i89o 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
827 
Poultry Yard. 
BLUE BIRD HOUSES. 
I am glad to see the blue bird appreciated, 
as it ought to be, by F. K. P., of Delavan, 
Wis. Of all birds he is the most perfect. 
In the first place his color—reddish breast, 
white under parts and blue back—makes 
him as typically American in color as he 
is in range. This extends from the arctic 
regions to Mexico and from the Atlantic to 
the Pacific and in it he is represented by 
three varieties, arctic, Eastern and Western. 
Moreover, he has great additional claims 
on our regard owing to his perfect tame¬ 
ness and trust in man, and the fact that he 
injures nothing, living almost entirely on 
insects, though towards spring he some¬ 
times eats a few wild berries that have 
hung through the winter. His soft warb 
ling song is very sweet in early spring and 
is continued all through his stay, which em¬ 
braces most of the year. Blue birds will 
build in boxes very low or moderately high 
provided they cannot be reached by cats. 
A good way is to set them on projections 
from the trunks of trees like guide boards 
on posts, or they may be suspended from 
the lower limbs by stout wires about fifteen 
inches long so that a cat cannot reach down 
to them. Should sparrows take possession 
of the boxes in either of these positions, 
they can be easily dislodged. Good places 
can also be selected on the sides of buildings. 
Blue birds like boxes that are covered, or 
that look like bark. The entrance holes 
should be inch in diameter. All boxes 
should be single houses, as blue birds do not 
colonize like sparrows or martins. 
HENRY HALES. 
A TALK ABOUT BLUE BIRDS 
F. K. P., Delavan, Wis., asks: “How 
can I fix an enticing blue bird house ? ” If 
he were as familiar with the habits of the 
blue bird as I am, he would know at once 
that the perverse little fellow would never 
dwell in any fine board house. His habits, 
although very quiet and domestic like to 
casual observers, are shy and reserved, as 
much so as those of any of our feathered 
friends. He is the first to bring the olive 
branch of spring and break the fetters of 
winter, the herald of clear skies and long, 
warm, snnny days. He precedes the robin 
by a day or two and remains as late in the 
season. His clear, soft, melodious note is 
often heard in February, and we are sure 
of him in March. Immediately on arrival 
he sets about looking for a house to rent. 
The chief dwelling place is in an old 
gnarled, broken down orchard that for 
years has been infested with borers. This 
is also the favorite home for many species 
of the woodpecker, and in the holes which 
these have picked for their own abiding 
place, the female blue bird builds her nest 
and rears her young. 
The blue bird drives away the majority 
of the woodpeckers, and I am not certain 
that he does not also put to flight the yel¬ 
low-hammer. He follows the woodpeckers 
for the reason that the latter tap out the 
holes they live in during the winter, and 
he, pugnacious little fellow, returns in the 
spring and usurps the dwelling. There 
was an old, broken-down cherry tree not 
four feet from the window where I usually 
sat, some summers ago. I had caused it to 
be sawed off about six feet from the ground. 
On it I intended to plant a box of trailing 
plants, but was circumvented. It was situ¬ 
ated on the south side of the house and was 
warm and sheltered. At the window near 
it was my favorite seat. Inside my exotics 
bloomed; outside was winter. One day 
there came a great, big, red headed wood¬ 
pecker. The heart of the tree was much 
decayed. He tapped and tapped all around 
and over and up and down the stump. He 
went backwards and sideways and up and 
down. He found it to his notion. Finally, 
on the south side where the bark was 
cracked he began to throw out the chips. 
He wrought faithfully and by night had 
penetrated to the heart. At sundown he 
flew off with a quick chirrup to hunt out 
his supper. He returned and lodged in Lis 
hole. He could barely get his body in. His 
beak poked out. He must have backed in, 
I think, for he could not have turned 
around after entering. I was not an owner 
of my own property; the fee simple be¬ 
longed to another. Still I claimed the priv¬ 
ilege of going out in the moonlight to look 
at my usurper. I frightened him from his 
lodgings, but not for good. He returned. 
I thought how the poor little red head must 
have ached that night. The following day 
my tenant bored down in the decayed heart 
six inches. Now his dwelling place was 
comfortable, Here he dwelt In peace all 
the winter. In the spring, when the stir 
began, I heard, early one morning, a great 
twitter of blue birds close to my window. 
I looked out and, behold ! there they were 
with bright, blue coats and salmon vests. 
They had driven oil Mr. Woodpecker and 
the males were quarreling among them 
selves who should have the first right to 
the house. They finally settled it among 
them and the partner of the victor took 
possession and immediately began house¬ 
keeping. The couple turned out six young 
ones in June, and reared another brood. 
For a period of four or five years the blue 
birds came back to the old home. I had 
given it up to them. At last the bubbling 
little wren came and drove them off. Noth¬ 
ing disconcerted, they took a nearby old 
branch of an apple tree that had a hole in it 
and were happy. 
If my Wisconsin friend can find a hole in 
an old dead limb and remove it to some 
place nearer his dwelling, he will have the 
only house a blue bird will occupy, in my 
opinion. The nest does not amount to 
much. It is a frail, simple affair, only a 
little bit of wool or feathers. It is on the 
walls of the house that the bird depends. 
CAROLINE BOYCE. 
SCRATCH INGS. 
CORN is the best “ night cap ” for poultry. 
Lots of men have worked up a profitable 
egg route by guaranteeing “ fresh eggs.” 
So long as they used their own eggs entirely 
they were sure to please their customers. 
As the business increased they began to 
take fresh eggs from their neighbors. They 
could not always guarantee their eggs 
then. As the Maine Farmer says:—“ The 
man who takes advantage of a neighbor by 
slipping in a nestful of eggs a little old, 
found in the manger or on the mow, and 
thus ruins one’s reputation, deserves a long 
term in State’s prison.” 
Three Light Brahma hens have their 
home near our factory. They go around 
the depot, and around in front of the store; 
and, in short, they work for nothing and 
board themselves. They have not been fed 
a scrap of anything for months, and yet 
these three hens average two eggs a day 
right straight along. Their keeping does 
not cost anything ; and now that eggs are 
worth two cents apiece we have a steady 
“ income ” of four cents a day. The amount 
is not large, it is true, but it is a regular 
income, without any outgoes at all, and 
that is the reason why I enjoy that kind of 
poultry-keeping.—Gleanings in Bee Culture. 
Because three hens pay four cents per day 
profit it does not follow that 300 hens will 
pay $4 profit. Many failures in the poultry 
business are due to an assumption that the 
above proposition will work out. 
Bee Keeping for Girls.— The young 
lady bee keepers of the family announce 
that, in spite of some unavoidable losses 
and disappointments, the bees have been 
packed in good condition In their winter- 
quarters with fair hopes for another year. 
A fortune in the business is not anticipated, 
but an agreeable occupation which affords 
an opportunity for study in the winter 
days and a fair income to “the girls” in 
the summer is worth trying in these 
troubled times for farmers. Best of all, 
our girls have proved that it pays to make 
one’s product as perfect as possible when it 
goes upon the market. Their snow-white 
pound sections cleaned to the perfection of 
daintiness, each as perfect as the sample, 
and stamped with the “ firm ” name, 
brought in the city market several cents 
above the highest quotations, with a de¬ 
mand for more. This insures a ready market 
for future products and settles, in one 
family at least, the question : “ What can 
girls do to make money at home ?” 
Canastota, N. Y. mrs. c. e. g. 
Right They Are.—T he farmer rolled up 
his sleeves and went into politics. The old 
political leaders in a sort of dazed condition 
are thinking that the farmer is no slouch 
in the political field after all. * * * The 
farmer has been a long time getting to the 
point which he reached at the last election; 
but it is not the fault of the political leaders 
that he did not get there before.— Western 
Rural. 
“Protection” for Foreign Working¬ 
men. —In view of the large number of 
workingmen preparing to emigrate to 
America in consequence of the McKiuley 
Bill, the United States Consuls in the dif¬ 
ferent cities are giving the widest publicity 
to the provisions of the Contract Labor 
Law. It is said, however, that this law is 
being openly violated by the agents of 
American manufacturing establishments, 
and especially by cotton and woolen goods 
manufacturers. 
STRAIGHT HITS. 
Hon. James G. Blaine asserted that the 
McKinley Bill is so impracticable that it 
cannot open the world’s market to “another 
bushel of wheat or another barrel of pork.” 
Hon. Grover Cleveland in his historic 
tariff message said that our progress 
toward a wise conclusion will not be im¬ 
proved by dwelling upon the theories of 
protection and free trade. It is a con¬ 
dition which confronts us—not a theory. 
The persistent claim that all efforts 
to relieve the people from unjust and 
unnecessary taxation are schemes of the 
so - called free traders, is mischievous 
and far removed from any considera¬ 
tion for the public good. The simple 
and plain duty which we owe to the people 
is to reduce taxation to the necessary ex¬ 
penses of an economical operation of the 
government, and to restore to the business 
of the country the money which we hold in 
the Treasury through the perversion of 
governmental powers. These things can 
and should be done with safety to all our 
industries, without danger to the oppor¬ 
tunity for remunerative labor which our 
workingmen need, and with benefit to 
them and all our people, by cheapening 
their means of subsistence and Increasing 
the measure of their comforts. 
An Evident Truth.—I t is understood 
that the farmers are paying attention to 
politics this year. Heretofore they have 
been paying the taxes —Pittsburgh Dis¬ 
patch. 
A Jersey Farmer Explains the Sit¬ 
uation. —But few understand a high pro¬ 
tective tariff, but every housekeeper under¬ 
stands bed bugs. Now any country under 
a high protective tariff is just like a colony 
of bed-bugs in an untenanted house. The 
big bugs live off of the little bugs. This is 
plain enough, and your duty how to vote is 
just as plain.— Salem, Sunbeam. 
Must Benefit the Whole Country.— 
The tariff has no right to exist unless it is a 
benefit to the whole country. The New 
England manufacturer has no right to tax 
the people for his own personal benefit. 
But if in benefiting him everybody else is 
benefited, government is justified in laying 
a duty upon foreign manufactures like his; 
and it will soon be determined how much 
the farmer is benefited or injured by this 
new tariff scale.— Western Rural. 
A Mexican Opinion.— Under the new 
American tariff, the farmers of the North¬ 
western States of that country, who have 
been buying mules and horses from this 
country for cultivating their fields will find 
their accustomed supply cut off by the ab¬ 
surdly high duties. A pony costing here 
$10, and a mule worth $20 are alike taxed 
$30 on entering the land which enjoys the 
blessings of “ protection.” A tax of 300 
per cent on horses is as absurd as the duty 
on printing paper here, which frequently 
amounts to 300 per cent ad valorem .— 
Mexican Financier. 
The Advantages of a “ Home Market.” 
—A Nebraska farmer recently loaded up 
his three teams, one with corn, one with 
oats and one with potatoes. Behind one 
team he hitched a fat steer, and behind an¬ 
other he hitched a fat cow. With this out¬ 
fit he started to his “ home market,” where 
he sold the products of his farm. The fat 
steer bought him a suit of ordinary cloth¬ 
ing; the fat cow bought him a common 
overcoat; the load of potatoes bought him 
a hat and a pair of gloves; the load of oats 
bought him a pair of boots and a pair of 
socks; and the load of corn bought him a 
suit of underclothing. He went home 
whooping for “ Harrison, protection and 
the home market,” and wearing on his per¬ 
son the products of a fat steer, a fat cow, a 
load of corn, a load of oats and a load of po¬ 
tatoes.— ^[cad County, S. D., Times. * 
Pi.$rfUaucou.$' 
In writing to advertisers please always 
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A DOCTOR’S CONFESSION. 
HE DOESN’T TAKE MUCH MEDICINE AND 
ADVISES THE REPORTER NOT TO. 
“ Humbug ? Of course it is. The so- 
called science of medicine is a humbug, and 
has been from the time of Hippocrates to 
the present. Why, the biggest crank in the 
Indian tribes is the medicine man.” 
“ Very frank was the admission, especi¬ 
ally so when it came from one of the big¬ 
gest young physicians of the city, one 
whose practice is among the thousands, 
though he has been graduated but a few 
years,” says the Buffalo Courier. “Very 
cozy was his office, too, with its cheerful 
grate fire, its Queen Anne furniture, and 
its many lounges and easy-chairs. He 
stirred the fire lazily, lighted a fresh cigar, 
and went on.” 
“Take the prescriptions laid down in the 
books and what do you find f Poisons, 
mainly, and nauseating stuffs that would 
make a healthy man an invalid. Why in 
the world science should go to poisons for 
its remedies I cannot tell, nor can I find 
any one who can,” 
“ How does a doctor know the effect of 
his medicine ? ” he asked. “ He calls, pre¬ 
scribes and goes away. The only way to 
jndge would be to stand over the bed and 
watch the patient. This cannot be done. 
So, really, I don’t know how he is to tell 
what good or hurt he does. Sometime ago, 
you remember, the Boston Globe sent out 
a reporter with a stated set of symptoms. 
He went to eleven prominent physicians 
and brought back eleven different prescrip¬ 
tions. This just shows how much science 
there is in medicine.” 
There are local diseases of various char¬ 
acters for which nature provides positive 
remedies. They may not be included in 
the regular physician’s list, perhaps, be¬ 
cause of their simplicity, but the evidence 
of their curative power is beyond dispute. 
Kidney disease is cured by Warner’s Safe 
Cure, a strictly herbal remedy. Thousands 
of persons, every year, write as does H. J. 
Gardiner, of Pontiac, R. I., August 7,1890 : 
“A few years ago I suffered more than 
probably ever will be kpown outside of 
myself, with kidney and liver complaint. 
It is the old story—I visited doctor after 
doctor, but to no avail. I was at Newport, 
and Dr. Blackman recommended Warner’s 
Safe Cure. I commenced the use of it, and 
found relief immediately. Altogether I 
took three bottles, and I truthfully state 
that it cured me.” 
Scroll Sawyer. 
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Bargains in Pocket 
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A H. POMEROY, 
Advertising Dept., 
216-220 Asylum Street, 
Hartford, Conn. 
DEAF 
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