careful selection 
and separation of seed pays a hundred-fold, if 
he carefully experiments that way. These, 
however, are costly experiments. Why should 
he make them? The rules of guidance have 
been carefully laid down, the results of the 
practice of the best practical men of every 
country. All that is new in valuable facts, 
is weekly given in the best agricultural jour¬ 
nals. Why not profit thereby? Read and re¬ 
flect. 
Dflinj f)usl)aru)nj. 
DAIRY NOTES FROM ENGLAND. 
PROFESSOR J. P. SHELDON. 
LANCASHIRE CHEESE-MAKING. 
Some short while ago it tell to my lot to 
spend a very interesting week among the 
dairy farmers of the fertile belt of land known 
as the Fvlde of Lancashire. There are Fylde 
and Fell in that rich and varied county, the 
former appellation attaching to the low¬ 
land aud the latter to the hill country, and 
each comprising an extensive district. The 
Fylde, or field, may be taken to mean, and is 
generally understood to mean, the richer or 
low-laying land, the deep soil and warm cli¬ 
mate. where iuclosures first were made, hun¬ 
dreds of years ago, the locality to which no¬ 
madic flocks and herds svere haply taken for 
the Winter in the days of the Plantagenet 
kings, while the Fell still describes the bleak 
and barren mountain country, whose valleys, 
which are also it closed In these days, form 
sheltered oases and picturesque scenery, and 
whose hills, in many cases, are still open as 
they always were, and covered with heather, 
the home of the grouse aud black cock. The 
Fylde in some parts of it is composed of alluvi¬ 
al soil, deepened through long prehistoric times 
from the denundatious of the hills; in others 
it is covered with a thick layer of bog-earth, a 
purely vegetable loam, black as the night, 
which has grown there in the roll of the cen¬ 
turies; uud m yet others it is a loamy clay or 
a clay marl, the production of the geologic 
periods, and of the ice ages which have come 
and gone in this northern part, of Old Eng¬ 
land. 
The Fylde for the most part is a flat or un¬ 
dulating country, adjacent to and but little 
elevated above the sea, whose climate is mol¬ 
lified by the breezes of the Irish Sea; and it 
may be taken,’without saying, that the district 
is a good one for dairying. Away from Pres¬ 
ton to Blackpool we find some of the finest 
natural pastures in the Kingdom, several feet 
deep in a soil whose constituents are such 
that a large variety of grasses, sweet, snccu 
lent, and nutritious, flourish on them—oas- 
tures the like of which I havenot yet seen out¬ 
side the British Islands. A deep and rich soil, 
a genial temperature, and a moist climate 
contribute, iD this favored section, in con¬ 
junction with a thrifty and industrious race 
of people, and an excellent breed of cattle, all 
the elements necessary to a first-class dairying 
locality, and I am not aware that you would 
find anywhere better examples of enlightened 
and progressive dairy husbandry than are to 
be seen in the Fylde of Lancashire, here and 
there iu places. The breed of cattle employed 
in this part of the country is almost entirely 
Short-horn in character, and Fylde-raised 
stock are in brisk demand in other counties, 
possessing, as they do. size, symmetry, and 
vigor'of constitution. 
If you want a grandly mellow cheese, ot 
excellent quality, and of sweet and nutty 
flavor, you will fiud it in not a few of the farm¬ 
houses of the Fylde. Cheese factories are not 
known in that part of the country, and. with 
respect to cheese-making, each dairy-maid 
“paddles her own canoe,” as I may say, the 
cheese being invariably made at home. It 
may be expected that there is a not incon¬ 
siderable proportion of inferior cheese where 
this plan prevails, and, indeed, the object of 
my visit to the Fylde was to detect, if possible, 
the reason or reasons for the disparity which 
is known to exist in respect of the quality of 
cheese in adjoining farm-houses and from 
similar land, One would imagine that, given 
certain preliminary and equal conditions, all 
dairy-maids should make good cheese. In 
theory, no doubt, such a result is attainable, 
but in practice it is not. And yet cheese¬ 
making is a simple enough process, or appears 
so to those who are used to it; but really it 
involves a set of laws and principles which are 
so easilv transgressed that many people 
fail in it. and fail after much effort 
to succeed. Nor coes success depend 
on the “ know how ” simply, but on a set of 
intuitions with which some dairy-maids are 
endowed by nature. Nor does it depend on 
long experience, for I have known old dairy¬ 
maids to fail sometimes, and be greatly puzzled 
why. Nor does it depend on having the best 
appliances and the most approved accommo¬ 
dation, for some of tbe best cheese I have met 
with has been made in the almost utter absence 
of these conveniences—in stuffy, little rooms, 
and with the crudest utensils, in the fanner’s 
back kitchen, and under an old-fashioned 
thatched roof. It must be borne in mind that 
I speak now of dairy-maids who are innocent 
of aDypretension to scientific knowledge about 
the composition of milk, the influences to 
which it is exposed, and the chemical changes 
which it cannot escape. I speak of those who. 
so far as scientific tuition is concerned, have 
not gone beyond tbe alphabet of their pro¬ 
fession. and who follow out a certain routine 
of duties without knowing tnneh about the 
why and wherefore of what they do; of those 
who have had no training but that which is 
obtained in a fanner's dairy; of those who, 
naturally, are at a dead loss what to do when 
they come face to face with difficulties not 
previously understood. 
The Cheddar system of cheese-making will 
answer fairly well auy where, if intelligently 
and faithfully carried out, but the same can¬ 
not be said of our other English systems. 
This, however, is probably because its prin¬ 
ciples have been formulated into a science, 
and because it is conducted methodically and 
with regularity. Yet the cheese differs more 
or less in character in different districts and 
in different soils, even though the Cheddar 
principles are carried out with fidelity in all 
places alike. But what I mean is this, that 
the difference in character of the cheese is 
greater in different localities when it is made 
on any other system than the Cheddar, and 
this for the reason that all our other systems 
are rule-of-thumb systems, eclectic and unde¬ 
fined. There can be no doubt, in fact, that 
the nature of the soil, and of tbe herbage 
which it produces, ha3 a good deal to do 
with the character of most of onr famous 
kinds of cheese that are made in well defined 
localities, and I know people have failed when 
they have tried to transplant the system of 
one district into the soil of another, so to 
speak. 
I have cause to believe that I was successful 
in detecting the reason why the cheese in cer¬ 
tain Fylde dairies was inferior to that which I 
found ou farms adjoining, and I may venture 
to hope that my investigations have been of 
service to various people. In some houses t 
foimd inferior cheese made by people who 
took the greatest pains with it, aud who were 
distressed at the disastrous'result;"and in oth- 
