59o 
August 30 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
cord for cord, thus increasing the value of the pile 75 
per cent, because of the preservation of the liquids 
and the desirable mechanical condition. Other ma¬ 
terials might have added more value, if properly used, 
but I have never had fire-fanged manure with saw¬ 
dust while I have with hay or straw for bedding, 
neither have I reached the limit where it seemed un¬ 
profitable to use the sawdust. a. j. h. 
Leighton’s Corners, N. H. 
MAPES, THE HEN MAN. 
PULLETS ARE LAYING.—We are getting the 
cockerels pretty well thinned out, and the pullets are 
fast developing into hens. It gladdens the heart of 
the poultryman to hear the ka-ka-ka of the pullets 
take the place of the crowing of the young cockerels. 
We got our first pullet’s egg August 10. Our first 
chicks were hatched late in March. Assuming that 
this was laid by one of the first hatched ones, she was 
about 4V 2 months old. Hundreds of them are getting 
red heads and admonishing us that they must be re¬ 
moved from the juvenile department to the regular 
laying quarters. Our row of colony brooder houses 
is located near a row of large cherry trees, and a good 
proportion of the older pullets left the small houses 
(6x8 feet) and roosted in the trees. The Deacon and 1 
had several discussions as to the best way to catch 
them without frightening them. It is exasperating 
to climb a tree full of chickens, and have the whole 
flock take wing at the first alarm. The following 
plan was finally adopted, and works splendidly: A 
few of the houses were first emptied, removing the 
pullets roosting inside to their regular Winter quar¬ 
ters. Feed troughs were then placed in these empty 
houses and those roosting in the trees accustomed to 
being fed inside. After that the job is simple. By 
closing the doors at supper time, while they are in¬ 
side eating, they are compelled to take to the perches 
instead of to the trees at night, where they can 
easily be caught without fright or climbing. The 
same idea can be put in practice whenever one has 
an empty building of any kind in which they can be 
fed. A small enclosure made on purpose, of slats or 
lath would answer the same purpose. 
QUESTIONING A HEN.—My experimental Wyan¬ 
dotte in the exhibition coop that is being fed on a 
balanced ration made up partly of skim-milk solids 
in dry form is still laying regularly. She is a good 
deal inclined to raise a brood of chicks, however. She 
had her second attack of the broody fever after lay¬ 
ing a litter of only 12 eggs. After breaking this fever 
she started to lay again July 28. I have now pro¬ 
vided a second place of confinement, as different as 
possible from her surroundings in her old quarters. 
I purpose to keep changing her from one place to the 
other every time she lays eight or 10 eggs. By break¬ 
ing up her home-like surroundings before the broody 
fever develops I hope to make a perpetual layer out 
of her. It will be interesting to watch her behavior 
when her moulting season arrives. Will she stop lay¬ 
ing before she begins to moult? Will she eat more 
or less during that time? Will the same elements of 
food that sustain life and produce eggs, also sustain 
life and grow a new coat of feathers? Will she re¬ 
quire a greater or less proportion of carbonaceous to 
nitrogenous matter? How long a rest from laying 
will she ask for at moulting time? We shall see. 
Such a talk with a hen will be interesting and in¬ 
structive, if we can only interpret her responses. 
HEN MATTERS.—I have been working for years 
on the theory that a.healthy hen that is supplied with 
food that contains all the elements of matter needed 
to sustain life and produce eggs in proper proportion 
(or balance), cannot help but lay if kept in comfort¬ 
able quarters. The fact that I failed year after year 
to find the right balance did not prove the theory to 
be worthless, nor shake my faith in it. Neither does 
it wipe out the fact that White Betty is now the pic¬ 
ture of good health, and laying as regularly as a ma¬ 
chine, although she has been closely confined all 
Summer without exercise, change of diet, or green 
feed of any kind. She gets nothing but the one mix¬ 
ture, over and over, night and morning, month after 
month. I have another theory, that a hen can be 
made to lay as surely and as freely in December as 
in May, when we understand and supply all the need¬ 
ed conditions. The fact that I and others have failed 
so often, “to our sorrow,” does not prove the theory 
to be worthless. An old neighbor, who was one of 
Orange County’s most successful milk producers 30 
years ago, used to be fond of quoting the maxim that 
“the breed is in the mouth.” The R. N.-Y., on page 
564 remarks that “pedigree is what enables an 
animal to make the best use of its food.” Let us 
suspend sentence on that, until we see how my scrub 
pullets come out. I rather expected to get a dose of 
some disease, but was ready to take the risk. As yet. 
they are thriving and growing beyond my expecta¬ 
tions. I hope to eat pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving 
Day, made with eggs from that pen. Billy Gourmand 
boasts of no pedigree, except of the mouth, but carries 
a chip on his shoulder for all pigs with a pedigree. 
There may be a good deal of truth in the old farm¬ 
er’s maxim that “the breed is in the mouth.” 
FEEDING GRASS.—In discussing the Clark system 
of grass seeding The R. N.-Y. says, page 564: “There 
is a pretty theory to the effect that fertilizers force 
the good grasses so that they beat the weeds. As 
many a farmer knows to his sorrow, this does not al¬ 
ways work out in practice.” Does the failure of 
“many farmers” to make the theory work out in prac¬ 
tice, necessarily prove the theory to be wrong? Here 
is one farmer who has used fertilizers so intelligently 
that the “good grasses” have “crowded out the weeds” 
for 13 years in succession. It will take a good many 
failures, gentlemen, to wipe out that one success. Be¬ 
fore you discard the theory as being worthless, you 
would better supply some other theory by which to 
account for Mr. Clark’s success. All honor to the 
man who has not only made “two blades of grass grow 
where but one grew before,” but has also told us how 
he does it. My only controversy with him is, to claim 
that we can accomplish the same result (get rid of 
the old sod and secure a perfect seed bed) easier and 
cheaper by calling to our aid old Father Time, with 
his bacteria, in place of so much stirring of the soil. 
I wonder how many have tried Mr. Clark’s method 
in all its details before condemning it. When a man 
studies out something new that is a success in his 
hands, it is not fair to condemn it, on a partial trial, 
some trivial detail omitted, may hold the key to suc¬ 
cess. Mr. Clark, I believe, uses an application of ni¬ 
trate of soda each Spring. How many have thought 
they had tried the Clark system, but have omitted 
this detail? The Hope Farm man tells us that “or- 
Speculators must bow to the man who feeds the nation. 
—Indianapolis News. 
ganic nitrogen must be broken up, that is, separated 
from the other substances that hold it, before it be¬ 
comes available as plant food.” This process of nitri¬ 
fication in the soil does not proceed rapidly until the 
advent of hot weather. That innocent looking appli¬ 
cation of nitrate of soda in early Spring supplies Mr. 
Clark’s grass plants with available food at a critical 
time, when there is certain to be abundant moisture 
in the soil to make it soluble, and when weed seeds 
stand ready to germinate and take possession of any 
unnoccupied space in the soil, or to crowd out any 
plants that are weaker than themselves. The vigor¬ 
ous start thus given the grass plants in early Spring 
enables them to take full possession of the soil, and 
crowd out all newly germinated weeds that are but 
weaklings beside them. Please do not condemn that 
“theory” without further trial. o. w. mapes. 
NOTES ON BIRDS AND INSECTS. 
NETTING FOR BIRDS.—The Hope Farm man 
talks of covering trees, grapevines, etc., with inex¬ 
pensive netting to protect them from birds. In Eu¬ 
rope, where grapes, peaches and even more hardy 
fruits are commonly grown on espaliers fastened to 
stone walls or tight board fences, I have seen small- 
meshed netting employed more or less for covering 
those fruits as a protection against bird depredations. 
But there fruit is less abundant, and therefore more 
valuable than here, while netting at the same time 
is much cheaper. I shall try common mosquito cloth 
next year for covering a few early cherry trees of a 
dozen years’ growth, but fear that I shall probably 
find it cheaper to buy cherries than to save them by 
such means. Where but few of the early sweet cher¬ 
ries are found, or early sour cherries either, it may be 
the only means of saving the crop. We have several 
large Russian mulberry trees. As soon as the fruit 
begins to ripen on these, the birds take to them more 
readily than to cherries and other fruits. The sweet¬ 
ness of the mulberry seems to suit bird taste to per¬ 
fection. But I would recommend black mulberries 
rather than ours, which are white and inconspicuous, 
Colored berries attract birds much more readily than 
light colored ones. 
PREDACEOUS INSECTS AND BIRDS.—Monroe 
Morse says “the greatest assistance received in this 
line (suppression of insect pests) is from predaceous 
insects. It is doubtful whether birds ever seriously 
affect the balance between injurious and predaceous 
insects.” That is in a measure true of all other in¬ 
sect eaters, such as toads, snakes, etc., and yet we 
encourage these, trusting that they do us more good 
than harm, in a general way. On the other hand, 
whoever will keep his hands folded in the fond hope 
that cannibal insects will save his potato vines from 
injury by Potato beetles and their progeny, his cu¬ 
cumber and melon vines from destruction by the 
striped beetle, his currant and gooseberry bushes 
from defoliation by the green worm, etc., will gener¬ 
ally come to disappointment and grief. Heaven helps 
those who help themselves. As a protection to potato 
vines, a dose of Paris-green or green arsenoid is worth 
10 times more than all the lady beetles, Lebia beetles 
(Lebia grandis), or Soldier bugs or all other insects 
feeding on Potato beetle eggs and slugs, which you 
can expect to come to the relief of your potato vines. 
T always rejoice in the discovery of the remnants of 
Potato beetle egg clusters sucked dry to the last one 
by some lady beetle, and in finding the black splashes 
and blotches on the leaves denoting the work of the 
shy little Lebia beetle. But while I have had in¬ 
stances where a patch of potatoes was kept almost 
entirely free from slugs by these insect helpers, 1 
would not neglect to poison the vines with arsenites, 
thus making sure work of it. for fear of poisoning an 
occasional Lebia that might eat a poisoned slug. The 
poison properly applied always gives complete re¬ 
sults in freeing the vines from their despoilers; pre¬ 
daceous insects seldom do, and in an emergency, we 
can get along without them. t. greiner. 
Niagara Co., N. Y._ 
VINES SAVED FROM LEAF HOPPER. 
For two years the Grape leaf-hopper has gradually 
become a serious menace to the grape industry in this 
belt. A territory comprising about 800 acres, of which 
Westfield is the. center, was threatened with the pest 
this Spring so alarmingly that an appeal was made to 
Cornell for help. Professors Slingerland and Craig 
responded promptly, and thanks to their energy and 
untiring efforts, we now know how to combat this 
little pest, and keep it in check. We have had here a 
practical demonstration of what the experiment sta¬ 
tion is good for, and the two students, Messrs. Hos- 
ford and Bell, have proved that not only do they learn 
at the college the how to do a thing but they actually 
can do the work in a thorough, business-like manner, 
with credit to themselves and the institution. Fig. 
237 is a photograph showing the two young men at 
work spraying, the other two are laborers who change 
alternately to do the pumping and driving. They are 
using a 10-per-cent solution of whale-oil soap, using 
50 pounds for an acre, and doing two acres a day. 
killing 90 to 95 per cent of the young hoppers. This 
adds $5 to the cost of an acre of grapes, producing 
five tons of fruit. The only difficulty is in finding 
men that will do the work as it ought to be done. The 
job is a disagreeable one, and a person with a weak 
stomach will be nauseated until he gets used to the 
material. I find that even some horses object to 
drawing the stuff. The moral of this is that we should 
send our boys to Cornell. g. s. 
Westfield, N. Y. 
THE OBNOXIOUS ROBIN. 
Birds are to be considered as all other animals, men 
included, are. They are to be valued as they deserve, 
without reference to sentiment. More of this weak¬ 
ness exists in regard to birds than to any other liv¬ 
ing thing. This may apply both ways, for and 
against. Some birds, the robin so-called especially, 
are considered more favorably than they deserve by 
sentimental, feelings, akin in this case to veneration, 
thought due to some claim for service to our race.The 
old story of the babes in the woods, who were cov¬ 
ered with leaves by the robins, after their hapless 
fate, gives cause for the common admiration, if not 
affection for this bird. But our robin is not a robin 
at all, but a thrush, and in nowise deserves any such 
consideration from us except as good material for 
destruction of our most, cherished fruits, strawber¬ 
ries, cherries, grapes and others. Were it not for its 
supposed history, and so its supplanting of the true 
robin, which is not an American bird, it would get no 
consideration from us except as a good material for 
pie. I have studied this bird from its first arrival in 
the early Spring, when it gives its attention to the 
common earth worms which it finds by its acute 
sense of hearing, in the ground; and digs out and 
swallows. This service is entirely worthless, for 
these worms are quite useful. The first early fruits, 
the cherries, are entirely misappropriated by the 
robins; then every other kind of small fruit as its 
season comes is destroyed, in spite of the watchful 
care of the owner, and mostly in the earliest of the 
morning. This continues until the grapes ripen in 
the last of Summer. In fact, this odious bird has no 
redeeming quality, and it is permitted to live only 
on account of its undeserved name, and its mistaken 
identity. It might be a blessing to humanity if n 
retained its distinctive natural habits as an insectiv¬ 
orous bird, or gave is full attention to the worms. 
Even this, however, is no serviceable industry, for the 
worms cannot be regarded as injurious. Next to the 
English sparrow, which 1 have recently learned has 
occupied the whole Northwest, and even got in o 
Alaska, the common, so-called, robin is the most an¬ 
noying and injurious bird we have to contend with. 
Unfortunately it seems to be impossible to avoid it 
or to exterminate it so long as the present wholly 
mistaken credit is given to it, as the loving bird whe n 
covered the hapless babes in the woods with shelter¬ 
ing leaves. H - stewart. 
