1905 . 
TIIE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
531 
MORE ABOUT THAT EGG DEAL 
I Lave never had enough experience in 
breeding Plymouth Rocks to know whether the 
yellow beaks and legs are always present when 
first hatched or not. Possibly they may come 
all right when older. Assuming that the 
birds are defective, and always will be, still 
it is not certain that there was any intent to 
defraud in this case. So long as purebred 
poultry is judged solely by the “points” and 
“markings" of each individual, without refer¬ 
ence to pedigree and without registry papers, 
there is bound to be trouble of this kind. A 
bird may score very high whose ancestors 
were far from the standard, and its progeny 
is likely to revert back to a generation far re¬ 
moved. “If you had sold these eggs, what 
would you have been willing to do about it?” 
Apply the Golden Rule just as I frequently 
have done in similar cases. Either return the 
customer the difference between the price paid 
me and the price of market eggs for eating, 
or else offer to exchange the birds for others 
with good markings. lie certainly paid the 
price of first-class stock, and ought to have it. 
O. W. MATES. 
Regarding the trouble between the seller 
and purchaser of Plymouth Rock eggs, page 
488, I have had experience both in selling 
and inlying eggs for hatching. In my experi¬ 
ence I have found that it is more difficult 
to get satisfactory results from eggs pur¬ 
chased at $5 per setting than it is from eggs 
purchased at a lower price. Last year I paid 
$12 for 89 eggs. After being set 10 days I 
tested out 20 infertile eggs. Of the remainder 
I only hatched four chicks, and two of them 
died. I could not find any fault with the 
two which I raised, but I was not satisfied, 
and reported the results to the breeder from 
whom I purchased the eggs and he proposed 
to duplicate the order for $7. I was not 
satisfied with that proposition, and made 
him a proposition which I considered fair. 
I did not receive an answer to this letter, and 
finally wrote him that I would expose him at 
the farmers’ institutes. He then proposed to 
send me one setting of eggs free of charge. 
I accepted this as I considered that it was as 
good as he would do, and wrote him to send 
the eggs about April 15, 1905. I received a 
card from him about April 10. stating that 
lie would make shipment about April 15, but I 
have not received the eggs or heard anything 
from them at this writing, May 20. I have 
ordered high priced eggs several times with 
unsatisfactory results, hut last year's was the 
most unsatisfactory. I think that some breed¬ 
ers who advertise to sell eggs at $5 per set¬ 
ting are baited for suckers and if they get 
new customers to patronize them, every season 
they will make no effort to retain former cus¬ 
tomers by satisfying them. In answer to 
your questions I will say that if the adver¬ 
tiser had stock that was well mated witli 
yellow beaks and legs, as he claimed to have, 
at least some of the chicks would have had 
the proper color in legs and beaks. It is 
my opinion that the breeder did not have the 
quality of stock that he should have had to 
sell his eggs at $5 per setting, and I think 
that he should have refunded the price paid 
or sent the purchaser a setting of eggs from 
the pens which he hatched his own chicks 
from that would hatch chicks with the de¬ 
sired qualifications, free of charge. I think 
that the number of chicks hatched would be 
considered a fair hatch. Plymouth Rock pul¬ 
lets are not as yellow legged when they first 
hatch as when they mature, and if your 
reader sized his chicks up when they first 
hatched he may not he doing justice to the 
breeder from which he purchased the eggs. A 
reliable honest breeder will not make a 
guarantee unless he knows that lie can fulfill 
the agreement, and he knows about how many 
chicks his customers should hatch from a set¬ 
ting of eggs under proper care, and he also 
knows what the quality of those chicks is, 
because he is hatching from the same qual¬ 
ity of eggs and raising the same kind of 
chicks at home. Many of the breeders of 
fancy poultry who have made fortunes out 
of the business and are selling eggs at a 
high price are too independent to care 
whether the purchaser of a single setting of 
eggs is satisfied or not. and the purchaser 
who has not spent more than $5 can credit 
the amount to experience, and feel thankful 
that lie did not Invest $25. j. w. cox. 
I have been am importer and breeder of 
fancy fowls for a number of years, but have 
only sold eggs for hatching for three years. 
In this business every man seems to be a law 
unto himself and unfortunately there are too 
many in it who are not on speaking terms 
with the Golden Rule. Another misfortune 
is the fact that a majority of the parties 
getting the hen fever and purchasing eggs for 
hatching have not the slightest knowledge of 
setting a lien or of how a sitting hen should 
be treated. They are impatient, annoying and 
troubling the hen frequently and needlessly 
and conveying to the hen a share of their 
nervousness. At the end of three weeks the 
hachlng is unsatisfactory and the breeder re¬ 
ceives a postal card not written by a disciple 
of Chesterfield. Years before I commenced 
to sell eggs for hatching I read and heard of 
hundreds of cases similar in some respects 
to the one you quote, but I never would have 
attempted to settle one per cent of them. 
No man is able to swear positively what hap¬ 
pened to each of a setting of eggs after they 
were laid by one hen before they were placed 
under the sitting hen. Still less can anyone 
tell how the eggs are treated after being 
given over to the care of a hen. Every man 
thinks the hen he is trusting with a clutch of 
expensive eggs is steady and quiet, hut after 
the first week a good many hens get tired of 
their job, especially if the nest is unclean 
or uncomfortable. If she gets a chance she 
sneaks out of doors after a few leaves of 
clover, and to dust herself in the fresh earth. 
An impatient amateur gets nervous and at¬ 
tempts to drive her back. Then trouble be¬ 
gins, and the amateur picks up a club and 
chases the hen all over the place, and when 
he tires her out he grabs her by the leg and 
places her not gently but firmly on the nest 
and fastens her on. At the end of the third 
week the breeder will doubtless receive a 
letter complaining of the hatch and sub¬ 
mitting the amateur’s expectation of a dupli¬ 
cate setting without cost. 
I think a young fancier in sending money 
for eggs for hatching to a breeder who is a 
stranger, should have a written guarantee 
as to the number that will hatch and the 
quality of the chicks. I appreciate the fact 
that with a made breed like the Plymouth 
Rock there are liable to be a few reverts with 
many sittings, hut the breeder who is famil¬ 
iar with his flock and the line from which it 
came ought to know what he can guarantee 
with some degree of certainty. 1 never had a 
complaint of the character you quote. If a 
customer complains of the size of the hatch 
I immediately send him a sufficient number 
of eggs to make the size of the hatch com¬ 
plete, and write him to that effect: if his 
complaint is honest he is entitled to this 
much; if it is dishonest it would cost more 
to prove that than the price of the eggs. 
I am happy in the knowledge that in my 
three years' experience I have had only four 
complaints. Every breeder who advertises 
eggs for hatching is aware of the risks of the 
undertaking, if his methods are not so per¬ 
fected as to avoid these in a very large 
measure, or if he is not prepared to meet 
these squarely and honestly when they come, 
he will act wisely to stay out of the busi¬ 
ness. There can be but little comfort in 
pocketing a customer's $5, with the knowl¬ 
edge that the customer feels that the 
breeder lias deliberately swindled him. I 
am not familiar enough with Plymouth Rocks 
to criticise them. Their beaks and legs 
may improve in color with age. Eight chick¬ 
ens out of a setting of eggs is not a serious 
matter for complaint this year. 
J. H. SYMONDS. 
WHY USE HAND SEPARATORS? 
You ask me my reasons for using a sepa- 
tor instead of taking my milk to the cream¬ 
ery as I have done in former years. One rea¬ 
son is the great saving of time. Now we 
have the milk all separated and skim-milk 
fed before breakfast, and it formerly took a 
good share of the forenoon to carry it to the 
creamery. Another advantage is having 
warm sweet milk to feed my hogs and calves; 
I do not have to bother to warm the milk 
for the young calves as we have had to in the 
past. These are my reasons for using a sep¬ 
arator, as I do not think it amounts to any 
more money than the old way. H. K. c. 
Sheldon, Vt. 
I am using a hand separator, but use a 
sheep to separate with. The sheep and power 
cost about $25. I keep a dairy of from 40 
to 50 cows. I have my warm milk to feed 
my calves with, instead of mixed milk which 
I would get at a cream station. I would 
rather separate my milk at home under shel¬ 
ter than to be out on the road in all sorts 
of weather. I cannot tell you just what the 
difference is in carrying my milk to a 
cream station or separating it at home, as 
far as dollars and cents are concerned, but 
I prefer to keep my milk at home for the 
above reasons. I see no drawbacks to it if 
the work is properly done. W. J. T. 
Enosburg Falls, Vt. 
After having used a separator for six years 
I am ready to say that I consider it a 
money saving device, and I prefer to separate 
the milk myself for the following reasons. 
First, that the milk should be separated as 
soon after it is taken from the cows as 
possible. All cartage to and from a creamery 
is avoided, and the skim-milk is at just the 
right temperature to be fed to calves. With 
regard to profits gained by the use of a sepa¬ 
rator over the old style of raising the cream 
I would say that I paid $125 for my machine, 
and at the end of two years’ time the machine 
paid for itself after having separated the 
milk for a herd of 20 cows. Of course there 
are a few drawbacks: for instance tjie first 
cost, which looks rather large; then there is 
the extra chore of keeping the machine neat 
and clean. Of course where the separating 
is done at the farms there must be ice used 
in order to keep the cream sweet, but on the 
whole I consider the separator a great boon 
to dairying. c. P. C. 
Simsbury, Conn. 
We are using a hand separator though now 
we have put a pulley on it and run it by a 
bull in a one-horse tread power, which is 
good for both bull and us, giving him exercise 
and saving us much. By using a separator 
at home we have the skim-milk direct to the 
calves before the animal heat leaves it, mak¬ 
ing good calves to raise for the dairy. The 
cream is taken by the cream gatherer three 
times per week, and saves us much time that 
we would have to spend if we had to cart the 
whole milk to the creamery. We like the sys¬ 
tem, as we do not have to get out In all 
weathers, and get our check monthly for our 
cream. We think there is less work running 
a separator than in the gravity process, be¬ 
sides getting some more cream. The draw¬ 
backs are the price of machine and cost for 
repairs. We farmers do not find that ours is 
a “get-rich-quick" process, but there are but 
few farmers who desire to go elsewhere to 
farm it. Most of the farmers here are to¬ 
bacco growers, and many of them are making 
money. Some who went into the tent tobacco 
scheme lost some money, hut most of the 
steady growers have made money. Those of 
us who do not raise tobacco depend upon out- 
dairies and poultry mainly. I do not know 
where a farmer for mixed farming could go 
to better himself. With trolleys and tele¬ 
phones running all through New England and 
good prices for all No. 1 produce, farmers 
appear to be well satisfied with their location. 
Weatogue, Conn. r. 
Situated as I am 2% miles from a factory, 
we think separating at home has many ad¬ 
vantages. In the first place, it requires much 
less time. We can separate the milk from 
eight cows in about 12 or 15 minutes, using 
a De Laval hand separator of 450 pounds ca¬ 
pacity. If we were to deliver this milk to 
the factory It would require a horse and 
wagon or sleigh, as the case might be, and 
some one to drive it. When we reached there, 
we would have to wait for our turn to have 
it separated: possibly there might be several 
patrons ahead of lis. which would require 
quite a little time, which to any progressive 
farmer is as good as money. We would be 
obliged to make the trip in all kinds of 
weather, which sometimes would be very un¬ 
pleasant. Secondly, I consider the milk sep¬ 
arated at home much more valuable for feed¬ 
ing purposes, as it is warm. As soon as we 
are through separating the warm milk Is fed 
to the calves and pigs, which they seem to 
enjoy and thrive on. I usually sell about 
$200 worth of pork each year, and raise 
two or three calves. I think the warm sepa¬ 
rator milk has a great advantage for this 
purpose. If it was separated at the factory 
it would not be in proper condition to feed 
when it reached home. I have never patron¬ 
ized a factory where the milk was separated 
there. We have some on this plan run¬ 
ning in this vicinity, but I claim there is no 
way that milk can be handled with as little 
trouble as to have it separated at home, and 
gathered by the cream gatherer twice or three 
times a week, as occasion mav require, to 
keep it in proper condition. There may be 
times during the warm weather that it will 
be necessary to use Ice to cool the cream, 
unless you have a good supply of cold 
water. The Schaghtieoke Union' Creamery 
Co. is run under the Babcock system. The 
cream is separated at home and gathered by 
cream gatherers, who are paid a fair com¬ 
pensation for doing the work. The patrons 
are generally well satisfied with their returns, 
the butter is uniform in quality and sells for 
the highest market price, and many times 
above New York quoations. Most of it is put 
up in prints and has always had a good repu¬ 
tation in market. » 0 
Valley Falls, N. Y. 
INCREASED CAPACITY 
CREAM SEPARATORS 
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ 
In line with its established policy of always keep¬ 
ing FAR IN THE LEAD of all possible competition 
by further improving its separators every few years, 
the DE LAVAL COMPANY has just let out another 
“link” of superiority, which still further widens the 
gulf of practical efficiency between the DE LAVAL 
and the best of imitating cream separators. 
Seemingly perfect as they have been before, the 
MAY, 1905, DE LAVAL machines are still further 
improved, run still easier, have lower-down supply 
cans, and LARGELY INCREASED CAPACITIES, 
all for the SAME PRICES as heretofore. 
STYLE 
OLD 
NEW 
‘Humm ng-Bibd” . 
250 
lbs. 
300 
lbs. 
‘Daisy” .... 
350 
1 6 
400 
Baby” No. 1 
450 
tc 
500 
6 6 
Baby” No. 2 (Iron-Stool) 
600 
l 6 
700 
66 
Baby” No. 2 (Solid-Frame) 
600 
61 
700 
66 
Baby” No. 3 
1,000 
66 
l,2u0 
66 
Dairy” Turbine 
1,000 
66 
1,200 
66 
Send for new 1905 Catalogue giving complete par¬ 
ticulars. 
The De Laval Separator Co. 
Randolph & Canal Sts., 
CHICAGO. 
1213 Filbert Street, 
PHILADELPHIA. 
9 & 11 Drumm St.. 
SAN FRANCISCO. 
General Offices: 
74 CORTLANDT STREET, 
NEW YORK. 
121 Youville Square, 
MONTREAL. 
75 & 77 York Street, 
TORONTO. 
248 mcDermot Avenue, 
WINNIPEG. 
| More Than Glean Skimming 
W Of course you want that. But you want something 
more. Separating cream is an every day, twice a day 
job. You want a handy machine. Do you know that 
the boasted clean skimming of many separators is at¬ 
tained at the expense of convenience? That's all 
changed in the new 
PAPEC SEPARATOR. 
Built on a new plan. Its seven gallon reservoir only 
36 inches high. A child can fill it and a child can turn 
it. So simple it’s almost impossible for it to get out of 
order. You'll take new interest in dairying and make 
better profits if you buy the right separator. It’s to 
your interest to investigate the Papec. Let us send 
you catalogue, free. 
THE PAPEC MCH. CO.. Box 10, LIMA, N. Y. 
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WEEDSPORT SILOS 
The three styles we build are mod¬ 
els of up-to-date silo construction. 
The cut shows the " Weedsport 
Improved Silo.” with removable 
sliding, interchangeable doors, and 
Octagon Shingle Roof. 
A Silo 'will pay its cost in one 
year from saving in fodder and 
increase of milk, Special prices 
on orders for shipment July 1st. 
Write for Catalogue, stating size 
wanted. 
The ABRAM WALRATH CO. 
Box 83, 
WEEDSPORT, N. Y. 
£A._oo Cream 
Separator 
— ———■■rtBia 
THEY ARE BOTH C0WS;BUT- 
FOR 525.00 we » e 11 the 
celebrated DUNDEE CREAM 
SEPARAT OR, capacity, ZOO 
pounds per hour; 350 pounds ca¬ 
pacity per hour for 529,00: 
500 pounds capacity per nourfor 
$34.00. Guaranteed the 
equal ot Separators that RE¬ 
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575.00 to $125.00. 
OUR OFFER. ZL'l? 1 '" 
JUST as the fine, healthy, silage-fed cow 
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GREEN* MOUNTAIN? SILOS 
Are most convenient, most reliable, most profitable 
and most durable. They mean more milk, more 
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cost for feed. Write for free catalog. 
Agents for Green Mountain Silos wanted in unoccu¬ 
pied territory. 
STODDARD MFG_ CO. 
RUTLAND, VT. 
<smm 
r CHAIN-HANGING 
CATTLE STANCHION 
The Most Practical 
CATTLE FASTENER 
ever invented. 
Manufactured and for 
sale by 
O. H. ROBERTSON, 
Forestvllle, Conn. 
rator on our 30 days' free trial 
plan, with the binding under¬ 
standing and agreement If you 
do not tind Dy comparisoi _ 
test and use that it will sk ini 
closer, skim collier milk, 
skim easier, run lighter and 
skim one-half more milk 
than any other Cream Sepa¬ 
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the Separator to us at our 
expense and we will imme¬ 
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you may havepaidforfrelght 
charges or otherwise. Cut 
this ail. out at once and mail 
to us, and you will receive 
by return mail, free, postpaid, our LATEST SPECIAL 
CREAM SEPARATOR CATALOGUE. You will get our 
big otfer and our free trial proposition and you will re¬ 
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SEPARATOR OFFER EVER HEARD OF. Address, 
SEARS, ROEBUCK & GO., CHICAGO. 
Pine, Hemlock and Cypress in 200sizes; also cutters, blowers 
carriers, horse powers, hay presses. Catalogue free 
HARDER MFC. COMPANY, Box 11, Coblosklll, N. Y. 
SILOS 
Steel Frame, round. 
Built once for all. Best 
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cheapest in the end. We want agents. Special terms 
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LABEL 
Dana’s 
SEAR LABELS 
stamped with any name or address with consecutive 
numbers. I supply forty recording associations and 
thousands of practical farmers, breeders and veteri¬ 
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C. H. DANA, ?4 Main St., West Lebanon, N. Si 
