The Hen Feeds the Farm. 
FROM WHAT THE FARM FEEDS HER. 
AGENT FOR A 200-ACRE FARM. 
Do They Preach Their Own Practice ? 
That question is often asked about the speakers at 
farmers’ institutes. Many farmers find it hard to be¬ 
lieve that the speakers really have farms of their own 
on which they actually conduct farming operations. 
When these meetings first started, good speakers were 
scarce, and it is true that some men found places on the 
platforms, who were poorly qualified to teach hard- 
pressed, struggling farmers how to better their condi¬ 
tion. This is no longer so, however, for the speakers 
have grown along with the institutes. During the past 
few years, there has been a lively sifting out of dead 
wood. It may be said that the directors of the institutes 
have at last come close to an ideal or standard of what 
an institute speaker ought to be. Director F. E. Dawley, 
of the New York Institutes, goes the rounds, and visits 
his speakers at their homes every year. He wants to 
know what they are doing, what changes they make in 
their farming, whether 
they really da practical 
work at home. This year 
Mr. Dawley asked me to 
go with him and see 
what these men have 
back of their talk. It 
is understood now that, 
first of all, an institute 
speaker must quit guess¬ 
ing, and stop telling big 
stories for effect. He 
must know what he is 
talking about, and know 
it from his own experi¬ 
ence; not only that, but 
he must be a student, 
and must keep track of 
scientific improvement, 
and use his head for a 
machine in which the 
raw material of science 
is ground into useful and 
palatable food between 
the millstones of hard 
experience. 
I was glad to go with 
Mr. Dawley and take 
these men unawares, so 
as to see what they are 
really doing. It is true 
that ministers’ sons and 
deacons’ daughters, with 
their theoretical advan¬ 
tages of moral training, 
sometimes go wrong. It 
is a fact that the son of 
a schoolmaster may not 
“know beans.” It is true 
that the daughter of a 
woman who wins the 
first prize in a cooking 
match, may bake a case 
of dyspepsia in her bread- 
pan. These things are 
true, but happily they 
are exceptions, and we still go to the minister, the 
wise schoolmaster and the good housekeeper for a full 
meal of moral, mental or physical food. And so with 
the teachers at farmers’ institutes. New York State is 
spending too much money, for experiments in this line. 
We must have strong men and women—strong in science, 
strong in pra.ctical experience, and strong in the ability 
to put their facts before the audience plainly, simply and 
well. Is New Yoi-k State hiring this class of men? That 
is a fair question for a farmer or an editor to ask, and 
I was glad of the opportunity offered by Mr. Dawley to 
get behind the scenes, and see what his speakers are do¬ 
ing. The first man visited was Mr. Henry Van Dresser, 
of Cobleskill, N. Y., and a study of his farm begins this 
week. Other accounts will follow trom time to *ime. 
h. w c. 
THE COUNTRY.—We have hills in New Jersey, 
but at first sight, to a Jerseyman, Schoharie County 
looks as though some giant had gouged out the val¬ 
leys with such a dull tool that ridges or edges of hills 
had been left between. The hop fields on nearly 
every farm remind us of home, for they are more like 
Lima bean fields than anything else I have seen. The 
season has been so dry that the streams were mere 
tracks of polished stones covered with dust. The 
fields were brown and the corn was stunted. It is a 
country of beautiful views. The scene, as you pass 
over the last Mil between Cobleskill and Mr. Van 
Dresser’s farm, is one long to be remembered. You 
look over a valley, across clean, well-tilled fields to a 
little colony of farm buildings. Around the comfort¬ 
able white farmhouse, are grouped the barn and its 
outbuildings, the hop house, brooder house, and the 
long henhouse. These buildings are painted a bright 
red with white trimmings, and the hillside below 
them is alive with White Leghorns. As we turned the 
corner of the farm, we passed a field of sunflowers— 
poultry medicine—which added a touch of gold to the 
landscape. 
“I have seen that hillside covered with Holstein 
cattle,” said Mr. Dawley. 
That exploded an old stock argument which breed¬ 
ers of the lighter breeds of cattle are fond of advanc¬ 
ing. They will tell you that Holsteins are good 
cattle for rich, level pastures, but too slow and lazy 
to make a living on a hillside pasture. Mr. Van 
Dresser tried to pay off a mortgage with common 
cattle, and could not do it. He bought Holsteins, and 
bred them so well that they carried the mortgage 
away with them, and the farm supported 57 of them 
when ihe herd was dispersed. Any man who tries 
to pay off a mortgage knows that the cow that does it 
for him cannot have a lazy bone in her body. 
MRS. WHITE LEGHORN, AGENT!—There were 
three fundamental things about Mr. Van Dresser’s 
farm that specially impressed me. The hen buys the 
entire crop except apples, hops, hay and straw. Here 
is a 200-acre farm producing good crops of wheat, 
corn, peas and oats, buckwheat and millet, yet sup¬ 
plying all this grain, and other crops besides, to hens. 
During the coming season, for example, the hens will 
eat about 2,000 bushels of grain, nearly all of which 
will be produced on the farm. Grit, oyster shells and 
meat are bought outside the farm, but the rest of the 
hens’ food is home product. In other words, hens are 
kept to manufacture the farm’s products, just as other 
farmers keep sheep, cattle or hogs for this purpose. 
Many authorities say that, in sound economy, crop 
growing and poultry keeping should not go together—• 
that one man should raise the grain and have it car¬ 
ried to the man who keeps the poultry. Mrs. White 
Leghorn is the commission agent who handles all the 
grain for this farm. As between the hens and the 
Holsteins, the hen not only cleans up the crops better, 
but she is kinder to the farm, and leaves it in better 
shape. 
HEN AS FERTILIZER AGENT.—Poets sing of the 
sheep’s “golden hoof.” We may tell of the golden 
claw of the Leghorn in sober prose. This fertile farm 
is fed by the hen. That fis the second striking fact. 
Mr. Van Dresser uses the Rancocas land plaster. This 
is a waste product in the manufacture of phosphorus 
for matches. Instead of a white color like ordinary 
sulphate of lime, it is a 
dirty brown. It has all 
the properties of ordi¬ 
nary plaster, and con¬ 
tains one per cent or 
more of phosphoric 
acid. This plaster is 
kept dusted on the 
roost platforms. It dries 
out the manure, holds 
the ammonia, and 
makes things unpleas¬ 
ant for the lice. The 
dried manure is taken 
from the platforms and 
kept in bins. To fit it 
for business, it is put 
through a thrashing 
machine. This shakes 
and tears it up fine, so 
that it will drill readily. 
It is used mostly on the 
wheat, and no other 
fertilizei’s are used. Mr. 
Van Dresser says that, 
two years ago, he put 
550 pounds of this fine 
hen manure on an acre 
of wheat, and sowed an 
acre alongside with no 
fertilizer at all. The 
hen-manure acre pro¬ 
duced 59 x / 2 . bushels, and 
the other 31. The hen 
consumes the* crops of 
the farm, and gives 
back a larger proportion of them than any other ani¬ 
mal would, because under this system of saving the 
manure, practically no part of it is lost. With other 
animals, a good share of the manure never reaches a 
cultivated field. Thus the farm feeds the hen, and 
the hen feeds the farm. 
BRAINS IN THE HENHOUSE—The third funda¬ 
mental has to do with the hen’s human partner. A 
wild hen might take the entire care of herself—and 
possibly lay 25 eggs a year! When she lays seven 
times that number, you may understand that her 
human partner has laid 75 per cent of them. The 
human partner at Mr. Van Dresser’s farm is C. S. 
Greene. He is a farmer’s boy, who went to Cornell 
University to study the science of hen keeping, and 
now he has come to be the head bird among 2,500 
White Leghorns. The point is right here—Good farm¬ 
ers recognize now that the only way to conduct a farm 
successfully is to found the business on exact scien¬ 
tific principles. It is safe to say that any other busi- 
