among my neighbors, with the exception of 
one quarter kept at home. All pronounced it 
very firm, sweet, juicy aud tender, without 
any veal flavor. Neither was it tough like 
beef. Slum-milk calves can be bought for §7 
to §10 per head. Those classed as yearlings 
being one year to one-and-a-half year sell at 
from §8 to $12. My calf was fed the extra 
milk from one cow after supplying a family of 
five throughout the whole time, from March 
until Thanksgiving, with the addition of a 
little bran and corn meal during the last two 
months. I think more profit was realized by 
feeding the som’m lk to the calf than by using 
it in auy other way. Full value of calf at the 
price at which it was sold, $25. H. L. c. 
Charlton, Mass. 
with an opening three feet square in which is 
placed the brooder. It has a slanting plat¬ 
form in front for the chicks to run up or 
down to and from the brooder to the ground. 
A wire cloth screen, or slat frame, is used at 
night over the front of the brooder house for 
protection. This little shed and brooder are 
placed in the center of a yard twenty feet 
square, facing the south, aud are all that is 
required for the accommodation of 100 small 
chicks, or 50 larger ones. 
The illustration shows only the shed used in 
this climate, and it may be made warmer for 
colder latitudes by extending the sides to teu 
feet, and of the same shape as the finished half, 
allowing the roof to extend over the open part, 
which is seemingly half finished, as at Fig. 34. 
The brooder (see Fig. 35) is a box one foot 
Chopped onions, lettuce, cabbage, and meat- 
are given three times a week. As soon as they 
can pick up small grains, they are given a 
variety of any kind of food they will eat, be¬ 
ing provided also with fresh water, sand, 
fine gravel, ground bone, pounded shells, etc. 
They are marketed in January, when they 
usually weigh three-quarters of a pound each. 
April, however, is the best for prices, the de 
mand then being for sizes not exceeding one- 
and-one-quarter pound. The Misses Pressey 
have 14 brooding-houses, aud expect to raise 
6,000 chicks this season, finding it very profit¬ 
able. They have also a fattening-house, in 
which the chicks are kept for a week or ten 
days before they are marketed. They are 
killed and marketed in the dressed condition 
and sold by commission merchants in New York 
and Philadelphia. Yoimg chicks cannot con¬ 
veniently be marketed alive in Winter, as 
exposure would prove fatal, unless the season 
is very mild. The breeds used are mostly 
common hens, with Langshan and Plymouth 
Rock cocks. No eggs a re hatched under hens, 
incubators being used altogether, and though 
a large, number of hens are kept, the ladies 
also buy eggs from their neighbors. 
The cost of each chick, per pound, for feed 
is five cents; but including all expenses, such 
as eggs for hatching, oil, rent of buildings, 
interest, labor, etc., the cost is a fraction less 
than ten cents per 
pound. The prices 
obtained were 05 
Safa cents per pound for 
the early chicks, 
which decreased to 15 
9BB cents as the minimum, 
the average being 35 
cents per pound. 
jjs|j| There are several 
poultry fanns in 
Hammonton, and 
M nearly all who raise 
chicks are familiar 
with incubators, and 
visitors come from all 
' sections, no secret of 
the business being 
withheld. While 
. other locations may 
f ,' | not be as favorable as 
f this, yet the fact that 
... i- [ "j ( chicks may be raised 
P Lk. with profit in large 
numbers without the 
aid of hens has been 
here practically de¬ 
monstrated. 
PIG DIET. 
Evils of a, clear com diet; need of mixed 
feed; examples; need of warm sleeping 
quarters; preparing corn for feed; com- 
and-cob meal. 
I have spoken of the injurious effects of a 
clear corn diet when pigs were shut in pens 
for fattening, and that it caused a feverish 
and irritated, if not an inflammatory condi¬ 
tion of the stomach aud bowels. There is no 
doubt of this, and the fact that hogs have been 
fed aud fattened in this mauner for a long 
time, or will be, does not affect the truth of 
the statement. The condition of pigs and 
their fitness for food can be improved by sim¬ 
ply giving them less corn and some green 
grass, clover or corn-stalks. This kind of feed¬ 
ing makes the food more complete and more 
healthful. The pigs will show their wisdom 
by eating this kind of food with a decided 
relish. In cold weather vegetables or fruits 
can take the place of the other succulent 
foods. A chance to help themselves to grass 
or fruit will save the labor of securing it for 
them, and this sys¬ 
tem should always _ 
be followed where it 
is possible. 
A lot of 10 old sows 
were managed iu 
this way. They were 
put into a field where MjM 
there was a rank « * 
growth of grass fol- jc 
lowing a mowing,and 
they fed on ibis grass 
ami filled their stom¬ 
achs. It would have 
cost about twice as 
much to have filled up 
these hungry sows 
and fattened them 
without the grass. 
Anyway, in a few 
days they ate 30 
bushels of apples 
costing $3, together 
with a considerable 
amount of meal, aud 
they wore not satis- . 
tied either. This was 
before they could be 'A „ 
turned into the grass. - t 
A lot of spi-ing pigs, 
which had been kept rv 
iu a pasture and had 'VV 
eaten it down so close i V : • * ye, ^ 
that there was but V- - «* A 
little to bo obtained, 
when turned into a 
fresh and luxuriant 
pasture, required but 
very little food other 
than the grass. 
It helps, with all of this succulent food, to 
provide a warm aud dry place for the pigs to 
sleep iu. Those fed in this way will not stand 
the exposure that pigs will when fed ou corn, 
because the com produces fat and this is an 
element of heat—fat is heat in a practical 
sense. 
It is both sensible and profitable to get the 
corn ground in the ear when it is dry enough, 
and to mix the meal with water 12 hours before 
feeding, or 24 in hot weather. It is then in a 
more digestible form aud more of it will be 
turned into flesh than if fed whole or dry. 
When there are a great many hogs and no con¬ 
veniences for mixing, of course it cannot be 
done, but this does uot upset the argument. 
The cob helps to fill the place of some other 
coarser food, aud it aids in the digestiou. Ex¬ 
periments carefully conducted by Prof. Shel¬ 
ton, Kansas Agricultural Farm, have demon¬ 
strated that, hogs gain faster with the cob in 
the meal. It may lie set down as a standard 
rule that there is five per cent, of nutriment in 
the cobs aud teu per cent of digestible benefit, 
so that where they can be ground with t he corn, 
cobs will alwuys pay. 
We show at Fig. 36 an excellent portrait of 
a Holland cow. This animal, Bexje (No. 1328 
N. H. B.) No. 6340 H. H. B., is a fine specimen 
of her breed. Bhe has all the marks of a milk- 
producing animal—large udder, small head 
and neck and a most decided “wedge shape.” 
She has a milk record of Oo V^ pounds in one 
day. She was imported by her present owners, 
Messrs. B. B. Lord & Son, Sinclairville, N. Y. 
While there has been no “boom” in Holland 
cattle, they have been gaining ground steadily 
iu public favor. 
deep aud oue yard square, made of wood. One 
inch below the wooden floor is a sheet-iron floor 
A NOVEL HEN 
COOP AND NEST. 
The hen coop and 
^Y".Vnest shown at Figs. 
32-33 can be easily 
made, and might be 
of use in cases where 
a good many hens are 
in the habit of 
laying in the same nest. It is so arranged 
that only one hen can enter it at a time. It is 
made of a rectangular box, such as a soap box, 
open at one end. A hole is bored in each side 
near the top of this opening, and a broom 
stick is set in so as to revolve easily. Pieces of 
wire, such as clothes lme wire, are twisted 
HOLLAND COW, BEXJE. Fig. 36 
one yard square, which, of course, leaves a 
space of one inch between the wooden floor on 
top aud the iron one below. Two holes enter at 
the front (1,1), between the two floors. Into 
these holes the cold air passes, coming out at 
RAISING INCUBATOR CHICKS. 
P. H. JACOBS 
round the stick with the ends projecting at 
right angles to each other. Being light, the 
wires do not prevent a fowl from attempting 
to enter the box. and in doing so she pushes 
the wires,5 (as shown iu Fig. 32),inward and up¬ 
ward. A low partition,o.l Fig. 83)is placed across 
the middle of the box, in passing over which 
the hen is sure to lift the wires to the required 
bight; a nail driven in the side of the box will 
serve to limit the upward movement. "While 
<il)C ijfVJjSllUUl 
A PROFITABLE CALF 
I was very much interested in the article 
headed “Baby Beef,” iu a late RURAL, giving 
the weight and price per pound at which the 
pure-bred, roan. Short-horn steer Cleveland, 
sold at the late show in Chicago. 1 have had 
a nine-months-old calf killed, a grade Short¬ 
horn crossed with the Ayrshire, which, with 
uo extra care, weighed a little over 300 pounds. 
I could not sell it at any of the markets in 
two neighboring towns, but pieced it out 
iu this position a fowl attempting to enter is 
prevented by the wires, a. The hen within, in 
passing out pushes the wires out so that they 
resume the original position shown in Fig. 82. 
A spring of any simple construction is placed 
at the top of the box and teal's upon the stick 
with friction enough to make it retain any po¬ 
sition it is placed in. If it is desired to use it 
as a coop, a piece of wire is passed through the 
