686 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
October 11 
MAPES, THE HEN MAN. 
COMPLETE FOOD.—What is included in the term 
“a complete food?” Food that contains all the ele¬ 
ments needed to sustain life and carry on the bodily 
functions of the animal or bird that eats the food. It 
should also contain them in the relative proportions 
needed, so that there will be no needless waste of one 
element and clogging of the system, in order to se¬ 
cure enough of some other element. An egg is a sam¬ 
ple of a complete food. Every time a hen produces an 
egg she must be able to put within its shell every¬ 
thing needed to form a complete chick, with the pos¬ 
sible exception of a little oxygen, which can be utilized 
by the respiratory organs before the chick is hatched. 
About the only other example which we have in na¬ 
ture of a complete food is milk. This is doubtless why 
skim-milk is found to be one of the very best foods 
known, either for egg production or for raising young 
chickens. Carbonaceous matter is the principal in¬ 
gredient removed in the cream, which can readily be 
replaced by the use of corn, etc. Not only must an 
egg contain carbon for the fat, etc., nitrogen for flesh, 
and mineral matter for bones, but the nervous system 
must also be built up out of what the egg contains. 
The chemist is baffled when he undertakes to classify 
and supply all that this involves, but nature makes 
no mistakes. This is why I attach so much import¬ 
ance to milk, in making up a bill of fare for Biddy. 
FATTENING EXPERIMENTS—Notice the success 
which Prof. Graham, of the Ontario Agricultural Col¬ 
lege, Canada, is having in fattening young chickens 
for market. He reports that they find it exceedingly 
profitable to buy ordinary chickens from farmers, and 
fatten them for market at the prevailing rates of 
about 10 cents per pound live weight. Notice also that 
the feed used consists of cornmeal, barley meal, 
ground oats, wheat shorts, and animal meal, made in¬ 
to a mash by the addition of an equal weight of skim- 
milk. On this mixture they are able, according to a 
recent report, to produce a pound of gain for 4% 
cents. He says: "We have just weighed 15 chickens 
that we put in the crate July 5, weighing in at 33 
pounds, and to-day (July 22) they weight 51 pounds, 
making a gain of 18 pounds in the 17 days. During 
this time they consumed 55 pounds 10 ounces of grain 
feed and about an equal weight of skim-milk.” In the 
light of our experience in the past months feeding a 
mash exclusively made from about the same grain 
mixture wet with skim-milk, I can readily under¬ 
stand this result. One pen of New York pullets are 
fast developing into roosters. They only weighed a 
little over a pound each when purchased, and it was 
to be expected that some of them would turn out to 
be roosters. It now looks as though about a third of 
them will never lay any eggs. I still consider them 
a good investment. A dozen or more of the roosters 
will be selected and fattened soon, in order to see 
how many pounds of our balanced ration it will re¬ 
quire to produce a pound of gain. 
EGGSHELL MANUFACTURE.—“Come,” said I to 
the Deacon to-day, “and I will show you an object 
lesson in support of the theory that a hen can use 
the lime from oyster shells in making an eggshell.” 
In the several pens of my long brooder house are a 
number of hens which I have been studying and cross- 
questioning for some time. Some of them are now 
laying, and some are not. I have had a good many 
irons in the fire, and had neglected for some time to 
give them any shell-making material. The Deacon 
and I got a basin of crushed oyster shells and started 
out. In one pen is White Betty, familiar to R. N.-Y. 
readers. She is moulting, and has not laid an egg iD 
some time. 
“Now, Deacon, throw her a few of the shells, and see 
what she says about it.” Sure enough, she would not 
even deign to look at them. Evidently she has no 
use for extra lime. In the next pen is the five-year-old 
hen that moulted early and began laying some time 
ago. Her head is very red, and her large comb nearly 
hides one eye, but her need for extra lime for those 
large white eggs, a sample of which could be seen in 
her nest in the corner, caused her eagerly to devour 
a goodly portion of the oyster shells. In another pen 
are four Buff Cochin hens. Three of them I know are 
laying regularly, while the fourth has not yet com¬ 
menced. They, too, tell the same story. The three 
that are laying fairly fell over each other in their 
eagerness for the oyster shells, while the fourth stood 
by and paid not the least attention to the feast. It 
was just so all down the aisle. Every hen that lays 
was eager for the shells, and every one not laying 
would not even look at them. 
“I vum,” said the Deacon, “if a lawyer could get his 
witnesses to tell such a uniform story the jury would 
have a snap.” 
The Hope Farm man’s statement that organic nitro¬ 
gen must first be broken loose from its combination 
with other matter, before a plant can use it as food, 
was an eye-opener to me, as I recently said. An 
equally'important eye-opener came my way a few 
years ago, when I first realized that no material sub¬ 
stance can be used as food by an animal, which has 
not first been taken up by plant life, and combined 
with other matter in organic forms. At first thought 
it looks as though an oyster shell must be entirely 
indigestible. Think again, however, and you will see 
that it is organic matter, as surely as is a bone or an 
apple. o. w. mapes. 
A PLAIN TALK TO HORSE OWNERS ABOUT 
HORSES’ TEETH. 
Part I. 
In no department of study and research has there 
been more advancement in recent times than in the 
care of horses’ teeth, and the amount of animal 
misery prevented and relieved by means of discoveries 
in this direction is almost beyond estimate. I know 
what I am saying when I state that too little attention 
is given to this subject, and I counsel those who have 
such charges by no means to disregard my advice. 
The mare has, in all, 36 teeth; the horse 40. Each 
has six incisors above and below. While attending 
the State Fair at Columbus, O., I visited the Capitol, 
and saw in the rotunda a group of statuary depicting 
Lee’s surrender to Grant. Behind Grant stands his 
orderly holding a prancing steed, showing four or five 
incisors above and below on the side. If this was 
true, that horse had near 30 incisors instead of 12. 
This is only an index of the prevailing indifference to 
an important subject. At about the age of three to 
four years the horse sheds eight and gets 12 grinders. 
Think of such a severe change! Is it any wonder that 
Farmer: “ Well, it’s eight hours you’re after, eh ? ” 
Miner: “Yes.” 
Farmer: “ Well, we have it; eight hours before noon and eight 
hours after.” 
at that age a horse is so hard to keep on edge? At 
this time may be noticed cough, diarrhea, constipa¬ 
tion, catarrhal disorders, swelling and abcesses about 
the face and head, eruption of the skin, irritation ot 
the eyes, urinary disturbance, loss of appetite, difficult 
chewing, nervousness, sore throat, and general de¬ 
pletion. When any of these symptoms are present a 
careful examination of the mouth should be made. 
The practice of caring for horses’ teeth is not gen¬ 
eral as it should be, and especially is this true in the 
country. In cities, on race tracks and horse farms, 
the teeth receive particular attention. There is quite 
a fashion of late years, especially in large cities, ;o 
have horses’ teeth regularly “floated” or “rasped” by 
veterinary “dentists.” In some instances this is very 
beneficial, while in most cases it is entirely unneces¬ 
sary. From the character of the food, the rubbing or 
grinding surface of the horses’ teeth should be rough. 
Still, we must remember that the upper jaw is some¬ 
what wider than the lower, and that from the fact of 
the teeth not being perfectly opposed, a sharp ridge 
is left unworn on the inside of the lower molars, and 
on the outside of the upper, which may excoriate the 
tongue or lips to a considerable extent. This condi¬ 
tion can be readily felt by the hand, and these sharp 
ridges, when found, should be rasped down by a 
guarded rasp. This is often done without the aid of 
the veterinarian. There are many good veterinarians 
who have given this subject a great deal of thought 
and study, and with the aid of improved instruments 
are thoroughly competent in this particular line. At 
the same time there is scattered about the country an 
itinerant tribe of daring pretenders, dabbling in vet¬ 
erinary business, wholly lacking the skill to compre¬ 
hend or operate correctly upon horses’ teeth. Anyone 
can ram a rasp up and down on a horse’s grinders, 
but what is the matter with his mouth? Ay, that’s 
the question! Fig. 280 shows in upper picture a 
horse’s perfect lower molars. The lower picture por¬ 
trays the diseased grinders of a horse that died of 
starvation, produced by irregular teeth. Both are 
right jaws. The fourth grinder, a snag, had worn a 
cavity in his upper jaw and hindered him from feed¬ 
ing. He received kind attention and every care that 
could be given him, had been doctored for catarrh, 
“general debility,” had his teeth leveled (?) with a 
rasp, etc., but only lacked the services of a skilled and 
practiced veterinary surgeon, using the latest im¬ 
proved instruments. A dumb yet pleading reproach! 
Fig. 281 shows the equine dentist in operation. 
If anything is wrong with your horse’s grinding, 
take him to the best veterinarian (genuine article) 
you know, tell him all you have noticed about it, and 
have him thoroughly examine tne horse’s mouth. Be¬ 
ware the “dentist” who solicits the privilege of ex¬ 
amining your horse’s mouth. He has arguments that 
have never been dreamed of in your philosophy. Every 
horse’s mouth he feels or peers into requires (?) his 
services. He has dark designs upon your pocketbook. 
I am acquainted with a wag of a farm hand who led 
the same slightly disguised horse out of three differ¬ 
ent doors of the barn, and the “dentist,” not recog¬ 
nizing the horse, was each time positive the horse’s 
molars should be dressed, yet only a week before, 20 
miles distant, he had “dressed” this same horse’s 
teeth. T may have been unfortunate in my experience, 
but in 17 years of practice I have yet to meet a travel¬ 
ing “dentist” who, to my notion, was a conscientious 
operator, or possessed the knowledge or skill to which 
he pretended. As a rule, he is a wandering Ishmaelite, 
the Bengal tiger of veterinary science, and continually 
seeks “green fields and pastures new.” In fact, 
horsemen sometimes have been so grossly imposed 
upon by this new quackery that often anyone making 
any claim to knowledge of a horse’s teeth is looked 
upon with poisonous derision, and consequently un¬ 
appreciated. This, of course, is unfair to qualified men 
who are well grounded in fundamental facts. A 
horse’s permanent grinders when matured are two to 
four inches long, and when normal but little above 
the gum. Their roots do not begin to grow until 
about the seventh year. As the animal grows older, 
whether the molar has an opposite to grind upon or 
not, it is forced into the mouth; and, in time, if the 
opposite tooth is gone this grinder may be several 
inches longer than its fellow. s. n. Howard, v. s. 
Highland Co., O. 
QUESTIONS ABOUT NURSERY STOCK. 
What is the cause of yellows in peach trees, does It 
come from the seed? Does the holding of a State certifi¬ 
cate by a nurseryman imply that his trees are free from 
scale? If said trees should have scales, is there any 
penalty attached to it for putting same on market? 
Should a nurseryman have a few scattered scale insects 
through his orchard, would there be any danger in 
setting his trees before they were fumigated? Should 
a nurseryman substitute a variety of trees without my 
knowledge, could I only recover the price of the original 
stock? w. E. B. 
Romney. W. Va. 
The majority of questions here raised are of the 
most far-reaching and important character, involving 
points of law that only the courts of West Virginia 
can settle, when they are brought to issue in that 
State. All that others can say is merely to state opin¬ 
ions. The statutes can be read, and, perhaps, clearly 
understood by most people of average intelligence. 
Peach yellows is a disease that is mysterious to the 
most skillful and experienced scientific investigators 
in the line of bacteriology, so far as the specific cause 
is concerned; but that it is the work of some minute 
organism is certain. The disease can be transmitted 
through budding, contact of the trees, and some think 
through the seeds, while others dispute the latter 
point. If a nurseryman holds a certificate of inspec¬ 
tion it only proves to the public that no scale or other 
pest has been found by the inspector on his premises, 
but it is not proof positive that he has none. In most 
States there is a penalty for having San Jos6 scale 
in a nursery, of prohibiting the shipment of trees and 
plants; and, I believe, it is so in West Virginia, in 
case of violation of the law by shipping there are 
various fines imposed. If there is scale, even in small 
numbers, anywhere on a nurseryman’s premises it is 
likely to be carried all over it, and if it is in the 
neighborhood, in orchards belonging to anyone, the 
danger exists. Fumigation, if thorough, is almost 
sure to clear nursery trees of all insect pests. No 
strictly honorable nurseryman will substitute varie¬ 
ties for others that were ordered by a customer, with¬ 
out his consent. If he does he surely ought to pay 
damages, but that is a point that the courts must de¬ 
termine as to all the points involved. 
H. E. VAN DEMAN. 
