474 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
June 18, 
upon the hand or face. It does not lose its force like 
whitewash with carbolic acid or kerosene, but retains its 
biting power for weeks! Mr. White regards this lime 
and sulphur as the best thing we can find for such 
spraying. I have heard a mixture of three parts lime 
and one part sulphur recommended as a dust for lice 
killing, but this caustic wash will surely put the mites 
out of business. We can see from its effects in the 
henhouse that this wash can be used safely only on dor¬ 
mant trees. It would quickly kill young leaves or buds. 
THE BOYS’ HENS.—It is a privilege to talk poultry 
with a man like Mr. White, for he has been in the busi¬ 
ness many years, and, as he says, “has feathers on his 
back,” which means that he has thought about the hen 
and her needs until many things connected with her 
welfare have grown into a sort of instinct. A man 
must possess something of this instinct in order to make 
hens pay. He can get it from no teacher but the hen 
herself, and some men will associate with the hen all 
their lives and still know little about her. Another 
thing about Mr. White is that he worked up his busi¬ 
ness from very small and humble beginnings. Naturally 
he believes in letting the boys on a farm try their hand 
at a flock of good poultry. He says that the boy often 
has a sheep, a calf or even a colt which receives good 
care, while the farm poultry will be shamefully neglected. 
If the boy could be interested in poultry, furnished with 
the means to build a good house and good stock or eggs, 
he could not only learn good business habits, but make 
some money. The hen develops rapidly. In one year 
the boy would go all through the changes of a gener¬ 
ation of hens. With other animals he must wait years 
to do this. This quick development is well suited to 
the boy’s ideas. Mr. White may be prejudiced, but he 
says a good hen is a better companion for a boy than a 
horse. For the same money that would start a boy with 
any other farm stock hens will give him more fun, more 
profit and more real- training. 
“Why do you keep Leghorns?” I asked. 
“They proved best for our purposes out of seven dif¬ 
ferent breeds. We have a fine trade which demands 
large white eggs. No other breed except Minorcas 
will give such eggs, and they are too tender. Our Leg¬ 
horns are hardy and active, and under our system of 
handling them come nearer taking care of themselves 
than any other breed. The eggs are fertile, because the 
hens have nerve and vigor. The chicks are easier to 
raise than most others, as they are naturally active and 
vigorous. As a breed the Leghorns wil 1 lay more eggs 
than others. They mature quickly, and when a man 
knows how to do it he can get a Leghorn pullet into 
sure Winter laying quicker and easier than he can one 
of the larger breeds. We are after eggs, and it stands 
to reason that when a hen has been bred partly with 
the view of improving her carcass for meat she cannot 
be as good a general egg producer.” 
“How do you select your breeders?” 
“We pick out the best hens by their shape and habits. 
You get so that you can tell the layers by the way they 
act. Of course we have a Type’ or general shape and 
appearance which is an ideal of what a Leghorn hen 
ought to be. We pick active hens as close to that type 
as possible. They are mated with cockerels that match 
them. This selecting is done in the Fall.” 
“Why not in the Spring?” 
“At that time all hens should be laying, and you 
could not cull out the drones so well. The hen that 
lays only 50 eggs a year may make more fuss while she 
is doing it than the one who lays 150 eggs. We select 
our breeders in the Fall, having watched them care¬ 
fully through the year. A man would hardly pick out 
a wife or a permanent hired man at short notice. He 
would like to watch them through storm and sun. 
Their conduct when others give way is the best test.” 
“I see your breeding pens are made, up mostly of older 
birds—why not use vigorous pullets?” 
But we must keep the rest of Mr. White’s hen talk 
until next week. H. w. c. 
MAPES, THE HEN MAN. 
Dairy Farming. 
Referring to your article on page 407, I think the best 
way to handle a dairy is as a side issue to farming. When 
I figure the value of farm and stock $17,144, the interest 
on that at five per cent would he $857.20. I figured he 
fed his cows for 15 cents each daily. For 29 cows for six 
months, $783; for 51, $1,377; hired help, $504. Now, Mr. 
Martin will milk this dairy for one year, and if he ex¬ 
changes them for new milkers he certainly will not get 
over $40 each for them. This is a loss of $24.50 per head. 
This is Mr. Martin's first year on this farm, and I have 
not counted anything for horse and wagon to do this 
work with, and nothing for his own labor. I doubt if he 
fed his cows for 15 cents per day. I did not give him 
credit for calves he raised, but when he was in the cow 
business he said he could buy cheaper than he could raise 
them, and he cannot keep his farm buildings in condition 
for five per cent of the valuation. 1 do not wish to dis¬ 
courage the best any farmer can do toward making a suc¬ 
cess of his work, but more diversified farming among the 
large dairymen would make a better milk market and a 
smaller feed bill. w. a. b. 
W. A. B. makes two bad errors in his calculations 
which will change the balance in Mr. Martin’s favor 
very materially. In the first place, he assumes that the 
cows were fed during the Summer the same as in Win¬ 
ter. The fact is that instead of costing 15 cents per 
cow daily for feed during the first six months, he only 
fed them four quarts a day or 3]/ 2 pounds. In the 
second place, he assumes that these cows are milked out 
and must now be considered as fit only for the butcher. 
They have all been bred to an excellent bull, to come 
fresh in milk this Summer and Fall, and are really 
worth more money to-day than they were a year ago. 
His item of $1,764 for deterioration in value of cows 
has no foundation in fact, and in itself makes a fair 
income for a year’s work. I have seen a good many 
business dairies of cows in my time, but never yet have 
seen one that in appearance excels these cows as they 
were at the end of the year’s operations. Though most 
of them will be fresh in milk in September and October 
they were giving 16 cans of milk a day May 1. How 
near does his ration come to being scientific? His hay 
is probably about two-thirds Timothy and the remainder 
is mostly Red-top. The maizaline has a guaranteed 
analysis of 14.8 protein and 8.8 fat, with probably 45 
per cent carbohydrates; 15 pounds of hay and 15 pounds 
of his feed mixture gives a nutritive ratio of about 1:6, 
which is considered by most authorities as about right. 
In all probability there is enough June grass. White 
PEAR TRAINED IN VERRIER-PALMETTO STYLE. 
Fig. 205. 
clover, etc., in the hay to bring the nutritive ratio down 
to 5.5:1, thus corresponding to Wolf’s standard. 
Henhouse Construction. 
As you have said that were you to begin again in the 
poultry business you would build a continuous house, I 
wish to know whether you would build it with an alley-way. 
I am a beginner; have worked thus far with an old hen¬ 
house, but contemplate building a new one before many 
years. I have nearly completed a brooder house fitted with 
hot-water system of pipes. Should the netting which covers 
my chick runs be of one or of two-inch mesh ? The runs 
will be constructed of board sides and covered with wire 
netting. i. w. t. 
Macedon, N. Y T . 
If the house is to be 100 feet long or more I would 
advise an alley-way by all means, with some arrange¬ 
ment of a truck or car in the alley for carrying feed, 
etc., from pen to pen. In a short house with the flock 
not so large but what a man can conveniently carry on 
his arm enough feed to go around, the alley-way is not 
material. The netting for covering low runs for 
chicks must be of one-inch mesh, or 1 T 4 at most. 
Coarser netting will allow some chicks to work their 
way up through it, and prove a source of much annoy¬ 
ance. One-inch mesh is preferable, as it will also keep 
out rats. With a narrow board laid on the ground 
around the outside of the yard as I have before de¬ 
scribed, rats are not likely to burrow under the wire- 
covered runs. 
Care of Little Chicks. 
Will you tell me how to care for little chicks and what 
kind of feed is best for them? At what time in the morning 
and evening do you feed them? i. f. s. 
Orwigsburg, Pa. 
Our last hatch of chicks is doing very nicely on 
nothing but ordinary oat flakes, with water to drink. 
They are r.ow a week old and the mash balanced ration 
will be substituted for the oat flakes during the next 
week. We got 240 chicks from this hatch, with five 
more that had to be helped out of the shell; 241 of 
these are still lively and bright at the end of the first 
week. Not a bad showing for the oat flakes, which 
are very handy to feed. This hatch was from 360 eggs, 
nearly 300 of which proved to be fertile. The incuba¬ 
tor door was closed when eggs first began to pip, and 
not opened for 48 hours; 240 lively chicks were then 
removed and five more were helped from the shells. 
They were all placed in two brooders, given grit and 
water at once, and a few oat flakes scattered in the 
sand on the brooder floor. They ate but little the first 
day, but on the second day and since they have been 
ravenously hungry four or five times a day. I have 
tried to give just what they would clean up in four or 
five minutes. Some days they have been fed five times 
and others only four. There is still a little left of the 
10-pound bag from which the the 240 have been fed 
the first week of their lives. I mention this as being 
easily copied. A good rule is to begin at 7 A. M. and 
feed regularly every 2 1 / hours until 6 P. M. for the first 
two weeks. After that they can soon be reduced to 
three meals a day. 
Hens Kept in Stable. 
Will laying hens live and thrive and give the usual 
number of eggs if confined in the upper part of a stable 
during next Winter? I have been told that hens will not 
lay if confined above the ground level, even though they are 
provided with comfortable quarters, proper food, grit, limo, 
etc., necessary for egg production. h. b. c. 
Bayonne, N. J. 
This may safely be put down in the same category 
with the advice to plant potatoes, etc., according to 
the moon. While some hens that are confined in Winter 
above the ground level may have failed to produce eggs, 
the failure was due to other causes than the height of 
the floor above ground. 
Roup or Cape Worm? 
What can I do with a lot of month-old chicks? They 
have a cold, and appear to be gasping for breath ; otherwise 
they are healthy enough. IIow far in the windpipe are 
gape worms generally found? I have tried horse hair on a 
wire, but have seen no indications of the worms. The cold 
seems to have bothered nearly all of them. There is a 
wheezing noise when held close to the ear. j. b. 
It is not certain from the description whether this is 
a case of gapes or of roup. I have never been “fortu¬ 
nate” enough to observe a case of gapes on my farm, 
and cannot advise from experience. All my observations 
go to prove that gapes can be avoided by placing the 
newly-hatched chicks on uninfected soil, or on board or 
other floors where the chicks cannot get access to the 
ground. I advised one woman who drove several 
miles to see me about gapes to go home and 
try a newly-hatched brood on a tight board floor. 
She afterwards told me that not one of the chicks 
showed any symptoms of gapes, though nearly every 
one of ner other broods naving access to the soil 
succumbed to the pest. Another man whose chicks had 
been troubled with gapes for many years was induced 
to place all his young chicks one season on entirely new 
soil where chicks had never been kept before. He 
told me a few days ago that the experiment was entirely 
successful. Since that one year he has been able to 
raise chicks about the buildings again, with no gapes 
to contend with. Possibly the germs are destroyed 
in a full year’s time. By slitting open the windpipe of 
a dead chick it will be easy to remove all doubt about 
the diagnosis. The red gape worms will be found ad¬ 
hering to the mucous membrane ot the trachea. If it 
proves to be roup, use every means possible to get 
the flock in thriving condition, when most of the cases 
will recover. 
Plant Food. 
A single experiment often has little value. Each repe¬ 
tition with the same result adds force to the lesson. 
Repeated tests seem to prove conclusively that solu¬ 
ble nitrogen is the crying need of most crops on my 
soil. This in spite of the fact that stable manure may 
have been freely used on the same field. The use of 
a little nitrate of soda this Spring on-a field erf Timothy 
that had a good top-dressing of cow manure last Octo¬ 
ber, has again painted my initials on the hillside in 
characters that can easily be read a mile away. If I 
can interpret this lesson aright, it indicates that little 
confidence can be placed in the chemical analysis of the 
fertilizers we buy unless we also know the amount 
of soluble plant food therein. Even though organic ni¬ 
trogen decomposes, it may take on other combinations 
which make it aj unavailable for plants as the large 
amounts already present in all soils. In this connection 
let me speak again of the ration Mr. Martin feeds to his 
cows. His feeds are all very rich in fat. The fat in 
foods is said to be more readily available than the fat 
formers, or carbonydrates. Maizaline contains 8.8 
per cent of fat; gluten meal 10.38 and cotton-seed meal 
12.58. No other feeds in the whole list can be found 
with so high a per cent of fat. May it not be that 
his excellent results in milk and thrift of the cows 
can be attributed in part at least to the easily available 
nutrients in his ration? o. w. mapes. 
