NEW YORK, JANUARY 20, 1907 
WETCKXY, 41.00 PER YEAR 
MAPES, THE HEN MAN. 
The Health of the Flock in New Barn. 
My critic from Massachusetts (page 830) is worried 
lest a 13-year-old school girl shall be dwarfed by at¬ 
tempting the work in connection with the daily care of 
500 hens. The proposition does not' contemplate a 
lengthy test, and that not to relieve “grandad” of the 
work, hut to show that no more time is required to take 
care of 500 hens in a properly arranged house than can 
be spared out of regular school hours. One of the 
Spring mont'hs will probably be selected for the test. 
“Grandad” is still spry enough to do it, and so is 
“great-grandad,” for that matter. The latter was one 
of the first visitors to inspect the new building, and 
helped to gather some of the firsf eggs laid in it. The 
Mapes children have not been in the habit of being 
worked until they are “pygmies,” though they have al¬ 
ways been given a share of the regular work of the 
home and farm, as soon as they are old enough to wipe 
the dishes or drive the cows. My father and mother 
have just celebrated their sixty- 
fourth wedding anniversary. They 
have lived for the whole 64 years 
our the same farm, raising a family 
of seven children, all of whom are 
still in good health. In all that 
time not even “the man servant or 
the maid servant, or the, stranger 
within the gat'es” has required the 
services of an undertaker. How 
few, indeed, are the homes that 
present such a record. Fig. 23 
shows four generations of males, 
indicating that the Mapes names is 
in no immediate danger of extinc¬ 
tion. My father, Stephen S. Mapes, 
is shown sitting on the bench in 
front of the writer, while at my 
right stands Jesse and his son Will¬ 
iam, and at my left Winfield II. and 
his son Harold, the brother of 
Bessie. I sometimes wonder if the 
present trend of public opinion in 
favor of child-labor laws is not go¬ 
ing to extremes. Children in towns 
and cities of tender years are placed 
in school and required to do mental 
labor of the most exacting kind, 
early and late, but if they are placed 
at manual labor a great howl is at' 
once heard. I am inclined to think 
that a limited amount of manual 
labor, interspersed with the mental 
labor, and the schooling carried along a few years 
nearer to maturity, would give us better citizens both 
mentally and physically. These conditions of a blend¬ 
ing of mental and manual work can more easily be 
secured in a farm home than in a city home, and this 
is one of the reasons why the farms furnish such a 
large quota of influential men and women. 
One page 910 “Poultrywoman” from Illinois gives 
her experience in raising chicks (a small proportion of 
them), and asks me or some experienced poult’ryman 
to advise her “what to do next.” I can only add my 
wail to hers, and pass the problem on to others. Prof. 
Rice of Cornell wrote me last Spring that he was 
investigating the subject, giving it the name of whife 
diarrhoea, T think, and saying that it is causing the 
loss of more chicks in the.State than any othet* one 
disease. If there is ever a time whep T feel like throw¬ 
ing up file game in disgust, and breaking the third 
commandment, it is when passing through such an 
experience as that recorded on that page. T hope Prof. 
Rice will keep pegging away at it, until he can give 
us some help. T don’t remember ever noticing blood in 
the droppings, but aside from that the symptoms de¬ 
scribed are similar. Last Spring I was particularly 
unfortunate, though not losing quite as large a per¬ 
centage as “Poultrywoman.” 
I took extra pains to get all my eggs for hatching 
from a flock that was laying splendidly, and seemed 
to be in the pink of health and vigor, and hatched a 
little over 2,000. They seemed as strong and vigorous 
for about two weeks as one could wish. Then the 
trouble began, and continued until they were six to 
eight weeks old. After that age was reached the mor¬ 
tality lias been exceedingly light. Tt fries one’s mettle 
to carry out from 20 to 30 dead chicks from the brood¬ 
ers every morning for weeks at a time. Doubtless the 
birds that survived were weakened in vitality, and if 
my experimental hen barn that is stocked with these 
pullets turns out to be successful it will be a wonder. 
I placed a hundred or a little more in each of my 
brooders and saved perhaps 30 to 50 of them. I think 
possibly the trouble is started by too great extremes of 
heat in fhe brooders. Believing this theory worth in¬ 
vestigating, I have purchased 10 thermostats and heat¬ 
regulating devices, and shall equip the 10 brooders in 
my longest brooder house with them before starting 
operations this Spring, so that the temperature can be 
kept as uniform as in an incubator. One flock last 
Spring escaped the disease for some reason. This flock 
was in the same kind of a brooder, and was the same 
stock as the rest. They were in a small colony brooder 
house only a few feet away from other houses, iden¬ 
tical in all respects. A hundred and forty chicks were 
placed in t'his brooder, and nearly all lived. Tf the dis¬ 
ease was started by too much or too little heat, this 
brooder might have happened to run at a more uniform 
temperature than the others. The 140 chicks were 
closely confined in this 6x8 foot house, without’ any 
outdoor run, until about six weeks old. T noticed that 
they were escaping the disease, and kept them in pur¬ 
posely, to prevent their mingling with the affected 
flocks. “Poultrywoman” leads us to infer that her 
chicks that were placed with hens had the disease also, 
though not quite as bad as those raised in brooders. 
Truly there is much yet to be learned by most of us 
about poultry. 
The seeds of roup are planted in my new hen barn 
with its 500 birds, sure enough. Soon after December L 
I began to hear that “chip” or “sneeze” which indi¬ 
cates to the practiced ear that there is trouble on hand. 
Soon there were plenty of wet nostrils and watery eyes, 
emitting that same old smell. A siege of roup in a 
flock of 500 fine birds is not a pleasant' outlook for a 
gay holiday season. My main reliance is on a well- 
ventilated house and wholesome food in rather limited 
amounts. Thus far (December 28) no swollen heads 
have developed, and only one bird has been lost this 
month. I was away from home a couple of days and 
found a small late pullet dead when I returned. If she 
died from roup it had not reached the stage of the 
swollen head and eyes. 
I he new house is meeting all my expectations so far 
as being dry and warm is concerned. We have had 
several spells of zero weather and there has been no 
condensation of moisture at all, except a little on the 
windows, which was to he expected, and a little in the 
ventilator flue where the warm air passes out’. This 
could easily he remedied by surrounding the flue with 
a few inches of packing. The up¬ 
per story is as warm as a basement 
stable full of cattle. It is no trou¬ 
ble to keep the temperature above 
the freezing point, with a constant 
movement of fresh air from each of 
the corners near the floor, toward 
the foot of the outlet flue at the 
center. 1 he lower story is venti¬ 
lated and warmed in the same way 
during fhe daytime when occupied 
by the hens. The movement of 
fresh air is from intake flues at each 
corner near the floor, up through 
the stair door near the center, and 
so out of the upper flue. 
0. W. MAPES. 
THE SHEEP OR THE DOG! 
“The sheep or the dog—that's the 
question in New England and else¬ 
where.”—R. N.-Y., December 29, 
1906. Yes, that is certainly so in 
Massachusetts, and equally certain 
that the dogs have it. Twenty-five 
years ago it was authoritatively 
stated that “Massachusetts had 
50.000 more dogs than sheep.” Our 
Worcester County Agricultural So¬ 
ciety in 1902 offered no less than 
$1,201 in premiums for 25 named 
varieties of dogs, calling the “Mis¬ 
cellaneous” as only one variety, and 
medals for fully half that number, while for sheep the 
offered premiums reached the astounding sum of $61, and 
for 23 varieties of vegetables for all the farmers in the 
county to compete for $98. When the New England 
fair unites with our Worcester County the vegetable 
premiums are no more. Sportsmen have nearly full 
control of the society. The writer remarked to the 
society’s secretary that “Our agricultural society has 
surely ‘gone to the dogs’ without any figure of speech.” 
Tie couldn’t deny it, but by way of justification or ex¬ 
tenuation of the fraud, lie claimed that “entry fees 
were charged for dogs, so that the whole expense did 
not come out of the society.” Entry fees were also 
charged for sheep. But that dobs not touch the real 
merits of the case. The iniquity and absurdity of the 
thing consist in an agricultural society encouraging 
the propagation of the worst enemy the farmer has— 
the do?. Dogs are as great a peril to poultry keepers 
as to sheep raisers. Coming home from that same fair 
grounds the writer found seven large two-thirds groum 
chicks lying dead and warm in his chicken yard, weigh¬ 
ing from 4^2 to five pounds, killed by dogs; 79 w r ere 
killed by dogs t’hat one year. s. h. record. 
