1907. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
339 
A BACKYARD CHICKEN FARM. 
Success on a City Lot. 
On page 216 G. O. B., of Sullivan Co., N. Y., de¬ 
scribes his troubles with hens. I give my experience 
in answer. I keep a small flock (25 P. Rocks) for 
pleasure and profit, and to divert my mind from my 
business, and I get lots more “fun” this way than all 
the social functions going. I live in the suburbs of 
Philadelphia on a 50 x 200-feet lot, see Fig. 153. I am 
away all day, and am obliged to have some method of 
feeding that will not claim too much attention from 
the women folks, as they are not overfond of the 
feathered tribe except in full evening dress. For the last 
two seasons this has been my plan: After the birds 
have gone to roost I shake up the straw litter into a 
pile in the center of the floor, throw one quart of 
cracked corn into it; that is their breakfast. At 10 
o’clock my wife gives them the same amount of wheat 
and oats, half each, and gathers the eggs. That is all 
the attention they get, except the water and green stuff 
I give them in the morning. I have read all the bulle¬ 
tins that have been issued by the Maine Experiment 
Station. I also read half a dozen poultry papers, in¬ 
cluding al! that appears in The R. N.-Y., and I believe 
Prof. Gowell has them all “tied to a post” for egg get¬ 
ting. In a slotted trough on one side of pen I have 
the Gowell dry feed mixture always before 
the birds, sift out the straw occasionally 
that the birds throw in, as I find it is not 
good practice to have the trough too high, 
to avoid this. Now right here is where I 
think the inquirer falls down. Beginning 
this season, November 1, I fed my birds 
a generous feed of green cut bone every 
Sunday morning, and this is what it did. 
It will do three things; it will cause them 
to lay more eggs, cause looseness of the 
bowels, and a partial moult of neck and 
tail feathers; not all of them, of course, 
but those birds that are not able to stand 
up under such stimulating feeding. The 
linseed meal and beef scrap contained in 
the dry mash is all sufficient without the 
cut bone, and a feed once in a while causes 
trouble if you are not careful and on the 
lookout. One thing I would like to im¬ 
press upon you as most important when 
mixing this mash, and that is to add granu¬ 
lated charcoal. I mix 50 pounds bran, 25 
middlings, 25 cornmeal, etc., at a time, and 
to this proportion I add half a peck of 
granulated charcoal, not powdered nor the 
coarse kind, but like gunpowder. The 
birds will not eat enough charcoal if kept 
before them in hoppers. Do not feed 
cooked vegetables of any kind, except it be 
potatoes mashed in bran. I scald half a 
peck long-cut clover over night and feed 
in the morning; they like it better than 
when fed dry; cabbage for a change. This 
small flock has eaten one barrel of mangels 
this Winter; these are fed sparingly, as too 
many cause looseness. Green stuff is the 
more economical, and should be liberally 
used. The water is.given them lukewarm 
in the morning, and is not renewed all day 
and sometimes it is quite congealed at 
evening if the day has been cold. I should 
add—feed liberally of green stuff, clover or 
Alfalfa, and you will have fertile eggs. 
Last season every egg I set produced a 
chick that was strong and husky, not one died, and the 
pullets matured fully before laying, and kept on laying 
up to date. I have had pullets to lay in four and half 
months, but that takes a lot of time and care, and I 
do not care to bother; it is too much like work. I let 
my pullets go till they are six months old, and then 
I begin to look for eggs, and I get them. 
You will ask, “Do I get many eggs?” Yes, lots of 
them, from the first of November, when there was not 
an egg in sight from those pullets until the twenty- 
eighth of February they just laid 50 per cent. Some 
days in December and January I gathered 20 eggs. 
They took a rest in February and got down to a half 
dozen. I was glad they did, for I’m going to breed from 
those pullets, and they now are under full steam again. 
During the short days in Winter I do not see my 
birds off the perch except on Sunday. I go over them 
on the roost every night and feel their crops, and 
find them full, but not distended, and right here let me 
say I use the ax on the bird that will not fill its crop 
by bed time; it is a non-producer every time. 
Now about the louse question. I believe “cleanliness 
is next to godliness,” and like you, I believe in keeping 
everything scrupulously clean. I used to gather road 
dust in the Summer for dust baths for Winter, but it 
made the house so unsightly I wrote to Prof. Gowell 
and asked him what he used, telling him my objection 
to the dust. He said he used sand, so I adopted sand 
and loam and a good quantity of powdered sulphur; 
it will not hurt the skin. Of course there will be no 
lice where there is lots of dust, and the big producers 
clean house once a year; cultivate the dust, so to speak. 
Paint the perches liberally with coal oil and carbolic 
acid (crude) ; put lots of it in the whitewash. Do not 
fail to use the dust box in some sunny spot; use a 
liberal amount of Persian insect powder in the nests 
Summer and Winter. Get a sprayer and spray the coal 
oil and carbolic acid everywhere except in the nest 
boxes. 
Let me add one thing more. I do not raise any male 
birds, but each Fall get a cockerel from Gowell, and 
each season see an increase in the egg yield. My 
hobby is to build up a laying strain. I want to average 
160 eggs per hen per year, and in order to do that, in 
the absence of trap nests, I take the early layers, the 
quick-maturing birds for breeders. I have nothing for 
sale—keep the small flock for eggs, meat and the pleas¬ 
ure I have in making it a success. j. h. j. 
A LONG ISLAND POTATO CROP. . 
The One-Legged Farmer Gives Another Talk. 
Every farmer knows that preparation of the soil is a 
forerunner of the crop. A clover sod plowed under 
in the Fall and well worked in the Spring makes an 
ideal seed bed, but I am not permitted to have this 
advantage, from the fact that our land is so busy all the 
time, turning out two crops a year, that we do not have 
time to raise clover to plow under. We usually sow 
Timothy, oats or rye in the Fall as a catch crop in 
whatever crop is growing, viz., sprouts, cucumbers, 
Lima beans, etc., and this seeding of grain we leave to 
grow until Spring, when it is turned under. This 
serves a three-fold purpose; to keep the ground cov¬ 
ered with a growing crop to protect it from the action 
of the weather; to use up what chemicals would other¬ 
wise escape, and to furnish humus for the soil. This 
method is the next best thing we can get to a clover 
sod for potatoes, and makes good lively soil for any 
crop. This is Long Island practice, of course, climate 
and location must be considered with all catch crops. 
First comes the selection of seed. We are careful to 
sort our seed, using only smooth, medium potatoes 
with deep eyes. Potatoes with surface eyes or double 
eyes are thrown out, as we believe they cannot produce 
a strong plant. The eye at the butt is also discarded, 
being a slow grower, and the eye at the tip is also 
discarded for the reason that we use only one eye to 
a piece and as there are so many eyes at the tip we 
want to eliminate some of them, so we cut off the tip 
in this way. We have one eye to a piece and the piece 
large enough to furnish plenty of nutriment to the 
eye. We experimented one year with the seed end, 
cutting off a good-sized piece with a number of eyes 
on them and planting them by themselves. They came 
up first and grew more rapidly, but the crop was a 
great many small potatoes, consequently we figured we 
would get more uniform potatoes by rejecting the seed 
end. I am going to make another trial this year and 
will let the readers of The R. N.-Y. know of the 
result. Most farmers use plaster or lime on their pota¬ 
toes when cut to prevent bleeding and rot. We bury 
them in sand when cut to prevent this, and also that 
they may harden, or to go through that stage of prepa¬ 
ration that they must go through in the soil before 
sprouting. We usually cut our potatoes some days in 
advance of planting, but this is not practical, unless 
you are going to protect them in some such way as I 
have mentioned. We like to have our pieces cut uni¬ 
form as they feed so much more regularly in the 
Robbins planter. 
It is a very satisfactory process to apply about half 
of the fertilizer broadcast before harrowing the ground. 
This method mixes it- well into the soil. Apply the 
other half in the drill when planting; in this way the 
sprout from the potato is enabled to crowd its roots 
into the surrounding soil, and take from it the particles 
which will abundantly minister to its life. We use 
from 2,000 to 3,000 pounds of fertilizer. In 
some cases we plow under stable manure, 
and when this is done less commercial 
fertilizer is used. We use the high-grade 
fertilizers for potatoes, and feel sure it 
pays to use the best; every dollar invested 
will give ample returns. 
A great many farmers are careful to soak 
their potatoes in corrosive sublimate to pre¬ 
vent scab. We have never found this nec¬ 
essary, as we dig most of our potatoes 
early before.the vines are dead and then, 
too, we are careful to rotate our crops so 
that potatoes shall not follow each other 
too often. We use a Robbins planter and 
plant our potatoes from two to three inches 
deep. We plant our potatoes in this section 
altogether with potato planters. Our rows 
are 2J4 feet apart, and have the machine 
regulated to plant 10 and 12 inches apart 
in the row. We think we get better results 
by cutting one eye to a piece and planting 
them near together than several eyes and 
planting 18 inches apart, as is the case in 
some sections. 
We so arrange the disks or coverers that 
they shall throw quite a ridge; this for two 
reasons: First, that the potatoes shall be 
protected from frost, and second, so that 
we are able to run a spike-tooth harrow 
over them several times to kill what weeds 
are starting, and also to keep the ground 
loose. When the potatoes are shooting 
through the ground we abandon the harrow 
for a weeder, and this we use until the 
potatoes are several inches high. We culti¬ 
vate at least once before the potatoes are 
up and thereafter at least once a week 
until the vines are too large to admit it. 
We have not found it necessary to use 
Bordeaux for spraying as yet, as we raise 
early potatoes mostly, but we are satisfied 
it pays on late potatoes. Paris-green is 
applied both by spraying machine and dry 
powder blowers. When the crop is dug 
empty barrels are carted to the lot; these are filled and 
loaded and carted to the pier, where the steamer loads 
them for the New York market. As fast as the crop 
is dug the ground is cleaned of vines and ground put 
in condition for second cropj which consists of cucum¬ 
bers, sprouts, Lima beans, cabbage, cauliflower, turnips, 
etc. Three hundred bushels of potatoes to the acre 
is an average yield; as high as 450 bushels have been 
raised. fred tabor. 
Long Island. _ 
We have often mentioned the help we receive from 
readers. As is known, we do not pretend to know it 
all, but rather welcome comment or criticism that will 
bring any statement nearer the truth. The excellent 
spirit among our readers is well illustrated by the fol¬ 
lowing note from New York State: 
You give so much that it makes a fellow feel like giving 
something in return if he only knew enough to speak with 
authority. Yours truly does not. but he might mention one 
thing that would help someone if never tried. 
Our friend then goes on to give a useful bit of his 
experience, which will help many. Tt is just this sort 
of help which makes newspaper work inspiring and sat¬ 
isfying. The R. N.-Y. has a family of readers to be 
proud of. _ 
An excellent bulletin for those who need It is No. 74 from 
North Dakota (Fargo). It gives “Hints to Homesteaders.'’ 
WHITE PLYMOUTH ROCK COCKEREL. Fig. 154. 
