THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
AUG. Q 
5i4 
FARMERS’ CLUB—DISCUSSION. 
“Startling Figures On Chicks.” 
C. H. W., Rochester, N. Y.—Under the 
caption “ Startling Figures on Chicks,” The 
R. N.-Y. has on page 463, some statements 
by Mr P. H. Jacobs, which are not less sur¬ 
prising to me than those from the Canadian 
Experiment Farm, upon which he com¬ 
ments, are to him. The report referred to 
records the weight of a one-month old 
Plymouth Rock cockerel, reared at the 
station, as 22 ounces. Mr. Jacobs severely 
criticises this and says he does not see how 
it is possible, as a chick will only eat 16 
ounces of grain in that period, a part 
only of which is available to increase its 
weight. His own experience, he says, is 
that it is a large chick which weighs seven 
ounces at one month, and that a weight of 
eight ounces at that age is an unusual and 
“ excellent ” result of skillful management. 
If this be true, and I believe Mr. Jacobs is 
considered an authority upon the subject, 
will he be good enough to explain, for the 
benefit of Rural readers, how it comes 
that I, a novice, making my first experi¬ 
ments with poultry within the narrow 
limits of a city lot, have a record which is 
as much above his as his is below that of 
the Ottawa Station? Mine is only ordinary 
stock, yet one brood of my Plymouth Rock 
chicks weighed 12 ounces each at four weeks 
agaiDst Mr. Jacobs’s seven, or possible, but 
improbable, eight ; and another brood 
weighed 19 ounces each when five weeks 
against his possible 11; being in both cases 
over 50 per cent, heavier than his “excel¬ 
lent ” standard. 
Mr. Jacobs concludes his criticism of the 
report by disclaiming “ any intention of re¬ 
flecting on the statements of the directors 
of the Ottawa Station,” but he accompanies 
this with a repetition of his assertion that it 
is not “ possible for a chick to eat enough 
food to make the gain mentioned in the 
time stated,” and that there is “something 
marvelous ” in it. To me, the “ something 
marvelous” is the fact that Mr. Jacobs, a 
practical and experienced breeder of fowls 
for weight, should see fit to base his argu¬ 
ments discrediting the Canadian report, 
upon the quantity of “ dry food or grain ” 
which a chick consumes, and to eutirely 
ignore that enormous mass of grasses, seeds, 
grubs and insects so voraciously and inces¬ 
santly devoured by it during the first weeks 
of its existence; and as he writes for the en¬ 
lightenment of readers of The R. N.-Y., I 
hope he will favor us, at his early con¬ 
venience, with some explanation of what 
appears to me, at least, his extraordinary 
omission or oversight. Until he does this 
it will be nece.^ary to suppose that he limits 
his chicks to a diet of “ dry food or grain ” 
and that he has assumed in good faith that 
the Ottawa Experiments were conducted 
on tne same exclusive and novel system of 
feeding. 
REMARKS BY P. H. JACOBS. 
I wish to state that I do not deny the 
claim of the Canadian director, as I have 
no right to dispute it, yet I cannot avoid 
Siting that the growth of the chick was to 
me “ marvelous,” and that I was aston¬ 
ished when I read it. Mr. W. has reason 
for exultation in producing a chick weigh¬ 
ing 12 ounces when four weeks old, and I 
think that, barring the Canadian chick, he 
owns the champion. I believe that I can 
secure the indorsement of hundreds of 
breeders that I am not mistaken in claim¬ 
ing that the weight of eight ounces Is much 
above the average for a chick four weeks 
old. In estimating on “dry food” only, I 
do so because it is concentrated. If a ohick 
does not gain rapidly on dry food he cannot 
do it on the more watery and succulent 
kind. I simply stated that I was surprised 
that a chick could eat enough food in a 
month to make so large a gain as 20 
ounces, and gave the chick the advantage 
of the supposition that he was given the 
most concentrated foods for that purpose; 
but it is of cou«e implied that the chick 
was fed a variety. But even with Mr. W.’s 
large 12-ounce chick he is far behind the 22- 
ounce chick, which is nearly twice as large. 
In experiments made, assisted by that ex¬ 
pert poultryman.R. R. Lewis, of Atco, N. J., 
two chicks, fed five times a day, brooded 
by a hen, and given a variety of grain, 
meat, milk, table scraps and vegetables, 
and which grew so rapidly that their legs 
were almost too weak to bear them, at¬ 
tained a weight of two pounds each when 
nine weeks old, and the chicks were forced 
from the start, were healthy to the end, 
and never refused a meal. They were, I 
might s£V, kept full of food. Of course, 
they gained more in weight the second 
month than during the first, and reached 
32 ounces; but the Canadian chick, with 
all the slow progress of “ babyhood,” 
reached 22 ounces in one month. Let any 
reader of The R. N.-Y. try the experiment 
of adding four ounces per week to the 
weight of a chick, even after it is a month 
old, and he will .find it difficult on any 
kind of food: but the Canadian chick 
gained five ounces per week before it was 
a month old. This growth is, to me, cer¬ 
tainly marvelous. If I have stated that it 
is “not possible” for a chick to eat so 
much food, I meant no reflection on the 
station, but I will say that I do not under¬ 
stand how it can be possible, though I 
may have much yet to learn, and my ex¬ 
periments may be different from those of 
others. So far as Mr. W. being a novice is 
concerned, he must not overlook the fact 
that novices take extra care of their stock 
at first, and there is no better place for 
forcing a chick than on a "city lot,” as 
the chick is always then within observa¬ 
tion, and I am sure Mr. W.’s chicks were 
not neglected, but the Canadian chick 
gives his 19-ounce chick an advantage of a 
week in age (which is quite a difference in 
time) and beats him three ounces. Now, if 
Mr. W. will try it again, weigh his chicks 
every week, weigh his food, and keep a 
careful record, I will be one of The R. N.- 
Y. readers to give him a vote of thanks if 
he will publish the experiment. 
Eastern Beef Pays. 
Wm. L., Fuller’s Station, N. Y.—In 
The Rural of July 12, some people say 
that it does not pay to fatten beef in the 
East. I do not agree with them, as I claim 
from experience that it does pay. Two 
years ago I had a full-blood Short-horn 
calf, which I fed until he was eight months 
old. He dressed 345 pounds of beef, 58 
pounds of hide, which, when sold, 
amounted to $37. I cut him up and sold 
him to my neighbors. The secret of profit 
is to keep the animals growing from the 
time they are born until they are killed. 
Never let them get stunted. I feed sweet 
milk from the creamery and Red-top or 
“daisy,” as it is called, which costs one 
cent per pound. This spring I sold a full- 
blood Jersey calf, 13 months old, that 
brought $27. If our Eastern farmers 
would feed their stock better and sell less 
hay, make more manure and get their land 
in a higher state of cultivation, their farms 
would work more easily and produce bet¬ 
ter, with less labor. A cousin and his 
family, from Cohoes, have been visiting 
at our house, and he said he was getting 
tired of the Western beef. If he could buy 
home-raised beef he would prefer it, and 
pay a higher price. He says that the 
butchers tell them they have Saratoga 
County beef, but he says he knows better, 
as he can tell the difference between East¬ 
ern and Western meat. Such deception 
should be punished. I claim that every¬ 
thing should be sold on its merits for just 
what it is. I always find that the cleaner 
and better anything is when taken to 
market the higher the price we get for it. 
Cooling Bottled Milk. 
B. C. Sears, New Brunswick, N. J.— 
In The R. N.-Y. of July 5, the following 
statement is found. 
“ We have been bottling the milk warm, 
leaving the jar open and in cold water 
until cooled down to 60 degrees; then we 
seal the jars add submerge them in cold 
water until the time for the wagon to stare ; 
after all our careful handling the milk will 
not keep, but sours before the wagon gets 
around the next day. Our cows are all 
pure Jerseys and our milk will average at 
least 25 per cent, of cream at this season. 
. The cows are fed cut hay mixed with 4 % 
quarts of corn-meal and two quarts of new- 
process linseed meal per day, besides ‘green 
feed,’ such as wheat, Scarlet Clover, Red 
Clover, Timothy, etc. 1. Is the trouble 
due to putting the milk in the jars warm ? 
2. Would it be better to cool it to 60 degrees 
before putting it in ? If so, why ? 1 can¬ 
not see why it should not keep when cooled 
down to 60 degrees in an open jar as well as 
though it were cooled before bottling. 3. 
Would an aiirator obviate the difficulty ?” 
A statement of our methods may be in¬ 
teresting. We have shipped our milk to 
New York City for 10 years, and find very 
little difficulty in keeping it there, after 
shipping it by rail about 60 miles. It is 
thoroughly cooled in cans, as it is milked, 
and is bottled the morning before it is 
shipped, and the bottles are kept in ice 
water until their removal, for delivery, to 
the train. The bottles are thoroughly 
cleaned with soap, brush aud hot water, 
and paper caps are used, fresh every time. 
For the purpose of saving ice we use the 
aerator made by E. H. Coffin of Ashland, 
New Jersey. This is automatic in its 
working, requiring only to be raised up, at 
intervals, and it can be so arranged as to 
draw the air from out-of-doors, and is very 
satisfactory to us, saving ice, and our milk 
has kept well since we began to use it. 
Allow me to suggest that a ration of corn 
meal and oil meal, is pretty heavy food for 
hot weather, and that milk showing 25 per 
cent, of cream, contains too much fat to be 
healthy for drinking, or for children, and 
that a larger proportion of lighter feed, say 
of wheat bran, would be better and if the 
cows are heavy with calf, such a ration in 
place of oil meal, would make more 
healthy cows, more wholesome drinking 
milk, and probably milk that would keep 
better. 
Mixed Husbandry and Fertilizers 
for Western New York. 
J. S., Rochester, N. Y.—I have used 
commercial fertilizers for about 20 years, 
with marked advantage to the wheat crop, 
as well as all other farm crops. The in¬ 
variable method with me, of late years, 
has been to drill it in with the seed, ap¬ 
plying at the rate of 200 to 250 pounds per 
acre. If my land were very poor, and I 
thought it necessary to apply more than 
200 or 300 pounds per acre, I would advise 
sowing the balance broadcast. Enough of 
the benefit of fertilizers is found In the 
subsequent crops to make it pay to use the 
amounts above stated on wheat. This 
benefit is greatly increased by seeding 
with clover, with every wheat crop. There 
is no better crop to seed with than winter 
wheat, and 200 or 300 pounds of phosphate 
per acre will insure a good catch and a 
large hay crop the second season. It is the 
clover growth that mainly keeps up fertil¬ 
ity on Western New York farms. To get 
this, we must use commercial fertilizers. 
If we have stock which it will pay to feed the 
clover to, as every farmer should have, we 
could make barn-yard manure and apply to 
corn and other spring crops. In this way 
only can we compete with the West at 
growing wheat at present prices. The 
fact must also be noted that cheap wheat 
has proved disastrous to Western and 
European wheat growers, as well as to farm¬ 
ers in this section. Wheat, this year, will 
pay better in this vicinity than any other 
grain crop. To the farmers of this section, 
who think of changing from grain to fruit 
growing, the past and present seasons 
show how uncertain fruit crops are. The 
tendency is evidently towards more ex¬ 
tended fruit growing, for which this part 
of Western New York is well adapted. 
Mixed husbandry is advisable and frequent 
seeding of clover to keep the sub-soil open 
to the admission of air and moisture. I 
think that an increased amount of phos¬ 
phate on all crops will pay. Fertilizers will 
also pay on our orchards. On land that 
has been long tilled, the failure of the 
apple trees to bear as they used to, is in 
part attributable to a lack of necessary 
plant food. After using commercial fertil¬ 
izers for a long term of years, and care¬ 
fully noting the results obtained from their 
use, not only on my own land, but on the 
land of my neighbors, I am convinced that 
an increased amount would be a benefit to 
the farmers of this section. 
“ Hang the Man That Waters Milk.” 
T. B. Terry, Summit County, Ohio.— 
Mr. Coats’s remarks about the farmer water¬ 
ing his milk and the railroad man his 
stock, in a late number of The Rural, re¬ 
mind me of one of the most thrilling in¬ 
cidents I have ever witnessed at a farmers’ 
institute. The question was asked: “ Which 
is the worse, to water milk or stock ?” Up 
sprang our inflammable friend, Dr. 
Detmers, of the Experiment Station, and 
rushed to the front of the stage. His eyes 
fairly flashed fire and his arms worked off 
a little of the steam before his tongue 
began: “Mr. President, let me answer 
that question. The man who waters stock 
ouuht to go to the penitentiary; hut the one 
who waters milk ought to be hung.” This 
was not just the way that the farmer who 
asked the question expected it to be an¬ 
swered, and the writer was at a loss to 
know what in the world the good doctor 
was driving at. But the audience sided 
with him immediately, as they usually do 
with a man who is dead in earnest, and the 
house resounded with cheers and shouts. 
After the tumult subsided our venerable 
friend gave his reasons in substance, 
briefly as follows : 
“ A man who is mean enough to water 
his milk would not be particular about 
putting in pure water; in fact the water 
around stables, such as he would naturally 
use, is apt to be filled with the germs of 
disease. These would thus get into the 
milk and cause the death of hundreds of 
infants in our towns and cities. The same 
result might occur where water was used 
that was considered pure, and which might 
lie drank with impunity. While the few 
germs in it were comparatively inactive 
in the water, they would multiply with 
fearful rapidity in the much better feeding 
ground, the milk, causing death in a way 
they never could have done if left in their 
native element.” If any man in that 
audience ever did such a thing as water 
his milk he must have gone home with a 
fearful weight on his soul. 
An Englishman on American Tariffs. 
B. M. R , Sheffield, England.— In The 
R. N.-Y. of July 12, the remark that farm¬ 
ers alone require protection, is a long way 
out. It is the working men who want 
protection, and they are quite prepared to 
put a tax upon the farmer’s corn, beef, etc., 
equal to the tax upon English goods. A 
very strong party both in Parliament and in 
this country is trying to pass a law to that 
effect. If the McKinley bill becomes law 
Americans may expect to see all American 
products shut out altogether from the 
English markets. The farmers of the 
United States must be blind to allow the 
few manufacturers of the Eastern States to 
make them buy in the dearest and sell in 
the cheapest market, and I cannot help 
thinking that all the farm papers are sub¬ 
sidized by the manufacturers or they would 
not allow this abuse, but would lift up 
their voices very strongly against it. The 
old cry that the workmen got the benefit of 
the duty is too stale, as the manufacturers 
can make what terms they like with their 
men. I do not speak without knowing, as 
I have spent three years in the shops and 
the same time among the farmers of the 
West, and when I saw the latter screw 
themselves until they had hardly any 
decent clothes to their backs, aud had to 
send all their produce to market to pay 
their mortgages, I tried hard to get them 
to combine and fight the money men, but 
all to no purpose. The saying “what fools 
we mortals be ” is very well and true as re¬ 
gards them. 
Remarks.— What The R. N.-Y. said was 
that many English farmers are strongly 
in favor of a protective tariff on American 
food products. Our friend cannot deny 
this; nor can he deny that workmen in 
English shops and factories favor cheap 
food and oppose a tariff that would add to 
the cost of such food. We have now, 
awaiting publication, an article favoring 
protection, by an Englishman, giving argu¬ 
ments and facts which will astonish many 
of our readers. The R. N.-Y. also dis¬ 
tinctly pointed out the fact that it is just 
as fair for England to tax our food pro¬ 
ducts as it is for us to tax English manu¬ 
factured goods. All sensible and conserva¬ 
tive men agree that our tariff system 
should be overhauled and rearranged. It 
is generally believed that the manufactur¬ 
ing industries have, as a class, received un¬ 
due protection, and have thus, in many in¬ 
stances, greatly outstripped farm interests 
in wealth and power. Farmers now de¬ 
mand that tariffs be so arranged that they 
may receive a direct benefit instead of an 
indirect benefit as at present. Nearly a 
year ago The R. N.-Y. advanced the propo¬ 
sition that the advantages to be derived 
from a tariff should never be given away. 
If a tariff is valuable let us trade it for a 
chance to sell our products in a foreign 
market. This is the pith of Mr. Blaine’s 
plan for " reciprocity’’—the President is 
given power to trade with our tariffs. 
There are very few men who desire to im¬ 
mediately abolish all tariffs. That would 
unsettle trade because it would violently 
upset our present business system. There 
are very few who do not want the tariff 
changed at all. The present tendency un¬ 
questionably is towards “reciprocity ” or a 
trading for a foreign trade of the sections 
of the tariff which have outlived their use¬ 
fulness. Many farmers lay the blame for 
their troubles on tariffs, “monopolies” 
and trusts when the fault really lies in 
themselves. “There is more in the man 
than in the land.” We see this fact illus¬ 
trated every day. Some men cannot possi¬ 
bly be kept down, while others cannot pos¬ 
sibly shake off the effects of their mistakes 
and rise. 
COMMUNAL FORESTS. 
Prof. B. E. Fernow, in Garden and Forest, 
has the following to say in regard to com- 
muual forests: “The Rural New-Yorker 
of July 5 contains a contribution by Mr. 
Charles Barnard on communal forests, a 
subject which deserves the attention of 
