THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
1002 
651 
A LIVELY CRITIC OF MAPES. 
One.word about Mapes, the hen. man. 
He seems to be quite well feathered out. 
but now that the moulting season is at 
hand I think it would be well for him to 
cast off his old coat and try to get on a 
new one as early in the season as pos¬ 
sible. The Deacon must have been 
reading to him out that Book where 
it is written: “Let thy light shine,” but 
he neglected to read the verse where it 
is written: “If the blind lead the blind/' 
etc. A man wlio cannot raise any more 
chickens than Mr. Mapes claims to raise 
has no business to keep 1,500 hens. 
When it comes to filling up your coops 
with pullets from New York or any 
other market, excuse me! Mr. Mapes’s 
brooder house is no good; it is too cold 
for Winter or early Spring chicks. 
Brooding with lamps on so large a scale 
is a back number. His laying houses 
have not room enough for 500 instead of 
],500 hens. Leghorns are good enough 
■in their way, but they don’t weigh 
much. 
Mr. Mapes’s colony plan is all right; 
50 hens or even 60 in each flock is all 
right, but they should have about eight 
square feet of floor space for each bird 
for best results. A floor in brooder 
house is not right, only under the 
brooder pipes; hot water pipes are the 
proper caper. Lots of glass in south 
side of henhouse is best if you have 
tight shutters inside for cold nights. 
The best plan of house for hens in Win¬ 
ter is one of my own, which 1 will give 
for the benefit of R. N.-Y. readers. It 
is 20 feet long by 12 feet wide running 
north and south; 514-foot posts, with 
gable roof; two windows on south end 
and three windows and door on west 
side with L on east side 12x12 feet; 314 - 
foot posts, gable roof just high enough 
to clear a man’s head in passing through 
the center of the room. This should be 
built very warm with one small window 
and door in east end; this is the roost¬ 
ing room, and just a hole with slide to 
let the hens into the living room. No 
scratching sheds for me. m. k. g. 
Sterling Junction, Mass. 
NOTES ON SILO FILLING. 
In filling a silo it shoulci be tramped 
steadily around the outside while being 
filled, much more than any other part 
of the silo, and tramped just as near the 
outside edge as possible. I would keep 
the outside edge of the silo higher than 
the other, but not so much higher as to 
interfere with distributing the silage in 
such a way that the pieces of the ears 
of corn would roll back into the center. 
In filling a large round silo, or one of 
any size, 1 should prefer to have the 
silage tramped down well, and believe 
if it is not tramped there would be too 
much risk of its not keeping; besides, 
the leaves and stalks might accumulate 
in one section while the pieces of ears 
would be in another, and would not be 
so nearly uniform as is desirable. It is 
a good idea to start to feed immediately 
after filling; then there is not the loss 
on the top of the silo that occurs if it 
stands some days before any is taken 
from it. j. h. k. 
Portland, Me. 
In filling my own silo 1 mean to keep 
two men in it. One of them is sup¬ 
posed to do nothing but tread all the 
time and at the outer edge; in fact, as 
close to the staves as possible. The 
other man with a long-handled manure 
fork spreads the cut corn as fast as it 
comes into the silo. I find that is the 
general practice here, except in silos 
larger than 12 or 15 feet in diameter, 
where three men are kept busy. Keep 
the outside higher; using the place 
where the silage strikes the bottom of 
the silo as a center spread the fodder 
evenly over the entire surface. I ad¬ 
vise this because in the case of some 
silos the carrier may not throw the fod¬ 
der in the center, and where the fodder 
strikes will need no treading. The corn 
and heavier portions roll to the outside 
and do not mix as they should. If a farm¬ 
er has plenty of silage and has all his 
corn in the silo, or intends to husk any 
he may have outside, it is all right to 
begin feeding at once, and several per¬ 
sons for whom 1 filled began to feed as 
quickly as there was any silage cut and 
continued to do so, thus preventing any 
waste on top. There is one point I wish 
to mention, that is in regard to allow¬ 
ing the silage to stand and settle, then 
cutting on top again. One man did 
that and said it cost too much for the 
trouble; there was a loss at both op¬ 
erations. The first filling was cleaned 
off and the second put on; then the sec¬ 
ond filling was cleared at the time of 
opening silo, so that a double quantity 
was spoiled. j. n. b. 
Easthampton, Mass. 
EXPERIENCE WITH PIGS. 
I have practiced keeping my sows in 
one building, but in separate pens, so 1 
could give each one personal attention 
as to feed and care, as there are always 
some that will drive others away from 
trough more or less, and in this way 
some get more than their share of the 
feed, and more than is good for them, 
while others get too little. One Win¬ 
ter I fattened about a dozen pigs in this 
same pen, and then had to put the sows 
together, and all seemed to do fairly 
well, but I kept tnem so only a portion 
of the Winter and separated them as 
soon as possible for reasons given 
above. For fattening pigs in a warm 
pen I think it would make little dif¬ 
ference, but in a com pen I would want 
but two together, as I am of the opinion 
that they would pile up too much and 
some be overheated, and then go outside 
and get chilled, thus catching cold, or 
an least not do well on the whole. This 
is only an opinion with me, however, 
but a pretty strong one, and I should 
perhaps have been better able to give 
a decided opinion based on results of 
experience had I not lost my hogs last 
Winter, as I intended to winter 28, but 
I bought three of a Jersey breeder and 
got cholera with them, and never hav¬ 
ing had any before I got the whole 
herd infected before I knew I had it, 
and lost all but two of them. I have 
not dared to u«se the pens since. 
1 shall winter seven sows next Win- 
tei if I get no more cholera among 
them, and will put them all at the barn 
with a warm shed and plenty of bedding 
and the run of the yard. I used to breed 
Cheshires, and still think them about 
right, but too large for young orchards, 
and have now a fine herd of Essex and 
three small Yorkshires. So far the 
Essex please me much the better. It is 
my present intention to keep all the 
pigs farrowed next Spring, pasture 
them and feed grain, as 1 think needed, 
letting the sows live on pasture when 
not suckling pigs, which they do nicely. 
Heretofore it has always been more 
convenient for me to keep them in dif¬ 
ferent pastures, but in future I shall 
put 25 to 100 in one large pasture and 
see how it will work. As it gets toward 
time for sows to farrofa I intend to put 
them in small portable pens, and keep 
them more or less separated, because I 
can give each one better attention in 
this way, although it is much more 
work unless they are all in one build¬ 
ing, which I think as well if it can be 
partitioned off as one would do with 
hens. Another thing I have noticed is 
that where a number of sows with pigs 
are together, the pigs go from one sow 
to another, and the older and stronger 
ones drive the others away from then- 
mother and get more than belongs to 
them. s. dean. 
Oak Hill, N. Y. 
As I write a large building two miles 
northwest is burning from lightning. Two 
barns burned near here from same cause; 
both had rods. Mural: Let rods slide and 
keep up your insurance. c. d. l. 
Higginsport, O. 
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