542 
THE RURAL. WEW-YORKER. 
I 
stops flowing, the cap falls of its own weight 
until, when the water ceases, the opening is 
closed. Mr. Crane found that muskrats 
crawled up his drains into the fish pond to 
destroy the carp. One of these traps placed 
at the lower end of the drain prevented any 
further trouble. One placed on the end of the 
house drain will give good satisfaction. 
one would think of farming for profit. I am 
a blacksmith by trade; have worked at it 
more or less for 40 years, but my farm has 
paid me bettor than my shop has ever done. 
The man who occupied the place before I 
bought it, kept one horse, one cow aud some¬ 
times raised a calf. The year I bought the 
place, I out from a quarter to a half ton of 
grass; now I get eight or ten tons, aud some 
seasons more. The farm is now worth four 
times as much as it was when I bought it, and 
here is some account of what I have done by 
way of improvement. 
In 1853,1 began to plant forest trees—mostly 
pine seed. 1 had bills and barren places which 
bore nothing but poverty weeds; there I 
planted the pine seeds. Now I have about 18 
acres of quite valuable wood-land. On the 
place I had a swamp aud boggy marsh of little 
I commenced working it 
From it I obtained a 
easily. Many people are embarking with 
great hopes and little capital in a business 
they are quite ignorant of. They see the chicks 
hatched in the machines (as they are called) 
and they suppose the hardest -work is done. 
Now, 1 am not speaking to the fancier who 
well knows the uses of the incubator; but to 
those who have had no experience in the poul¬ 
try business aud are apt to suppose chickens 
are easily raised in Winter for early broilers 
at immense profits, nor am I saying this can¬ 
not be done. I would simply call attention to 
the expenses after a fair deduction for losses, 
and the labor that must bo expended. In 
raising those early chickens few people with¬ 
out experience can tell the care, warmth, food 
and time it takes to raise 100 such chickens. 
They are apt to be carried away by their own 
feelings rather than to look fairly into the cir¬ 
cumstances, In just the same way there was 
a trout-raising mama a few years ago, which 
led many people to spend large sums of money 
in preparing brooks and ponds for the raising 
of trout, which were to realize one dollar a 
pound in the market. The trout were easily 
hatched and those who were first in the busi¬ 
ness made money by selling the young hatched 
fishes, hut who ever heard of a pound of trout 
so raised ever reaching the market? And it 
will be a long time before our markets are 
over-stocked with early hatched broilers. 
In saying this I do not wish to discourage 
those who contemplate keeping poultry, or 
even raising them for eggs or for the market; 
but I wish to offer a caution against persons 
being lod astray by misrepresentation or their 
own heedlessness. It is one of the chief objects 
of the Rural New-Yorker to set people 
right in the various departments of agricul¬ 
ture, fruit-growing, stock, etc., without fear 
or favor, and I see many such general ac¬ 
knowledgments in the press that there is no 
doubt that it is doing the public a good service 
that should be generously acknowledged. In 
regard to poultry, the very highly-colored ex- 
aggerated accounts of the great profits und 
little labor in raising poultry, that appear 
from time to time in some papers, are apt to 
do more harm than good to the legitimate 
business of poultry-keeping, and should there¬ 
fore be discountenanced by all fuir, honest 
people, who are well enough informed. There 
is profit in poultry as an adjunct to the farm. 
Poultry-keeping is one of the most profitable 
departments of farm work when properly 
conducted. Most farmers know this, and 
many take fair care of their stock. But those 
who are totally uuacquainted with the busi¬ 
ness should take good care to get well inform¬ 
ed before embarking in it too deeply. They 
should find out the state of the markets in the 
locality where they wish to locate; the suita¬ 
bility of the land for such purpose; the amount 
of capital required, to say nothing of the 
many things to learn in respect to the practi¬ 
cal part of the work, such as the best breeds 
for the purpose intende 1, whether for the pro¬ 
duction of eggs or the sale of the birds; the 
proper kinds of buildings, yards, etc. Then 
there are the interior fittings of nests, perches, 
dust lmfchs, feed hoppers, water utensils and 
ventilation. Incubators do, and will play an 
important part in the business under proper 
management; but too much must not be ex¬ 
pected of them. Too much is generally at 
this time claimed for them. Much stress is 
laid on their keeping the chicks free from 
parasites; but w'hat practical poultry man 
will allow bis birds to be tormented by such 
vermin? It is as much a poultry-raiser’s busi¬ 
ness to look after such things (aud to a practi¬ 
cal person it is not as much trouble as some 
suppose) as it is to feed aud otherwise care for 
his flock. 
The feeding of the young chickens with 
suitable food, to keep them growing and in 
health, is something to learn. One should 
also know the best temperature and the right 
sort of ventilation for their health. He 
should also be well acquainted with the cause 
and symptoms of poultry ailments, so as to be 
able to tell what is the matter when any get 
sick, and to decide promptly what to give to 
check or cure the trouble before it infects the 
whole flock. When the birds are old enough 
to lay and eggs are scarce, then comes the test 
of the business capacity, to know how to in¬ 
duce the hems to lay, by judicious feeding, 
proper warmth, cleanliness, etc. All these 
things can be learned by a person of ordinary 
intelligence, but can only be put to practice 
by more than ordinary industry to make a 
successful business of poultry raising, The 
whole business is made up of apparently small 
details, which must not be in the least neglect¬ 
ed if success is to crown the undertaking. 
heifers he kept and crowded them into’cows. 
He fed his milk, oil-meal, bran and all the 
skim-milk he could pick up. People laughed 
at him because be did not turn his milk right 
into cash, but he beat them in the long run. 
The very men who gave him the calves came 
ami bought the same calves back after they 
had grown into cows, and they had to pay a 
round price, too. A man could not do this 
unless ho had money enough to carry him 
through a year or so, but he is sure to get his 
pay in the end. It seems to me that there are 
plenty of places yet where this plan could be 
worked. c - W- 
Plymouth Co,, Mass. 
A CONVENIENT ROOM FOR DAIRY WORK. 
The room shown at Figs. 310—311 was built 
on the east side of the stable to have it con¬ 
veniently near the house. The pump is the 
width of a carriage-drive from its door. No 
offensive odor reaches the milk-house from the 
stable, and if there did, it would not affect the 
HANDY PARING KNIFE. 
account as it was. 
into a cranbeiry bog. 
lot of muck and peat, a good material for 
cows, pigs and hens to work into dressing. 
My land joins a salt water poud, from which 
I get plenty of seaweed, which is quite an 
item for bedding and dressing. I keep six 
cows in Winter. I run a milk-wagon the year 
round. In the Summer 1 keep nine or ten 
cows. We have so many people from the 
cities at that time I can sell all the milk I can 
make, at seven cents per quart. My land is all 
within fence. I cultivate about 1(5 acres; the 
rest is for pustuve for the cows. 
Most of my fences are hedge, made from 
red cedars set when small; they are very easy 
to transplant. In some places I bend down 
oak and pine trees. If this is done at the pro¬ 
per, time they make the best of fence; but if 
neglected, as it often is, uutil the cows get out 
in June or July, and the trees are then cut 
that ought to have beeu bent down in Febru¬ 
ary or March, they die out aud the hedge is 
condemned. 1 have seen lots of this kind of 
management. I keep from 300 to 400 hens. 
We think they pay very well; but, like other 
things, they want care and attention. I set 
from one-quarter to half an acre of strawberry 
vines every Spring. 1 have apple, pear, peach 
and plum trees, also grape vines, all of my 
own setting. I have about three-fourths of an 
acre for garden truck. 
We are not all alike. What may be satis¬ 
faction and enjoyment to me may not inter¬ 
est others. I am pleased to look out on the 
acres of green forest trees I have planted. I 
love to see the fields of green grass, of coni 
and oats and rye ; and the cranberry bog, too, 
with its rich harvest. I enjoy the springtime 
when the fruit trees put forth their buds and 
blossoms. 
Now I would not give to young men the 
advice Horace Greely gave, “Go West;” 
but I would say stay East, buy some run¬ 
down farm, or some place that has never 
been improved as it could have been. There 
are plenty of places here in the New Eng¬ 
land States, that can be bought very low. 
People still go West, aud their farms are 
sold at auction for less than half the cost. 
The young men go off, thiukiug they can do 
better elsewhere, but the current will set back 
again iu time. No, I.would not exchange 
the rough aud rocky hills and valleys and 
sandy shores of Cape Cod, here iu NoW 
England, for the rich prairies of the West. 
Our land is poor, I kuow, but what we 
raise is worth something. We don’t raise 
corn for fuel, nor sell our milk for two or 
three cents per quart. We never yet have 
beeu exposed to cyclones or blizzards. 
I think if a young man will settle down on 
some place with his uund fully made up to 
stay, then with proper management and 
economy, with willing bauds, he will succeed 
iu getting a comfortable living here. 
Osterville, Mass. s. L. L. 
A.M-Y. 
inches, and cut one corner away so as to make 
the point shown in the picture. Make two 
holes, one one-half inen and the other three 
inches from the handle end. For handle take 
a piece of hard wood—hickory, ash or iron- 
wood—cme-half inch thick, three-fourths of an 
inch wide and four inches long, and fasten on 
with screws or rivets. This knife is much 
handier for paring than one having the 
handle on both sides of the blade. 
submerged milk, the cream being all raised in 
a Cooley Creamer. Most of the milk and 
cream is sold in town, so our milk-house is 
use! to wash a large number of cans in, vary 
ing in size from one to eight gallons. Of 
course, in lifting the dripping cans from the 
tank, and in washing the large vessels, there 
is more or less slop every day, and to clear 
that away in the easiest way, I have made a 
slope in the floor in two directions, so that the 
spilled water makes its way toward a little 
outlet made for it in the north end of the 
building. The slant iu the floor is not notice¬ 
able to the eye, but the water readily finds it, 
and when the room is ready to be left for the 
day, a little dashing on of water and broom 
service soon leave the floor clean. The little 
door where the water runs out (see Fig. 311), 
B. E. Fernow, in a paper read before the Am¬ 
erican Forestry Congress, calls the attention 
of farmers to the value of what is known as 
lumberman’s waste, which includes not only 
sawdust, but edgings, shavmgs, brushwood 
and other wood litter, for beddiug and manur- 
ial purposes. 
It is claimed in this paper according to the 
N. Y. World—we have not seen the jmper— 
that wood litter makes a better and cleaner 
bedding for cattle than does straw; that the 
cleaning of cows requires only about 
one-fourth the time that it does when 
Xafqe 
Shele 
is 18 inches square. A drain carries the water 
away—that which is swept out and the over¬ 
flow from the creamer. The sleepers were laid 
a trifle lower at the north end, aud were hewn 
down a little to make the two slopes. In ar¬ 
ranging the places for the cans, etc., no stands 
with legs were, allowed. They would make 
trouble iu moving when the daily floor wash¬ 
ing is going on. Shelves are used, aud where 
the hugest utensils are placed, a large shelf 
was made, two feet from the floor, with bracket 
supports, and to make it stronger it is sus¬ 
pended also from the rafters above. Another 
shelf was made above this for covers, etc. In 
the corner near the door stands a large furnace 
boiler in which the water for washing the 
cans is heated. It is large enough to roll an 
eight-gallon can in it, and here the cans are 
scalded. MRS. s. E. h. 
Greeley, Colo. 
Mr. Fernow gives the assurance that the 
manure from wood litter is better than from 
straw because it binds the liquid excrements 
better and retards the decomposition and loss 
of valuable plant food, especially the nitrogen¬ 
ous compounds. The mechanical effect on the 
soil he believes to be inno way inferior to that 
of straw manure. That huiuiflcatiou of wood 
manure goes on more slowly he does not deny, 
but bethinks this may even prove an addition¬ 
al beuettt when <he process of decomposition 
takes place in the soil insteud of in the manure 
heap, and the soil profits from the heat due to 
the chemical action and retains the ammonia 
developed. 
M. Pasteur’s New Quarters.— A most 
extraordinary museum has just been opened 
in the Rue Vauqnelin, of Paris, says the Lon¬ 
don Farmers’ Gazette. It is difficult to say 
whether it should best be called a museum, or 
a factory, or a farm, or u menagerie. It is in 
fact all four combined anil grouped together 
for a purpose hitherto untried, ami presenting 
un appearance hitherto unparalleled. These 
are the new head-quurtors of M. Pasteur, and 
here are to be found cow-houses, sheep-folds, 
fowl-walks, rabbit-hutches, aud dog-keuuels. 
They uro all, moreover, fully occupied. On 
one side is a laboratory, where the vaccine 
soups and preparations are made up. Above 
it a museum, where specimens connected with 
the new cure are exhibited. There are operat 
TRAP FOR DRAIN, 
HINTS ON POULTRY, 
Robert Crain, Jr., of Bucks Co., Pa., was 
greatly troubled for a time by having rats, 
snakes aud other vermin crawl into his drains 
during dry weather. To prevent this nui¬ 
sance he uses the trap shown at Fig. 813. The 
Caution needed in beginning poultry rais¬ 
ing; pout tt'y raising mania; exaggerations 
of profits; necessity of st udy and investi¬ 
gation; profitscome from care and knowl¬ 
edge. 
At the present time poultry is commanding 
more than usual attention. Poultry journals 
are springing up like mushrooms. It is only 
about twelve years ago that the first was pub¬ 
lished, when the Poultry Bulletin made its 
appearance as a new venture; now*there are 
a great many all over the country. Incubators 
and brooders are being manufactured with 
many different devices for regulating the 
heat, each one claiming some. - peculiar advan¬ 
tage. The sale of these | incubators has 
assumed large proportions, and the advertise¬ 
ments are of a captivating character, consider¬ 
ing how many people like to make a living 
Fig. 313, 
end of the tile is cut away, as shown. The 
trap is made of galvanized iron, heavily wired 
around the sloped end for the lid to rest on. A 
brass hinge is used, to prevent rusting. Wheu 
the water flows down through the drain the 
trap is lifted by the force of the water until it 
assumes the position a. When the water 
FARMING IN NEW ENGLAND. 
I own about 110 acres of laud away down 
here on Cape Cod, about the last place where 
