304 
MAY 8 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
A National Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Conducted by 
K. S. CARMAN, 
Editor. 
J. 6. WOODWARD, 
Associate. 
Address 
THE RURAE NEW-YORKER, 
No. 3-1 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, MAY 8, 1886. 
POULTRY SPECIAL.—20 pages. 
We count ordinarily on vye heads May 
1st. This year the first rye heads ap¬ 
peared April 24. 
Many excellent articles from our best 
practical poultry writers are crowded out 
of this number. They will all appear later. 
Ali, poultry questions received to date, 
will 'befound answered under the Farmers' 
Club pages 308 and 309. 
If the number on your address label is 
1893, your subscription expires with this 
number; if 1894, next week; 1895, in two 
weeks, etc._ 
Much depends upon which breed the 
male comes from. A Brahma cock mated 
with a Leghorn hen, produces a different 
fowl from tluit of a Leghorn cock and 
Brahma hen, though the blood in both 
crosses is the same. 
Never cross two non-sitters. The pro¬ 
geny will sit. Remember tins rule, 
which is that, no matter what the breeds 
used for the purpose may be, a hen pro¬ 
duced by crossing any two breeds will 
always prove a sitter. 
A house 10x10 will accommodate a 
cock and ten hens, or 15 nens alone, if the 
eggs are not intended for hatching pur¬ 
poses. It is safe to estimate that one 
dollar per head will be the cost, for mater¬ 
ial of the poultry house. Hence, a house 
for 10 hens may he built for $10. 
After a pretty full consideration of 
the poultry contents of this paper, modi¬ 
fied by the writer’s experience of at least 15 
years we desire to offer this bit of cau¬ 
tion to those who propose to engage in 
poultry raising: commence in a small, econ¬ 
omical* way and extend the business only 
as a knowledge of the business increases 
and justilies additional expenditures. 
We believe that instead of using a 
feather or horse-hair loop to remove the 
worms from the trachea of a chick with 
the gapes, it is safer and more efficacious 
to wet the end of the feather with kero¬ 
sene and not attempt to remove the worms 
at all. The kerosene will kill them. The 
feather should lie very slender and inserted 
with great care. Turn it around once 
and then withdraw it. 
In the neighborhood of the Rural Ex. 
Grounds (New Jersey) the Leghorns are a 
popular breed for eggs. Most of the eggs 
are sold in the Paterson market, where a 
white shell is preferred, Leghorn eggs 
average large. On the 10th of April we 
weighed 13 Leghorn and 13 Wyandotte 
eggs. The Leghorns weighed one pound 
14'ounces, or 30 ounces; the Wyandottes 
weighed one pound eight ounces, or 24 
ounces. Such differences show that eggs 
should be sold by the pound. 
The advice given by all poultry writers 
is to whitewash the houses periodically as 
a guard against lice. The advice is good— 
but since we have adopted the plan of 
spraying our houses now and then with 
B here seems no reason for con- 
vhitewash them. A Wooda- 
; other spraying bellows (sold 
dsmen) will last for years. The 
them is very fine and pene- 
y crevice. A house 10 feet 
be sprayed in a minute or so. 
is a great pity that poultry fanciers 
Wave not bred poultry with the object of 
increasing the egg production, by the 
selection of hens which lay the largest 
eggs, and the greatest number, instead of 
breeding only for certain markings. If 
any persistent effort in this direction has 
ever been made, we arc not aware of it. 
There is no room for doubt that the egg 
product migli t lie i ncroased i n th is w ay j ust 
as surely as the milk production has been 
increasedjby the careful and long-contin¬ 
ued selection of the best milk-producer 
among cattle. 
The suggestion made by several of our 
writers in this number, that it is better to 
have glass windows in the cast and west 
ends of the poultry building, rather than 
in the south, seems to us a good one. The 
hens then get the early morning and late 
afternoon sun, when they most need it, 
while they get no sun at. midday, when it 
is least needed. Equalization of temper¬ 
ature is the first requisite. Southern win¬ 
dows during bright sunshine raise the 
temperature in the buildings very high 
from ten A. m. until two or three p. M.. 
while earlier aud later the thermometer 
may sink below zero, thus subjecting fowls 
daily to the most violent changes. 
Enthusiastic poultry fanciers arc apt 
at times to overdo the business of induc¬ 
ing farmers to spend money in poultry. 
Such absurdly wild stories as are fre¬ 
quently printed concerning poultry profits 
do great harm. They bring into poultry 
culture the very people who ought to keep 
out of it. They drive away the practical 
farmers who see nothing but nonsense in 
the glowing statements. Why not be 
reasonable? Poultry keeping will never 
make up for poor farming, laziness, or bad 
management. The fanner who turns his 
whole farm into a hen yard will fail in 
nine cases out of ten. The hen will save- 
no country or section; but she will help 
to save. Her proper place on the farm 
among the stock is as a helper and not as 
a principal. The egg product of the 
country can safely be increased by 50 per 
cent, without greatly reducing the price. 
The more prime poultry offered, the 
greater the demand. Farmers and their 
wives frequently complain to visitors of 
the'difficulty of securing fresh meat in the 
Spring and early Summer. While they 
complain, a few poor hens are standing 
about the yard utterly unable, by reason 
of their owner’s heedlcssness, to supply 
the needed food. There arc two things 
in the poultry business that arc absolutely 
sure: no hen of any breed will lay when 
eggs are wanted, unless she is taken care 
of; the descendants of a lien that lias been 
carefully bred for a special purpose will 
do far better work than any collection of 
scrubs., 
“To kill two birds with one stone” 
might have been, with some appearance 
of justice, considered a praiseworthy feat 
in the Dark Ages, when the saying origin¬ 
ated about the reign of Richard If. Eng¬ 
land w r as then thinly settled, and covered 
to a great extent with timber; stones were 
the chief missiles against birds, which 
multiplied greatly in a sparse population 
and a thickly timbered country where 
there were but a few crude devices for 
their destruction. Now deadly gun-pow¬ 
der has succeeded stones; the population 
here is much denser and timber much 
scarcer than in the England of those days. 
Then, how heavy is the aggregate destruc¬ 
tion due to light-houses, electric and other 
lights, telegraph wires, pot-hunters, cock¬ 
ney sportsmen, and other bird-killing 
agencies unknown in the Dark Ages! 
Some years ago rural France was cursed 
with swarms of dandy “sportsmen” from 
a’l the large towns and cities and squads 
of imitators from smaller places. In spite 
of bad markmanship, the birds suffered 
severely at the cost of much gun-powder. 
The crops, too, soon suffered so disas¬ 
trously that the Government had to inter¬ 
vene, and now stringent laws provide for 
the safety of the feathered friends of the 
farmer from one end of France to the 
other. A like experience has produced 
similar results in Germany. Is there not 
wisdom or business gumption enough in 
this country to learn a salutary lesson 
from the bitter experience of others? 
The introduction of yet another oleo¬ 
margarine bill in Congress is threatened. 
The Bureau of the Internal Revenue 
seems to think it can improve on all the 
bills hitherto introduced by providing a 
general law applicable to all other adul¬ 
terations and food compounds as well as 
to the “oleo” tribe. Outside of the agri¬ 
cultural papers, the general impression 
appears to lie that no “anti-oleo” legis¬ 
lation will be passed at the present session 
of Congress. If this supposition proves 
true, the omission will be in great part 
due to the professed friends of such legis¬ 
lation—the men who,without consultation 
with other Congressmen, introduced, one 
after another, so many bills on the subject 
as to beget divided support, recrimination 
and coufusion. To curry favor with their 
agricultural constituents these men have 
created a 'general impression that the 
dairymen of the country really know not 
what they want. Then, instead of all 
uniting in support of one measure, the 
dairy support is divided between the va¬ 
rious bills introduced. Unless a prompt, 
united, vigorous and persistent pressure is 
brought to bear on Senators and Represent¬ 
atives alike, no auti-oleo bill will pass this 
session. We strongly urge all, therefore, 
to unite at once in support of the oleo¬ 
margarine bill of the Committee on 
Agriculture. 
SCALE OF POINTS. 
The guide in breeding the pure breeds 
of poultry is the “Standard of Excellence,” 
which, however, describes only their 
forms, color, and outward peculiarities. 
This system is being abandoned by breed¬ 
ers of horses, cattle, sheep and swine, who 
recognize merit as belonging to certaiu 
strains or families, without regard to 
“outward points.” While the Standard 
is useful iu distinctly separating the 
breeds, and affixing to each those partic¬ 
ular points in which it should excel as 
badges of purity, yet the highest scoring 
birds may be inferior, in a utilitarian 
sense, to others that may be deficient in 
beauty. A slight twist of the comb, a 
small speck of white on a black plumage, 
or the shade of a particular feather, may 
consign a really meritorious bird to ob¬ 
livion. 
The time has arrived when the poultry 
shows and agricultural associations should 
recognize true merit. A scale of points 
should be arranged for judging not only 
the live market fowls, but the dressed car¬ 
casses, and encouragement should, with 
those objects in view, be given to the cross¬ 
ing of the different breeds. It would be 
difficult certainly to decide upon the 
merits of individual hens as superior lay¬ 
ers year after year, but this is the only 
way we could* establish breeds of layers 
superior to any now known. We must 
select the most prolific hens and breed 
them to cocks that come from good lay¬ 
ers. This will inevitably lead to the de¬ 
sired results just as the pit Games are 
bred for courage and endurance by ignor¬ 
ing the Standard and selecting only those 
that have been tried and tested. Wo can 
not see that the Standard of Excellence 
has ever aided in increasing good qualities 
of breeds in any way. There is now 
nothing in the score of a high-priced trio 
but beauty; still, without some kind of a 
standard, the breeding of pure-bred poul¬ 
try would be impossible. 
SPECIAL. 
Those who, having applied for the 
Rural’s present seed distribution prior 
to May 1st, have not yet received it, 
will kindly notify us by postal at once. 
THE QUESTION OF THE TIMES. 
From time immemorial the man on 
horseback has looked down on the man 
on foot; the man who toiled not for a 
living has contemned the man who 
“earned Iris bread with the sweat of his 
brow,” according to the grim primordial 
curse. It was only after woeful centuries 
of suffering and blood that labor emerged 
from slavery to villainage aud serfdom, 
and in only a few of the most advanced 
nations is the toiler of to-day on a par 
before the laws with his “betters.” Ever 
since the parable of Lazarus and Dives the 
poor have been kept more or less content¬ 
ed with 1 heir wretched lot by the hope of 
1 reward for themselves and punishment 
for their taskmasters in another world. 
The school-master has been abroad, how¬ 
ever, and the poor have to a great extent 
lost the simple faith that consoled their 
forerunners in their wretchedness. They 
yearn and clamor for some happiness in 
this life even at a sacrifice of a part of 
the hoard awaiting them in the next. 
“All wealth is the creation of labor,” say 
the workmen, “but Laborhas always been 
unjustly deprived of a fair share of its 
own Creation. This injustice must end.” 
The Struggle to secure this fairer measure 
of justice has taken a more definite form 
of late than at any former time in the 
world’s history. Never before was free 
labor so consolidated; never before was 
immense capital so concentrated in indi¬ 
vidual hands, and so organized by the 
league of vast corporations and plutocrats. 
The relation of labor and capital is the 
great question of the time. The struggle 
for a fairer adjustment will outlast, the 
present and many future generations; but. 
is bound to continue to agitato the na¬ 
tions until some satisfactory and just, so¬ 
lution shall be wrought out after many 
blunders, bitter sufferings, heavy losses— 
hut let us hope no bloodshed. 
BREVITIES. 
Everything in a hen-house should be as dry 
as a chip. 
For low, damp soil, one should never select 
Brahmas or Cochins. 
One objection to the Brahmas is that there 
is too little light, meat. 
Mn. Mansfield tells the Rural that the 
old American Dominique is as good a breed as 
any. 
As apart of our Poultry Special, the Domes¬ 
tic Economy Department must not be over¬ 
looked. 
Those who have never fed purslane to their 
chicks are requested to try it as a succulent 
greeii food. 
There are many city markets in which a 
higher price is paid for white-shelled than for 
dark-shelled eggs. 
Clean saw-dust with a little sulphur 
sprinkled iu it. is as good as any material for 
the nests of sitting hens. 
It will be seen that some of our exi>erienced 
poultry raisers prefer not to have perches at 
all than to have them too small or placed too 
high. 
TnE Rural New-Yorker was the first 
farm journal to praise the Plymouth Rocks 
and Wyandottes as all-purpose fowls, and 
this, too, as a result, of experience. 
We have two ways of breaking a hen from 
sitting. One istc confine her in a small, dark 
box, three feet square, for two days, giviug 
her fresh water only. The other is t.o place 
her in a small yard with n harmless dog, 
April 30. Among our entire collection of 
strawberries, Amateur, Parry and Iron-clad 
are the first to bloom, though Mav King is 
probably the earliest. Thus, it will be seen, 
it is not the first bloom that makes the fix'st 
fruit. 
Mu. Mansfield expresses it, in another 
column, thus tersely: “T1 ib kind one keeps is 
immaterial.” He is quite sure that more fail 
on aecoimt of over-feeding aud giving damp 
quarters than from nil other reasons com¬ 
bined. 
At the Rural Grounds wo have fed our 
poultry bone meal (the pieces average nearly 
the size of wheat kernels) for four years. We 
never have soft-shell egsrs. This is more diges¬ 
tible than broken shells, is more nutritious 
and furnishes more available shell material. 
Judging from the Eangshan eggs received 
last year and this for hatching, they will 
weigh scarcely more than those of the Ply¬ 
mouth Rocks. The color averages a little dark¬ 
er. Last year the eggs were sent to us during 
a cold snap, and none hatched. Wc hope to 
be more fortunate this season. We have 
tried nearly every other breed, 
Mr. T. B. Hoover, a poultry raiser of long 
and careful experience, writes us that his 
Plymouth Rock pullets did not begin to lay 
as early last year by six weeks as the Winter 
before under the same treatment. His Crested 
Golden Polish have been laying well since the 
middle of February. We have tried this 
beautiful breed in a small way, but they do 
not seem quite' hardy enough for our trying 
climate 
If your liens are infested with insects, blow 
Buliach, Pyrethrnm powder or Persian Insect 
Powder (they are about the same thing) 
among their feathers. Do this two or three 
times every week. We lxdieve it. to be the 
easiest, simplest and safest method of ridding 
the hens of this pest. Go into tho hen house 
after nightfall and. taking t hem one by one in 
a gentle manner, blow t he powder among their 
feathers through n Woodason bellows, or the 
little imsuffl a to rs sold by most seedsmen: or, 
rub the powder under t heir feathers about the 
head and body. 
There are farmers who always wait till the 
very last moment before ordering their farm 
implements. This is very poor policy. Such 
men always find fault. They will not take 
the fact into consideration that, it takes time 
to do business. They wait, until the time for 
using the implement and then order it sent 
"immediately,” For any delay iu freight or 
exprossage, and such delays are frequently 
unavoidable, they blame the manufacturer. 
A little planning and “head work” would 
prevent all the trouble. We will venture to 
say that there are farmers at this time who 
have not secured their tools for the season. 
Order them at once. Never he caught behind - 
hand again. 
Senator Evarts has been receiving a severe 
lashing from the agricultural press because 
he was reported ns saying that when a man 
made u failure he could only “go bo n better 
work! or come down to farming.” The sen¬ 
tence may bo taken either ns an insult or a 
compliment. If the speaker meant that any 
"poor stick” who makes a failure of anything 
ho puts his hand to, can by securing a farmer’s 
outfit, gain a farmer's dignit y, lu* uttered a 
mean and unpardonable insult. I f he meant 
that a man, beaten at ©very poiut in business, 
must com© buck to the farm for renewed 
health, strength and courogu to enable him to 
make a new fight, thu speaker used sound 
common sense. 
There are two principal ways of accumulat¬ 
ing competence—by making and by saving. 
Some make but little and slowly, yet by 
avoiding waste they eventually attain inde- 
pendonce. When there is abundance, there is 
a pixjpemuty to waste. In most branches of 
business, men learn that dollars are made by 
taking care of the pennies; but the farmer, 
often burdened with the profusion of his crops, 
loses his profits through losing the odds and 
ends, or by the decay of produce not properly 
or timely stored. His work and care differ 
from those of most, othei’s, because of his de¬ 
pendence upon th© condition of the weather, 
and in no occupation is there such constant 
occasion for forethought, nud for adaptation 
of plans to exigencies ns they arise. It is that 
farmer who keeps everything in trim, who 
completely finishes whatever he begins, and 
who anticipates leakage and decay, that sails 
along safely to the harbor of Prosperity. 
