Vot,. LVni. No. 2594. NEW YORK, OCTOBER 14, 1899. 
II PER YEAR 
The Hen Feeds the Farm. 
FROM WHAT THE FARM FEEDS HER. 
Agent for a 200-Acre Farm. 
Part II. 
AN EGG FACTORY.—Last week we gave a picture 
of Mr. Van Dresser’s big henhouse. At the first 
severe cold the pullets and hens go into this build¬ 
ing, and get ready for their business of manufactur¬ 
ing eggs. In a New England cotton mill the raw 
fiber is taken in at the back door, passed through 
almost numberless manipulations, and handed out as 
finished cloth. The business sense of the owner and 
the laws of the State alike make sure that the op¬ 
eratives are comfortable and handy to their work. 
This henhouse is a factory. The raw food goes in 
and the eggs come out. The hens are operatives and, 
like the girls in the mills, they must have comfortable 
and handy quarters to work in. 
Fig. 263 shows My Lady Leghorn’s chamber. After 
much study and observation, Mr. Van Dresser chose 
this plan as the best for his conditions. As was stated 
last week, each compartment is 15 feet square. The 
partition is of wire, reaching to the top. The picture 
shown was taken in the old house. The arrangements 
in the new house are the same, except that the parti¬ 
tions are all of wire. The little box on legs at the 
left, against the back wall, holds grit and shells. It 
is placed close to the water basin, which is filled from 
a faucet. Experience shows that hens usually take 
shells just before or after drinking. 
In the room at the left the roosts are shown down 
in place. At the right side, they are lifted up, being 
hinged to the wall, so that they turn up from the 
platform. This platform is kept dusted with plaster, 
so that the manure is well dried. It is scraped off 
frequently, and put in the bins ready for thrashing. 
The manure platform is the top of the nest boxes. 
At the left the front of the nest boxes is let down, 
while at the right it is up in place. r llie hens pass 
around behind and lay in the dark— 
this being one of the helpful operations 
that are better in darkness than in light. ■*?. . x 
The floor is kept well littered with straw, 
and the rooms are kept light and clean. 
FOOD AND CARE.—I have about 
given up trying to tell just how live 
stock of any sort should be fed. You 
can explain it all out, and even tell just 
how much protein, fat, carbohydrates 
and minerals the hens should have, but 
you can’t analyze good judgment. That 
is a thing that must be naturally in a 
henkeeper, and then cultivated by con¬ 
stant observation and study. These 
laying hens are fed a mash in the morn¬ 
ing, and whole grain is scattered in the 
litter so that they must scratch for it. 
This mash consists of 100 pounds of bran, 
100 of corn meal, 100 of ground oats, 100 
of ground wheat and about 35 pounds 
of ground meat, wet up with hot water. 
Mr. Greene thinks the ground wheat 
better for the growing stock, and mid¬ 
dlings better for laying hens. The hens are purposely 
kept hungry, and never permitted to eat all they want 
at one time. Meat is supplied, and of course fresh 
water is kept before them, and plenty of shells and 
grit. That is about the story, according to Mr. 
Greene, but he doesn’t realize, and he cannot tell, the 
time and thought he spends in studying these hens. 
He watches them so carefully that he anticipates their 
wants without knowing it. The human bird in a flock 
like this one ought to feel the wings sprouting on his 
shoulders. In other words, he should be able to know 
the needs of a happy and contented hen by instinct, 
and have at least part of an angel’s patience and gen¬ 
tleness. A man will need a wagonload of both quali¬ 
ties in order to care for a bunch of nervous, high- 
strung Leghorns. I believe that a true henman will 
take corn alone and obtain better results from a flock 
of hens than the man who feeds the most scientific 
“balanced ration” and yet has no cackle in his soul. 
You must go to the hen if you would learn the hen 
business. Mouth or type can only give you a start. 
The sunflower crop is quite a feature of this farm. 
The seed is planted in drills very much the same as 
IN MY LADY LEGHORN’S CHAMBER. Fio. 263. 
corn. When ripe, the heads are picked off, dried, cut 
up with a hatchet, and sent through a thrashing ma¬ 
chine—the same one that thrashes the small grain 
and tears up the hen manure. An average yield of 
sunflower seed is 40 to 50 bushels per acre. As a food, 
the seed acts as a laxative, giving the fowls a glossy 
plumage, and keeping them in good condition. It is 
fed sparingly through the Fall and Winter. It is best 
to feed it whole—scattered in the litter. 
A LAYING LEGHORN.—Mr. Van Dresser figures 
that it costs about 35 cents to produce a laying hen, 
from the egg to the point of laying. His hens would 
score well, in fact, they have won their share of 
A HUNCH OF OPERATIVES IN THE EGG FACTORY. Fig. 264 
prizes, yet they are bred and selected chiefly for egg 
production. The original blood was the best that 
could be found. In buying new blood they go to the 
dealer’s yards in person, and pick out just the type 
they desire. I did not understand that Mr. Greene 
cares to buy eggs. I think he prefers to buy new 
birds and mate them with the home stock when new 
blood is wanted. On most poultry farms the favorite 
plan is to buy male birds and keep up the stock by 
mating them with the best hens or pullets. Mr. Van 
Dresser goes further than this. He thinks it desirable 
on occasion to introduce new blood through the 
mother’s side. This is done by selecting hens of the 
right type from some other flock, and mating them 
with a homebred rooster. I have long thought that 
this is one of the best ways to obtain new blood, 
though it is true that usually we think our pullets 
are better than our cockerels. 
Mr. Van Dresser says that it does not pay to keep 
Leghorns after the second year. We have found the 
best of the old hens superior for breeders. In fact, 
we have kept Black Minorcas until they were five 
years old in order to use their few eggs for hatching. 
Mr. Van Dresser says that Leghorn pullets hatched 
in March or April have proved to be about as good 
for breeding purposes as the old hens. Of course, 
this could not be said of later-hatched pullets. The 
breeding hens are selected largely by their shape and 
appearance. Mr. Greene can quickly tell a laying hen, 
though, I presume, it would be hard to put her exact 
description on paper. 
FUTURE OPERATIONS.—The present plan is to 
keep 3,000 laying hens, with the young stock needed 
to replace the old ones. The farm will feed about 
that many hens as at present conducted. Mr. Van 
Dresser sold his Holsteins, but it is hard for a cattle¬ 
man to break away from horn and hoof entirely. He 
has a choice flock of Cheviot sheep, and says he will 
breed or buy 10 as good butter cows as he can get— 
limiting the herd to half a score of fine ones. Judging 
from what he has started with, they will not be all 
one breed. Both Jerseys and Holsteins are repre¬ 
sented, with, I should judge, a little Guernsey and 
Ayrshire blood. If a man start out to obtain 10 of 
the finest cows, he will find them quicker if he ac¬ 
cepts all breeds rather than confines himself to one 
only. Butter will be made at home from the 10 cows, 
and the skim-milk fed to the hens, either mixed in the 
mash or given as drink. It will be used just as it 
comes from the separator. Thus the farm will feed 
even the hay to the hens—through the cows. 
The farm was remarkably clean and well-kept. Mr. 
Van Dresser is certainly working out 
several problems that are of vital in- 
- terest to farmers. 
One of the best is the matter of main-. 
taining the fertility of the farm. Mr. 
Van Dresser’s experience shows in a 
striking way the great value of preserv¬ 
ing the manure. The hen takes better 
care of the soil than the cow does. At 
the New Jersey Experiment Station 23 
cows were fed, in addition to hay and 
ensilage, about 9*4 tons of wheat bran, 
9% tons of dried brewers’ grains, a little 
over six tons of corn meal, and slightly 
over 3%t tons of linseed meal. This rep¬ 
resented all the plant food brought to 
the farm through purchased grain. It 
amounted, in all, to 1,700 pounds of ni¬ 
trogen, 958 pounds of phosphoric acid, 
and 462 pounds of potash. The milk, 
which was all sold, carried away from 
the farm 859 pounds of nitrogen, 318 
pounds of phosphoric acid, 248 pounds of 
potash, leaving as gain to the farm, 851 
pounds of nitrogen, 640 pounds of phosphoric acid, 
and 214 pounds of potash; yet every farmer knows 
that all of this plant food was not saved for the farm, 
because we all understand that with the best of care, 
a fair proportion of the manurial value is lost, be¬ 
cause we are not able to retain all of the liquids. 
With hen manure, the case is different.. In the first 
place, a smaller proportion of the manurial value is 
sent away in the egg, and, as Mr. Van Dresser cares 
for the manure, there is practically no loss at all. 
The plaster dries the manure at once. h. w. c, 
