yet the chief trouble is caused by neglecting 
to breed the flock to the requisite standard. 
It may safely be claimed that some hens in all 
flocks give a large profit over the expense of 
their keep, but the profit from them must 
support those that are unprofitable, and 
though they have really been remunerative 
they are included in the whole, the result 
being that they are condemned along with 
those that have given no return to the 
owner. 
All the hens in the (lock are not unprofit¬ 
able. If those that dp not prove productive 
are taken out, a loss may be changed to a 
profit. It a hen lays only one egg per week 
during the winter months, she will pay the 
expense of her keep, and if she lays two eggs 
the second will be a profit. If she gives three 
eggs per week she will double her profit, as 
the first egg laid pays expenses, no matter how 
many may follow it. But if one hen proves 
productive and two hens do not lay. the three 
will entail a loss, although the productive hen 
may be doing her duty well. 
In view of the fact that it is from the pro¬ 
lific hens that eggs are obtained, a lesson is 
taught us that to keep any and everything, 
without regard to quality or breeding, is 
where many mistakes are made. (This rule 
holds good not with poultry alone, but with 
other farm stock also, particularly with dairy 
cows.— Eds ] Pullets that were hatched late, 
and made no attempt to lay before cold 
weather began, should have been sold. The 
extra-fat hens, sick hens, immature pullets, 
and those that were frosted on the combs, 
should be discarded and removed. To pro¬ 
cure eggs in winter the flock should conform 
to some kind of standard. The farmer or 
poultry man should know the kind of hens he 
possesses, whether they be pure-breds, crosses 
or grades. But the common method is to pay 
no attention to the crossing of fowls, allowing 
it to occur promiscuously, or by chance, thus 
destroying uniformity, and overlooking the 
true objects or purposes in crossing. 
Before condemning a flock, first find out if 
it is the whole number or only a portion that 
are unprofitable. Next endeavor to discover 
the cause, and when getting ready the next 
season rectify any mistakes made. When¬ 
ever certain individual hens have proved pro¬ 
fitable, breed from them this spring and mate 
them with a pure-bred male of the breed pre¬ 
ferred; but avoid promiscuous breeding, as it 
is simply groping in the dark, and allows no 
certainty of success. p. 
ar. When British farmers wanted the duty 
taken off malt and argued in Parliament and 
out of Parliament that if this was done, they 
could malt their barley with great advantage 
to feed to stock. Lawes and Gilbert thor¬ 
oughly investigated the matter, and though 
the results showed that there was a loss rather 
than a gain by malting the barley, they pub¬ 
lished the facts without fear or favor. For¬ 
tunately for agricultural science, Rothamsted 
was uot dependent ou the politicians in and 
out of Parliament for money to carry ou the 
experiments, or we should not now be writing 
about them. 
The more we study the Rothamsted experi¬ 
ments the greater is our admiration and re¬ 
spect for the man who has devoted his life 
and money to what must often have seemed 
dull aud tedious work. It is our privilege to 
avail ourselves of the knowledge obtained, 
and I feel sure that the readers of the Rural 
New-Yorker will he glad to study the re¬ 
sults to be given in this series of papers 
forty-second annual crop) bushels of 
cleaned wheat per acre. And Plot 20, which 
has grown wheat every year without manure 
since 1840, produced 18% bushels per acre. 
The difference in these two continuously un¬ 
manured plots is simply this: Both have 
grown wheat every year since 184:5. Plot 3 
has had no manure since 1830; but on Plot 20 
a mixture of differeut artificial manures was 
sown in 1845. Since then it has received no 
manure of any kind. 
Lawes an’d Gilbert tell us that the field on 
which these experiments are made “has been 
under arable cultivation certainly for two or 
three centuries—and possibly for a much 
longer period—ami it has consequently 
lost a very considerable amount of its original 
fertility.” That such land after being cropped 
with wheat every year without manure for 
over 40years, should produce 16)4 bushels of 
dressed wheat per acre in 1885 is certainly a 
very remarkable fact—well calculated to up¬ 
set many of our old notions. 
The same, year in which the wheat experi 
meuts were commenced, another field was de¬ 
voted to a systematic series of experiments on 
turnips. The result from the start showed 
great difference in the manure-requirements 
of the two crops. Ic bad been thought that 
wheat wasan “exhausting crop,” while turnips 
were a “renovating crop,” and while there is 
a sense in which this is true, it was found that 
while fair crops of wheat could be grown year 
after year on the same land without manure, 
turnips without manure the third year pro¬ 
duced only 13 cwt. of bulbs per acre, while a 
plot alongside dressed with superphosphate, 
produced 12 tons 13 cwt. of bulbs per acre. 
In 1847 a field was devoted to experiments 
on beaus, peas, and vetehes. In 184S, a field 
was devoted to experiments on crops in rota¬ 
tion, aud they have been continued to the pres¬ 
ent time. The rotation adopted was: 1st year, 
turnips; 2nd year, barley; 3rd year, clover; 
4th year, wheat; and then turnips again, aud 
so on as before. 
In 1849, experiments were commenced with 
different mauures ou clover. 
In 1853, experiments were commenced on 
barley, year after year on the same land, and 
are still in progress. 
In 185(5, experiments w ith different manures 
were commenced on a permanent meadow, 
aud are still continued, one of the plots having 
yielded, on the average, for the last 10 years 
(1876-85), only 102 pounds less than five tons 
of hay each year per acre. These remarkable 
experiments are still continued. 
Experiments on wheat alternated with fal¬ 
low, have been continued for 43 years in suc¬ 
cession on the same land. 
Experiments on oats were eommeuced in 
in 1869 and continued 1U years, when, ‘ ‘owing 
to the wetness and foulness of the laud,” they 
were discontinued. 
Experiments on sugar beets were commenced 
in 1871, and continued live years in succession. 
The next your, 1870, mangel-wurgels were sub¬ 
stituted for the sugar beets and the experiments 
have been continued ever since, and are still 
in progress. 
In 1871), an important series of experiments 
w as commenced on potatoes year after year ou 
the same laud, and the experiments are still 
continued. 
Experiments were also made with different 
kinds of food for sheep and pigs, and also to 
test the fattening qualities of different breeds 
of sheep, such as Cotswolds, Leicesters, Hamp¬ 
shire Downs, youth Downs and half-breeds. 
Numerous analyses of soils have boeu made 
and also of the rain and drainage water—a 
paper on the last subject aloue, published in 
1882, contains 168 pages. 
A characteristic of the field experiments at 
Rothamsted is the persistency with which 
they are continued long after the purpose for 
which they were originally instituted has been 
attained. The mauures applied to the different 
plots are, as a rule, the same year after year, 
no matter whether they do good or not. We 
got clear, definite aud authoritative answers to 
a few questions, but. each answer leads to a 
dozen other questions which these routine ex¬ 
periments an- not capable of answering. 
Columbus discovered America, but this was 
the beginning and not the end of the discover¬ 
ies to be made, aud the experiments at Roth¬ 
amsted year by year show us the need for 
further investigation, which it is hoped our 
numerous experiment stations will carry for¬ 
ward with enthusiastic energy. Rothamsted 
has one advantage overall other institutions 
of the kind. It has been carried on by one 
nmn, who has furnished the money with un¬ 
exampled liberality, and himself directed the 
experiments. There has been no necessity for 
haste in obtaining or publishing results. 
Rothamsted has searched for truth for its 
own sake, and has never hesitated to let the 
truth be known, whether popular or unpopu- 
WATER CAN AND FEED TROUGH FOR 
POULTRY. 
It is wonderful how much water fowls will 
drink, even when the thermometer is ranging 
below zero, when they have a constant sup¬ 
ply kept before them. Without this supply 
they do not thrive, and they quickly cease 
laying. In very cold weather water in buck¬ 
ets or troughs freezes over in any ordinary 
poultry house, uot warmed with fire heat, so 
quickly that the fowls rarely obtain more 
than one good drink each day. 
With the simple contrivance shown at Fig, 
conoimj 
ARTIFICIAL FERTILIZERS; THE BEST 
AND CHEAPEST. 
T. H. HOSKINS, M. D. 
In the twenty years I have been studying 
this question—under the strong personal inter¬ 
est felt by one who, on a small farm, has had 
to farm high with a very scanty supply of 
barn manure—I have followed various “leads’ 
as they opened up before me. I have never 
believed iu the theory of “complete” fertil¬ 
izers, and still less in that of “special fertiliz¬ 
ers,” because toe assumption in both cases is 
an improved and improbable one. There are 
no arable soils destitute of plant food of some 
sort and in some form, aud Nature is constant¬ 
ly contributing, from earth, air and sky, ma¬ 
terials for the nourishment of vegetable life. 
To assume, therefore, that the fanner must 
always offer to every crop, in the form of ma¬ 
nure, a supply of potash, phosphoric acid and 
combined nitrogen, is both unscientific and 
uneconomic. But. on the other hand, it is 
quite sure cropping will, in time, exhaust the 
valuable supply of that element of nutrition 
least abundant in any particular soil, and 
thereafter the lacking element must be fur¬ 
nished to the crop. If that only is furnished, 
then shortly a second will seem to disappear, 
and so successively. Will "seem” to disap 
pear, I say. But in much the greater portion 
of the earth’s arable surface this is mere seem¬ 
ing. While we may exhaust., temporarily, 
the available plant food, or some essential 
part thereof, there remains a vast store of the 
same vet in the soil, but in a state in which 
the feeding organs of the plants are not able 
to take it up. The farms of Thessaly, in Greece, 
yield as good crops of wheat to-day as when 
men first began to till them. The rest given 
them from time to time by the ravages of war 
slaying or driving off their inhabitants, has 
shown that plant food must have always been 
abundant there. We see that rest and time 
with the aid of what uatural vegetation might 
occupy its deserted surface, could soon fully 
restore its capacity of producing profitable 
crops. What is true of Thessaly is true of all 
the habitable earth. Rest restores fertility. 
Cropping without manure merely removes 
accumulated fertility faster than it is supplied 
by Nature’s methods. 
Tillage is manure in just that degree in 
which tillage aids the natural processes of 
amelioration inherent in the soil itself. Thus 
good tillage, undear heavy cropping with ex¬ 
haustive vegetation, prolongs the time in 
which profitable crops may be taken off with¬ 
out returning anything to the land. If in 
sufficient or incomplete fertilization only is 
practiced, still good tillage will in some de¬ 
gree supply deficiencies. The truth of the 
matter is summed up in this: If we pump 
water from a well faster than it can run iu 
we must, after it is emptied, wait for it to till 
again before we can pump more. The soil is 
like this well. The crops represent the pump¬ 
ing. 
But we are not limited to the natural re¬ 
sources of the soil iu plant food. Only a small 
part of auy crop is destroyed. Even its use 
as food for man and beast does not destroy it, 
and the return of the uudestroyed residuum to 
the land may be made greatly to prolong its 
season of productiveness under tillage. So 
long as mankind occupied itself chiefly in 
killing one another, so that the population of 
the earth increased slowly, the recuperative 
forces of Nature w ere adequate to meet the 
human need for the fruits of the earth. A 
little manure and a good deal of rest served 
all needs. But with the progress aud broaden¬ 
ing of civilization has come a rapid increase 
iu the number of men, and a w hole system of 
political economy has been based upon the 
22 this trouble may bo entirely obviated and 
a full supply of water of a uniform tempera¬ 
ture may be kept before the fowls, however 
severe the weather may he. A common tubed 
cake pan is set in a I iu pail of suitable size, as 
showm in the sketch. Three inches above the 
bottom of the pail several quarter-inch holes 
are punched to admit air to the lamp inside 
which is an ordinary night lamp. The cake 
pan is tilled with water and the lamp lighted. 
The water is wanned and the surplus heat 
passes off through the tube in the cake pan. 
Only a small flame is required to keep the 
water at a proper temperature and prevent 
freezing. A little practice will enable the 
poultrymau to adjust it properly. The pail 
should contain an inch or so of line gravel or 
sand to set the lamp iu to hold it steady. 
Wires with hooks tire attached to the sides of 
the pail, as shown in the engraving,aud hooked 
into staples in the wall to prevent the fowls 
from tipping the apparatus over. It is such 
a sinq tie, cheap, and excellent contrivance for 
the purpose, that uo poultrymau who consid¬ 
ers the comfort of taJs fowls should be with¬ 
out it 15 minutes longer. 
A haugiug feed trough for fowls is also 
showm at Figs, 23 and 24. A is a side view, O 
I LAWES’ AND GILBERTS’ EXPERI 
MENTS. NO. 1. 
GENERAL KEMAUKS, 
JOSEPH HARRIS. 
Mr. (now Sir Johu B.) Lawes entered into 
possession of his hereditary estate in Hert¬ 
fordshire, England, about 30 miles from Lou¬ 
don, iu 1834. Ho soon afterwards commenced 
making experiments with different manures 
on plants in pots, and later in the field. The 
favorable results obtained from the use of sol¬ 
uble phosphates, I believe, induced him to 
patent the now well known process of render¬ 
ing phosphides soluble by tbcuseof sulphuric 
and muriatic acids, and to eugage in the man¬ 
ufacture of superphosphates of lime. Had 
Mr. Lawes done nothing else for agriculture, 
this aloue would have entitled him to the grat¬ 
itude of the farmers of the world. 
The discovery was made just at the right 
time. Previous to this, farmers got phosphor¬ 
ic acid from bones and guano in which the 
phosphates are partially soluble. The discov¬ 
ery of coprolites aud mineral phosphates, 
which was made at this time, would have been 
of uo avail to agriculture, had uot a practical 
method of rendering the phosphates soluble 
been brought to light aud acted upon, F.ug- 
land wanted cheap bread. Free trade then was 
forced upon the Euglish farmers. They 
thought it would ruin them. But the discov¬ 
ery of mineral phosphates and the menus of 
converting them into soluble manure, enabled 
them to grow more turnips, and more turnips 
meant more mutton aud beef, and the produc¬ 
tion of more meat meant more manure and 
larger crops. All this we owe to the early ex¬ 
periments of Mr. Lawes, in 1837 -41. 
But he did not stop here. Experiments were 
made iu the field iu 1840 and 1841. And in 
1843, seeuriug t he assistance of tic. Gilbert, 
systematic experiments were commenced ou 
a large scale. A Held ou which barley, peas, 
wheat and oats bad been grown the four pre¬ 
vious years without manure, was laid out iu 
different plots, and in the fall of 1843 was 
sowu to wheat, aud on this field wheat has 
beeu grown every year since—one plot with¬ 
out manure of auy kiud aud other plots ma¬ 
nured with different fertilizers. Aud I may 
a front view. I think this trough can hardly 
be excelled for feeding poultry, as it can be 
hung high or low us desired, and it effectually 
prevents the fowls from getting dirt among 
their food when scratching, as they almost in¬ 
variably do with any other form of trough. 
The sketch shows plaiuly how it is made. It 
should he about four inches wide, and six 
inches deep for grown fowls. It is much better 
to have a number of them 18 to 34 inches long 
and hung a distance apart than to have one 
long one. They can be taken out of the house 
ami scrubbed out with a broom and water 
whenever necessary, and are quickly removed 
when the house is to lie whitewashed. Those 
who have used them pronounce them infinitely 
superior to any they have ever seen. Every 
poultry house should contain at least four- 
two for graiu, one for gravel and oue for bone 
meal. “grundy.” 
Christian Co., Ill. 
PROFIT AND LOSS IN THE FLOCKS, 
While circumstances may be such as to 
entail a loss instead of a profit in the flock 
