THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
639 
1889 
her and saving expense for re-setting the 
tire. To do it effectually the oil should he 
heated in an iron trough, keeping fire under 
it, while the wheel is suspended over it so 
as to be revolved slowly in the boiling oil; 
this should be done before the tire gets 
loose, then it prevents its loosening and is 
best done before the wheel is painted. Thus 
done it is a very economical practice. 
Genesee County, N. Y. 
FROM JAMES PERKINS. 
I have for the last eight or 10 years 
adopted the practice of soaking my wagon 
wheels in hot linseed oil; the results have 
been most satisfactory. I have a wagon so 
treated six years ago which has been sul>- 
mitted to all sorts of roads and weather 
and the tires ai-e as tight as the day they 
wei*e put on. 
Princeton, N. .T. 
FROM T. B. TERRY. 
I had the rims of wagon wheels soaked in 
hot linseed oil until they would take no 
more, when the wagons were made, 10 to 
20 years ago. Every spring we paint the 
rims. Tires have never become loose, and 
wheels are about as good as new to-day. I 
smile when I meet a farmer who is ham¬ 
mering at his tires or pouring on water to 
tighten them ! I feel that I am 20 years 
ahead of him. But I have been there in 
times past. 
Summit County, O. 
FROM C. T. LEONARD. 
I have a wagon that for 10 years has 
stood out-of-doors from May to November. 
During a hot day each summer it receives 
several heavy coats of boiled linseed oil; it 
is in a perfect state of preservation, every 
tire is tight and never received a nickel’s 
worth of repair. 
Ashtabula County, O. 
FROM E. DAVENPORT. 
I have tried setting tires with linseed oil 
and have not succeeded. First it is difficult 
to tighten the tire by using oil, and, again, 
the particles of sand that work in between 
the felloe and the tire are still there and 
immediately begin cutting and wearing the 
felloe, and again loosening the tire. I be¬ 
lieve in paint as a preventive of loose tires 
but not in oil jus a cure, at least in the soil 
> J am accustomed to. 
Ingham County, Mich. 
FROM It. It. WING. 
S 1 have had no actual experience in soaking 
the rims of wagon wheels in oil, but I have 
had friends and neighbors who have had 
good results from the use of both linseed 
oil and crude petroleum in preserving the 
wood of the felloes and tightening the tires. 
As I have seen it practiced a tin vessel a lit¬ 
tle thicker than the wagon wheel and of the 
shape shown at Fig. 241, is used as a recep¬ 
tacle for the oil, and the wheel being sup¬ 
ported on a jack is turned in the oil. In 
this way the felloes are treated rapidly and 
efficaciously and with no waste of material. 
Cornell University. 
weeds each day. They ate exactly one 
bushel of corn, drank 18 gallons of milk— 
say 150 pounds—and laid 123 eggs. In the 
West skimmed milk is valued at 20 cents 
per 100 pounds: here I think it is worth 
more, say 25 cents; this would make the 
milk cost 37 cents for the 12 days. The 
eggs were worth a cent and a-half each, or 
*1.84; deducting 37 cents for the milk we 
have $1.47. Can we credit this all to the 
corn? I think not, but I do think that the 
corn should be credited with the larger 
part of it. I once kept an account for one 
year with 16 hens fed entirely on corn as 
their grain feed—no milk—and they paid a 
net profit of $1.25 each over the cost of the 
feed: this profit was almost entirely from 
eggs, as we raised but very few chickens 
that year. 
I know that corn is a good egg-producing 
feed and also that, as the Rural says, the 
experts all say that wheat is the best egg- 
producer and that corn is too fattening. 
My experiment to be complete, should have 
the winter and one in the summer. One 
gill per fowl as a ration. They have a 
common run in the summer and plenty of 
water the year round. The result is more 
or less eggs every day. The breed is Ply¬ 
mouth Rock with a Brahma and White 
Leghorn strain for variety. The chicks are 
fed the same as the hens from the time of 
hatching till they are guillotined, the crack¬ 
ed corn for them being, of course, finer than 
for the hens. I have fed wheat with good 
results, but “well-enough alone” is satis¬ 
factory. 
Westfield, N. J. 
FROM MRS. E. A. FASSETT. 
Last winter we kept 50 hens. I like va¬ 
riety of feed. Wheat is good, but this is 
not a wheat-growing locality. If it were I 
don’t think I should like wheat alone. I 
use injured wheat for common feed, but the 
greater the variety I have the better I feed, 
giving about as follows: Morning: a good 
feed of dry corn-meal dough warm, with 
Sljf poultnj (Dun). 
farm Rations for Poultry. 
THE EATON GRAPE. 
“The experts tell us that wheat is the 
last and cheapest food for egg production. 
It is my belief that most, fanners feed corn 
lo poultry with excellent results. 1 should 
like to hear from farmers as to the value 
of these two grains.” 
FROM A. L. CROSBY. 
This inquiry came just as 1 had finished 
an experiment to find out how many eggs 
t here were in a bushel of corn. In one of 
my hen-houses there were 22 hens and four 
half-grown chicks. They have no range ex¬ 
cept a small yard perfectly bare of vegeta¬ 
tion. They have been laying without in¬ 
termission since last November and about 
half of them sat once or twice in the spring. 
The experiment began August 17, and con¬ 
tinued just 12 days; the hens were molting 
and the weather was warm. I had just 
broken six hens from sitting and during 
the 12 days shut up six more. Their feed 
was whole corn and skimmed milk—all 
they would eat—and a handful of grass and 
Somewhat Reduced in Size. From 
been continued 12 days longer and the hens 
should have had nothing but water to 
drink, but so many of them wanted to sit 
that it could hardly have been a fair test. 
Next winter I hope to find out how many 
eggs there are in 1(K) pounds of skimmed 
milk and also which is the better egg feed, 
corn or wheat. But I feel safe in recom¬ 
mending whole corn for hens, notwith¬ 
standing it is said to make them so fat that 
they won’t lay. Some of my hens are as 
fat as they can get, and it does not prevent 
them from laying; neither does moulting, 
as one of the fattest hens has so fey 
feathers on her that she looks bare, and yet 
she is one of the best layers. It will be 
found in the hen business as in all other 
kinds of stock growing that some well-es¬ 
tablished axioms have been allowed to 
stand on very slight foundations. 
Catonsville, Md. 
FROM MRS. L. C. MORSE. 
My hens are fed on corn, whole and crack¬ 
ed, every day in the year— two rations in 
Nature. Fig. 240. See Page 641. 
occasionally a little red pepper; dinner: 
whatever scraps of boiled potatoes or any¬ 
thing else are left from the table. I give 
oats also and some sour milk to drink, and 
in winter plenty of good water with the 
chill taken off by adding a little warm 
water to the cold. Injured wheat warmed 
by putting it in a pan and setting in the 
oven is fed just before the fowls go to 
roost. With plenty of such feed we get 
plenty of eggs. We fattened our poultry— 
turkeys and chickens—last fall with inferi¬ 
or wheat; but just before we dressed them 
we fed corn-meal in the form of warm 
dough. 
Hancock, Vermont. 
FROM PORTER COLBY. 
In our neighborhood wheat is not used 
very extensively as poultry food; but the 
few who do use it like it much. A grain 
firm in this place have sold two car-loads 
of what they call frosted wheat since Janu¬ 
ary 1, 1889. Their price now is, by the ton, 
$1-25 per cwt; single cwt. $1.30. Some of this 
is used in adjoining towns. Com used to 
be almost the sole feed for poultry about 
here; but now for eggs,'we use about two- 
thirds bran and one-third scalded meal for 
the morning feed, and at night, two-thirds 
oats and one-third corn. Some use bran and 
middlings for the morning feed and some do 
not use more than one-fourth corn for feed¬ 
ing at night. There are two] men in our 
town who keep from 500 to 1,000 fowls each; 
they buy their grain by the ton and feed 
some wheat. 
Milford, N. H. 
FROM O. K. LANE. 
Wheat for laying hens, or any other fowls, 
is without an equal; but feeding it can be 
overdone, as fowls crave a varied diet. I 
have fed them wheat a few days; then they 
showed a preference for peas, or buck¬ 
wheat. As eager as fowls are for fresh 
meat, they soon want a change to oats, 
corn, and wheat. So they leave the cab¬ 
bage to taste the tomatoes; then curds. In 
eastern Illinois eggs sell for 10 cents per 
dozen and in winter for 15 cents; but it is 
too cold toLship them. Hence it doesn’t 
pay to feed wheat. Eggs often sell for five 
cents per dozen. But few farmers pay any 
attention to their fowls. 
Vermilion County, Ill. 
FROM G. W. DREW. 
Wheat is no doubt superior to corn for 
egg food, as com alone is too fattening, 
but I think the majority here feed com. 
Our aim is to feed no two meals alike in 
succession. We feed wheat, oats (scalded), 
barley, provender, wheat-bran, cracked 
corn, boiled vegetables, and com (always at 
night,) with plenty of shells and bone. 
From this kind of feed we get the best re¬ 
sults. Surprise a hen with kindness if you 
want her to lay. 
Birmingham, Conn. 
FROM C. S. VALENTINE. 
Having lately changed my neighborhood, 
I cannot say much as to the facts of the 
case just here, but in that part of the coun¬ 
try that I am most familiar with, viz, 
Western New York, farmers who feed wheat 
to their hens are about as scarce as hen’s 
teeth. They consider it more expensive 
than corn, not seeming to realize that the 
same bulk will “go” nearly twice as far, 
and it is extremely difficult to convince 
them that the wheat is any better than the 
corn as an egg-producing food. Almost 
ten-tenths of them feed nothing but corn 
during fall, winter and spring, letting the 
hens pick their living throughout the sum¬ 
mer. My own opinion is shown by my 
practice: I feed no com except in the cold¬ 
est weather, and then but once a day. I 
work in all the boiled small potatoes, tur¬ 
nips, etc., lean, mixing with them corn- 
meal, ground oats and bran, while ringing 
the changes on wheat, oats and buckwheat 
for the grain feed. 
Cranford, N. J. 
f arm Copies. 
SOM CROP ROTATIONS. 
WHERE THEY PUT STABLE MANURE. 
ITS EFFECTS ON POTATOES. 
FROM E. L. BASS. 
As to crop rotation, I make my mead¬ 
ows give heavy crops of hay for about six 
years by giving them a good coat of man¬ 
ure when they are seeded down, and top¬ 
dressing them two or three times. I then 
plant the land to corn or potatoes for one 
year and manure lightly, relying more on 
artificial fertilizers, especially for potatoes, 
as I am confident that the application of 
stable manure tends to diminish the pro¬ 
portion of good, marketable tubers. The 
next year I sow barley and grass seed, using 
eight pounds of clover and 13 pounds of 
Timothy to the acre, and if the land is 
moist some Red-top also. I apply more 
manure the season when I stock down the 
land than I do the year previous, as I wish 
to reap the benefit of it principally on the 
grass crop. 
West Randolph, Vt. 
