POULTRY SPECIAL. 
(Continued from page 309.) 
from the ^uval^ W.gt.f. <#avm 
POULTRY KEEPING IN ORCHARDS. 
POULTRY AS INSECT DESTROYERS. 
In considering the subject of poultry keep¬ 
ing, little is credited to them as insect destroy¬ 
ers. While all know that they are large con¬ 
sumers of animal food, and that in Summer 
the principal part of this is composed of worms 
and insects, no attempt is made to turn this 
habit to good account. While hogs or sheep 
kept in an orchard will destroy many insects 
and greatly help to keep them in check, they 
do so only incidentally, and for the sake of 
getting the infested fruit in which the iusect 
mav be lodged. Not so with an old hen and a 
brood of young chicks or ducks. They are 
ever on the alert, no insect escapes their quick 
eyes, and they eat the “varmint” for Its own 
sake, and no insect but. is agreeable to their 
taste. One such family will destroy more in¬ 
sects than a hundred sheep or double that 
number of swine. lu fact, very few have 
considered their great value for this purpose 
or have ever thought of making use of their 
potent help, and fewer still have made any 
systematic attempt to use them for this pur¬ 
pose, and yet, with a little thought, they can 
lie so used as to Vie very efficient and be made 
a source of profit. 
CHICKENS MAKE FAIR FRUIT. 
We have for several years made use of this 
means, and we find the fruit of that part of 
the orchard in which they are kept very much 
fairer and freer from insects than that pro¬ 
duced on other parts. So much have we been 
impressed with this fact that we are extend¬ 
ing the system to the whole orchard. In or¬ 
der to have them all over the orchard we have 
constructed a number of high, cheap and 
warm houses. They are 8x12 feet; eight feet 
high on one side and five ou the other. The 
sides and ends are mado of matched lumber 
nailed to sills and plates of 4x1 stuff. The 
roof is made of strips on which shingles are 
laid. The whole of the inside is double-sheeted 
with tarred paper—the under part of the roof 
as well as the sides. A large window is in the 
south side and a door is placed on one end. 
Each is provided with roosts and nests and 
made in every way as comfortable as possible 
Twenty-five pullets arc placed in each very 
early in Spring, or they may be wintered 
there, and if desirable for breeding, a cock as 
well. As soon as one becomes broody, she is 
« furnished with a clutch of eggs, either hen or 
duck, as desired, and when the} - are hatched 
she is cooped in or near the house until the 
younglings are a couple of weeks old, more or 
less, when they are allowed to run at large. 
Each night, at egg-gathering time, each lot of 
old fowls are fed a proper allowance of whole 
corn. This insures their “coming home to 
roost” and makes them so contented and hap¬ 
py that they never mix, even where the houses 
are not more than 20 rods apart. Of course, 
the chicks when young are fed oftener aud on 
suitable foods. 
LITTLE TROUBLE MUCH PROFIT. 
All this takes blit a small amount of time 
each day; while the results are very satisfac¬ 
tory in more ways than one. We get many 
hundreds of dozens of eggs, while the price is 
couparatively high. We raise from one to 
several tons of poultry which, by watching the 
markets, we sell at good prices, and which 
in reality have paid a tine profit, beyond the 
cost of raising, by the decrease of iusects and 
the increased fairness and value of the apples. 
By selecting the earliest hatched pullets for 
wintering over, we always have a large yield 
of eggs to sell during the scarcity ami conse¬ 
quent high prices of Winter. While we 
make use of nil the means to us kuowu for re¬ 
ducing the number and depredations of in¬ 
sects, we know of no one means so perfectly 
and cheaply effectual as the keeping of poult ry 
in the orchards. 
After trying very many of the newer breeds 
of fowls at the farm, wo have now fairly 
settled down to the conviction that none is in 
all respects equal to the Plymouth Rocks. 
They combine more of the following good 
qualities than any other brood we have ever 
tried—hardiness, early maturity, quietness, 
great prolificacy of good-sized eggs, even in 
Winter, aud size of carcass. We think this 
emphatically a general purpose fowl. 
Wo select each year about 25 to 30 liens, in 
every way models, and with these we mate a 
cockerel as nearly perfect as we can find and 
us remote as possible in blood, lu this way 
we have secured fowls us like as peas, the 
hens averaging about eight pounds, aud the 
cocks nearly 12. In fact, it would be hard to 
liud a finer show of this superior breed. 
SUPPLEMENT TO THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 305 
Winter eggs are produced from food and 
care. The hen Simply acts as an agent. A 
perfect egg is a combination of warmth, con¬ 
tentment. cleanliness, clean food and drink and 
plenty of lime. With any one of these essen¬ 
tials omitted, the egg yield will be diminished. 
We think this states the matter fairly. A suc¬ 
cessful “chickeu business” is but the careful 
elaboration of these propositions. 
The conservation of warmth in the poultry 
house in Winter is an important problem in 
Northern latitudes. We,are not speaking of 
the men who allow their poultry to roost in an 
old house overrun with vermin and searched 
by every cold wind. Problems never trouble 
such men, for no problem can exist without 
thought. There is no problem about the 
estimated profits of the live cold-storage poul¬ 
try business, It is reduced to an axiom. Men 
who treat, their poultry in a business-like way 
wish to find the most economical, yet warm, 
poultry house. We do not think it pays to 
keep poultry in the barn, cellar. Dampness is 
death to fowls. The average barn is very 
poorly drained. What with the steam from the 
manure aud breath from the cattle there is 
constant, moisture. These old cellars are filled 
with little corners where vermin love to con¬ 
gregate. The fowls are worthy of a place of 
their own. The use of tarred paper for lining 
ought to revolutionize the lifeof farm poultry. 
A window is necessary. Ventilation must be 
secured. Iu the far North, a house built on the 
principle of au ice-house, with two walls, the 
space between which is filled in with saw-dust, 
is found to work well. Do one of two things 
before next Winter—kill off all your poultry 
at the first cold weather, or build a comfort¬ 
able house for them. 
We do not wish to give our readers the 
“poultry fever.” We want to keep disease 
out of the family. You can’t make your for¬ 
tune at any business until you study it out. 
aud oftentimes the mastery of the business is 
the only fortune you will see. There is money 
in the poaltry business for those who “know 
how.” There is no place on the farm where 
care and attention will bring so much ready 
cash as at the hen house. The point we make 
is this: there is a wider difference in usefulness 
between common poultry and improved and 
thoroughbred stock, than there is between 
scrub cattle aud graded or thoroughbred cattle. 
No part of the farm stock can be so easily, 
cheaply and quickly improved as can the 
poultry. It requires years of waiting aud a 
direct cash outlay to improve the farm cattle. 
In the poultry yard, care and observation can 
take the place of much of this cash. The want 
of cash stamls iu the way of many farm im¬ 
provements. 
It will pay to inclose farm poultry. They 
will be kept out of the garden. Fewer hens 
will be required. You can keep closer watch 
of them, aud thus pay more attention to their 
improvement. You will save yourself the 
trouble of huutiug eggs. The hens will Is 1 un¬ 
able to foul the bay. the mangers or the door- 
yard. You will gain some respect for your 
poultry. You have uo right to keep stock on 
your farm, that you cannot respect. If you 
could have movable coops and yards that 
could be easily moved about to different parts 
of the farm, you would gain in two ways—the 
summer food for the hens would cost less, and 
you would have less manure to haul out in the 
Spring, When the crops are out of the 
ground, the hens can have more liberty. Let 
them out on the plowed ground. 
Tameness pays. You ought to have your 
hens so tamo that you can pick thorn up as 
you would a cat. Bring them into such a state, 
and they will lay more eggs and put on more 
flesh to pay for it. Think of chasing a rooster 
half a mile, or running him down with a dog! 
We have seen intelligent men do these very 
things. Avoid it by gentleness and common 
senso. 
Lice will gather iu the laying nests if any¬ 
where. Make the nests as simple as possible 
so that they can lie easily taken apart and 
cleaned. Take out the old Straw or hay every 
week or so and burn it up. Why uail a box 
together tightly and thus make cracks and 
cornel's whore, lice can congregate! Why not 
place boards loosely together ou a shelf in the 
form of nests? Make the nests so that they can 
be taken apart at a moment’s notice and thor¬ 
oughly cleaned. At the South, boxes of cot¬ 
ton-seed are used os nests. They answer the 
pur|>ose admirahly. 
Use care in selecting eggs for settiug. Do 
you know which are your best hens? You 
could probably guess at it, but cau you tell 
which of them lay the most eggs in a year? 
See if you can find out. If you can, pick out 
their egg for setting. Sort their eggs care¬ 
fully. Reject all pointed eggs, all narrow 
eggs or those that are very large or very 
small. Aim to pick out “egg-shaped” eggs. 
Breed from your best he us. Would you raiso 
a calf from your poorest cow ? 
How do you build your roosts? We want 
our roosts low, so that a hen can reach them 
without flying. It is not the business of a hen 
to fly or to run. We cau make more by 
breeding any desire to perform either opera¬ 
tion out of them. We want a roost at least 
two inches thick, oval at the top; the shape of 
bottom is of no consequence. We want the 
hen to rest comfortably without being obliged 
to clutch the roost so desperately. 
Milk is one of the best of poultry foods. 
Mixed with the other food, given sweet as a 
drink, or fed sour and thick, it gives excellent 
results. It will take the place of meat to a 
great extent. A gallon of milk fed to the hens 
" ill give better results tliau the same amount 
fed to pigs. 
The best breed? What would suit one 
would not suit another. We believe that lo¬ 
cation, means, characteristics of the farm, and 
the aims of the farmer must be taken into con¬ 
sideration. The different breeds of cattle 
seem specially adapted to different locations 
and farms. Experiments with the different 
breeds can be easily and cheaply made. In a 
few years one can decide which breed or cross 
is best suited to his wants. 
Set the hens in a place by themselves. See 
that the nests are clean and free from lice be¬ 
fore they go iu. Give the hen all the eggs she 
can cover. Let her off every morning to eat 
and drink. Don’t poke food in to her nest. 
Place a dust box near at baud, fill this with 
plain dry sand. Take a piece of chalk and 
write over the nest the date of the setting. 
Let the hen alone. Don't let the children 
plague her. Don’t use a hen with scaly legs. 
As a rule old liens make the best mothers- 
Never pick out a hen that is naturally quarrel¬ 
some. 
Poultry pay well iu orchards. The shade is 
good for them. They pick up numberless in¬ 
sects and fertilize the soil effectually. Iu a 
plum orchard poultry will more thau pay 
their way. There is no surer remedy for the 
curculio. Large hens are best for orchard 
work. They are less inclined to fly into the 
trees. A\ ith portable fences of wire netting 
the flock can be easily secured. The wire 
netting fences are becoming very popular. 
They are cheap, durable and sightly. 
The best way to improve the common stock 
of the farm ? The weight of opinion seems to 
rest in favor of buying fowls rather than eggs. 
It will be necessary to kill off all the old roost¬ 
ers. It would pay, if only one thoroughbred 
rooster was bought to confine him with the 
best hens, and use their eggs alone for setting. 
One thing is certain; if you will not take bet¬ 
ter care of the hens, it is useless to try aud 
improve them. If you buy thoroughbred 
eggs or fowls, and think by putting the one 
under a hen or turning the other into the 
yard, the work is done, you will be worse off 
than before. You will not only lose your 
money; but you will be disappointed. Thor¬ 
oughbred stock needs thoroughbred care. That 
is the “old. old story" of stock breeding. It 
is truer of poultry thau of any other farm 
stock. Remember that while poultry can lie 
more rapidly improved than any other stock 
ou the farm, they will also most rapidly 
degenerate when neglected. 
Never t rain roosters to fight. They will tjo 
enough of it without help. Still, if we were 
to kill off all but one, we should prefer to 
keep the master of the yard. There are too 
many roosters in the average farm yard. A 
single rooster confined with the best fifteen 
hens will insure eggs for hatching at the 
season when they are needed. 
Grass is the best green food for summer 
use. It may be cut with a scythe and thrown 
into the yards, or, better still, there may bo 
two yards, where grass can be growing in one 
while the hens are feeding iu the other. Pur¬ 
slane is good for hens, aud they relish it. For 
winter feeding, cabbage is hard to improve 
upon. Carrots, turnips, beets and lettuce are 
excellent. Chopped clover hay is as good for 
the hens as it is for the cattle. One-hundred 
hens will make short work of a bushel of it. 
Feed onions sparingly. Apple parings, squash 
and pumpkin' will help the hens. 
Find out by your own experiments the best 
food ration for poultry. You have time 
enough iu the Winter to notice which foods 
or food combinations produce the mast eggs. 
Different breeds, iu different localities appear 
to have different rations, each of which is 
claimed as the best. This shows that no one 
combination can be relied upon for all. 
Wheat must enter into very goal egg ration, 
with green food of some kind. AVhat is betd 
ter for the morning feed than mashed potil 
toes, meal and milk and chopped clover: Tly 
potatoes can be boiled with those for ycij 
own breakfast. Feed whole grain at nig^f 
Give plenty - of charcoal and burnt bo^B 
Scatter whole grain on the ground, in difw 
ent parts of the yard where the hens will h^l 
to work to get it. Feed soft food in a Ion™ 
naiTow trough placed against the wall, so 
that the hens can eat from but one side, and 
not stand in the food. Scald this trough out 
every few days. 
You can’t tell from the outside of au egg, 
whether it will produce a rooster or a pullet. 
It wont pay you to try and form a set of 
rules on the sutjject. You won’t make any 
more money, and you will kuow less about it 
when you finish, than you did before you be¬ 
gan. 
Hens need shade in Summer. Little chicks 
need it more than the old hens do. Have the 
water warm in AA inter, but cool in Summer. 
Don’t leave the drinking vessel out in the hot 
sun. Replenish it frequently and wash it out 
every day. This advice is not for those who 
wish to save work, but for those who want 
eggs and chickens. 
The most contemptible man in all agricul¬ 
ture is the man who says poultry are of no 
use, lets his wife and daughter do all the work 
at raising chickens, and then puts the “egg 
money” into his own pocket No wonder he 
is ashamed to enter the society of respectable 
hens. A man with a fair amount of common 
sense will appreciate the fact that the “ women 
folks” can beat him at poultry raising. He 
will show his intelligence by encouraging 
them all he cau. by eating his fried eggs and 
custards with a thankful heart, and letting 
the “egg money” go where it belongs. 
A home-made incubator will give very poor 
results. The farmer will have very poor suc¬ 
cess with any incubator. These machines are 
for those who desire to go into chickeu raising 
on a large scale. The average farmer cannot 
do this. His aim is to make the most he can 
out of his flock of 30 hens. He will find that 
the old hen will watch thermometers, turn 
eggs aud keep lamps trimmed a great deal 
cheaper than he cau. 
Don’t be barbarous with a broody hen. 
Don’t tie her up by one leg or make her stand 
on sharp nails or in a pan of water. Put her 
iu a coop raised a few inches from the ground 
with the bottom made so that, she will have to 
roost on poles. Put her in a pen with a rest¬ 
less dog or calf that will frighten her into 
respectable ways, or let her go without food 
till she gets hungry, and then make her hunt 
her own living. 
Cholera germs are taken into the system 
through the mouth. It is cheaper to kill the 
germs than it is to cure the hens. Think of 
eating eggs laid by hens suffering from chol¬ 
era! One ounce of sulphuric acid in a gallon 
of water sprinkled about the yard and feeding 
places, is recommended to kill the genus. 
Begin to fatten the Thanksgiving turkey on 
the day he is hatched. Don’t wait till two 
weeks before the festival aud then shut him 
into a coop to lay on a mass of blubber. 
Feed well. 
Caponizing is a cruel operation at the best. 
Without doubt it pays well. The birds are 
made larger aud of better shape, aud the meat 
is improved iu quality. There is all the dif¬ 
ference between a rooster and a capon that 
there is between a bull and a steer. But the 
operation is cruel and useless to the ordinary 
farmer. Shame ou the man who would ex¬ 
periment so cruelly on a live cbickeu. If y ou 
want to learn the process, study the anatomy 
of a dead chicken till you know where the 
parts are located. If you make bungling 
work of your first attempts, be merciful and 
wring the chicken’s ueck. 
Eggs contain 12.5 per cent, of protein 
three per cent., and normal beef 1 1.3 
L > . '• 
: 
the Fall, before the birds have ^Tha^’. i 
plant the garden wH 
Make your own whitewash and don’t l!l 
afraid to use it ou the inside of your henhouse; 
take a peek of salt dissolved iu water, one-half 
bushel of well-burned, fresh quick-lime, and 
two buckets of boiling water. Place the water 
the lime and the salt iuto a barrel aud put ou 
a cover to keep the steam inside. Make the 
wash about as thick as thin cream, and strain 
through a cloth. Soak a pound of glue in 
cold water. Add three pounds of rice flour 
aud mix. Add this to the lime wash and put 
