1909. 
Tut: KUKAL NEVV-YOKKER 
607 
INCUBATORS AND VITALITY. 
Some Experience with Trap-nests. 
On page 509 I read with considerable surprise and 
full measure of doubt the statements of L. R. P. 
concerning the effect that persistent use of incu¬ 
bators has on the vitality of the strain of fowls so 
built up. I remember reading the article referred to 
by L. R. P.. but it did not occur to me that it was 
written by a maker of incubators. If it was that 
particular incubator maker is mistaken, because I 
have had sufficient proof to convince me that incu¬ 
bator-hatched thicks develop as vigorously as any 
others, and that the use of the incubator may be 
continued generation after generation without evil 
effects of any kind. This has proved true in my own 
experience, and on a much larger scale in the ex¬ 
perience of others. One example will suffice. In a 
small territory adjoining Petaluma, California, I saw 
poultry farms on which were kept something over 
one million hens. These were almost all White Leg¬ 
horns. This breed has been kept almost exclusively 
in that country for years, generation has succeeded 
generation of incubator-hatched fowls, and one could 
not find a healthier or more prolific lot of hens in 
this country. In Nevada is a flock of W hite Leg¬ 
horns with which I am well acquainted. 1 have been 
among them day after day, for weeks at a time; have 
helped the owner go through his trap-nests, and have 
watched the birds carefully. Part of the foundation 
stock on this ranch was bought in the Stale of New 
York from a famous breeder, and a part from the 
incubator-descended flocks of Petaluma. The Peta¬ 
luma strain lays much better than the ones from the 
East, and this is not the only example that I have in 
mind. In the immediate neighborhood is another 
flock of the same breed, the owner of which has 
had the same experience. Some non-progressive 
poultrymen, who secured fame when the poultry bus¬ 
iness was young in this country, have been decrying 
tbe use of incubators since, first they began to be 
used, but I notice that the big duck farms of Long 
Island, western New York and Massachusetts, con¬ 
tinue to hatch ducklings in incubators, and breed 
from those reserved for the purpose, without seeing 
their stock deteriorate and become devitalized. 
Trap-nesting, too, has its enemies. Tt i- a branch 
of the business which perhaps will never become uni¬ 
versal, but there is no good reason for thinking that 
it worries the hens to any extent. 1 remember visit¬ 
ing a large poultry farm in Pennsylvania, where the 
White Leghorns were trap-nested. T went the rounds 
with the owner several times, and was 
amused at the calmness with which the 
hens waited to be taken from the nest. 
They would stand with their heads 
through the opening in the door with per¬ 
fect patience until taken out. They would 
cluck to the ow'ner when he lifted them 
out, and most of them stood perfectly still 
when they were set down after their 
number was taken. When they were put 
back in the pen they were as quiet as if 
they had not been touched, and it struck 
me that that particular flock was made up 
of about the quietest lot of White Leg¬ 
horns I ever saw. 
In the case of the Nevada hens I hap¬ 
pened to be on the ranch when the trap- 
nests were installed. The hens .had never 
been handled, and were as wild as 
horns usually are when first handled, but 
within a week not a hen would struggle 
when lifted out of the nest, nor did they 
worry if not taken off immediately. I 
have just had a letter from the owner of 
this ranch in which he says the pullets I 
selected for him—the trap-nested ones—■ 
are producing eggs of greater vitality than 
any he has had for two years. 
Our friend is also opposed to dry 
mashes, giving as his reason that it is con¬ 
trary to nature. This long ago ceased to 
he an argument. If it had any of the 
elements that convince, men and women 
would be eating uncooked grain and raw 
meat to-day. When we say a certain 
method is contrary to nature we are getting on thin 
ice. Because wo do not always follow nature’s ways 
we have no reason for saying our ways are con¬ 
trary; they only may be different. I ceased to feed 
wet mashes at least 12 years ago, and about that time 
I found T was having less trouble with the diseases of 
chickenhood than I had had for a good many years 
before. I fail to see where the feeding of wet 
mashes is in accordance with the ways of nature. I 
can see but little difference between feeding whole 
grain dry and grinding the same grain before feeding 
it. 'Fhe Maine Experiment Station has been quoted 
many times and oft, as showing diametrically oppo¬ 
other line they undertake. I long ago ceased to 
talk about “the one best way.” I have seen flocks 
flourish and increase under so many different sorts 
of treatment that I will not argue for the best way, 
but I believe in progress and in accepting that 
method which is satisfactory while requiring less ef¬ 
fort than any other. A man is not necessarily lazy 
because be adopts the easiest method. He may use 
all his time profitably and to more effect than does 
the man who follows a cumbersome method and ac¬ 
complishes less. MILLER PURVIS. 
CRIMSON CLOVER AND SWEET POTATOES. 
I notice on page 563 an article by Prof. W. F. 
Massey answering an inquiry as to advisability of 
planting sweet potatoes after Scarlet clover stubble. 
I have never tried sweets after clover has been 
taken off, but have several times planted them after 
plowing under the crop, and in every instance there 
was an immense growth of vines and small crop of 
potatoes unless 1 waited until very late to dig them, 
and as early maturity is the chief essential in this 
section and Virginia, perhaps this lateness in ma¬ 
turing is the chief reason why the growers of Acco- 
mac and Northampton continue to haul woods 
mould. A neighbor of mine planted sweets in a 
piece of ground last season that had Scarlet clover 
at one end and rye at the other. The plants were, 
planted the long way, half of each row in clover sod, 
other half in rye. The difference in yield was some¬ 
thing astonishing, over double on rye sod and tubers 
were much better shaped. Perhaps, if, as Mr. Mas¬ 
sey advises, results would have been different if 
farmer had waited until clover had died, but this 
would have been too late for early market In ref¬ 
erence to tarring corn the best plan I have even tried 
is dipping the end of corncob very lightly in tar, 
then stirring the corn with tarred end. In this way 
none of the grains gets too much tar, and it is as¬ 
tonishing how much corn a little tar will cover. 
Worcester Co, Md. f. e. Matthews. 
R. N.-Y.—The trouble probably was that the 
clover furnished too much nitrogen for the sweets. 
This will delay maturity, as we know from growing 
tomatoes. We have kept them growing and making 
vine while others were ripening fruit. The use of 
potash and acid phosphate with the clover will usu¬ 
ally overcome this objection. 
NO NITROGEN BOUGHT HERE. 
I am asked if farmers of this Maryland peninsula 
are able to grow large crops of various farm prod¬ 
ucts, without buying any nitrogen, but can 
depend upon the growth of Crimson clover 
and cow peas for the supply. In the main 
the statement is correct, unless climatic 
conditions were unfavorable at seeding 
time, making it impossible to secure a 
stand of clover. I have land that has been 
plowed annually for the last 12 or 15 years, 
growing a crop of either corn or tomatoes 
for cannery each year, besides a crop of 
hay every other year. When tomatoes 
are grown my plan has been to plow the 
clover crop down when about six or eight 
inches high in order to insure a better seed 
bed by frequent cultivations of the soil 
before setting plants, but when corn fol¬ 
lows the clover, it is always cut for hay, 
and com planted on the fresh-turned 
clover sod. My application of fertilizer is 
always made on the fresh-plowed land be¬ 
fore planting either crop, a larger amount 
for tomatoes than corn, and in either case 
about the same amount as would be used 
had the land received a moderate dressing 
of stable manure. Many farmers apply 
acid phosphate and potash to their clover 
in early Spring, and none when planting 
their corn. I saw a neighbor this morning 
planting corn on a fresh-turned clover sod, 
where lie said lie had grown corn continu¬ 
ously for 15 years, by applying a mod¬ 
erate dressing of fertilizer to the clover 
crop in the Spring and none’ at the time 
lie planted corn, with the result that both 
crops continued to improve. His corn in¬ 
creased from 20 to 50 bushels per acre, which is also 
the experience of many of us. This year’s crop of 
Crimson clover hay is the best for many years, cut¬ 
ting an average of two tons of cured hay per acre, 
and still leaving a large amount on the ground uncut, 
which will provide abundant humus to conserve mois¬ 
ture for the growing crop of corn that will follow. 
Delaware. chas. b. barker. 
It is claimed by some that certain birds are killed by 
spraying with arsenic to destroy leaf-eating insects. Do 
you know anything about it? If so. Dr. E. II. Forbush, 
State Ornithologist, Boston. Mass., would like your in¬ 
formation. Also any facts about purple martins. 
site results. The fact that the flock kept at the sta¬ 
tion did not average as many eggs, per hen, at the 
end of nine years as it did the first year shows, to my 
mind, that a mistake was made in the selection of 
breeding stock. Pick up a lot of liens and trap-nest 
them for a year, and possibly one or more will show 
200 eggs or more. This does not necessarily argue 
that the progeny of that hen will be good producers. 
She may lack entirely the prepotency to transmit her 
qualities. Great advances in good qualities with any 
kind of stock are not made in a day. It took a life- 
Leg- 
DORMANT “RESURRECTION” PLANT. Natural Size. 
Fio. 260. See Ruralisms, Page 610. 
time to reduce the trotting records from 2:40 to less 
than two minutes. It required more than one life¬ 
time to produce 300 pounds of butter from a cow 
in a year, and the recent phenomenal records are 
the results of all that has gone before in the way of 
study and acquired skill. 
Personally I do not expect to see a very large 
flock of 200-egg hens which come from the same 
strain. When a man tells me that his hens average 
180 eggs in a year I am 'sorry for him on account of 
the fate that awaits him. If he says 150 eggs in a 
year I forget it. I have been breeding poultry for a 
good many years. I bought my first setting of pure¬ 
REVIVED “RESURRECTION” PLANT. One-Half Natural 
Size. Fig. 261. See Ruralisms, Page 610. 
bred eggs in 1882 and I have visited all the largest 
poultry farms in this country from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific. I have asked questions innumerable, and I 
am firmly convinced from my own experience and 
from information gained from others that incubators 
do not necessarily tend to reduce vitality, that trap- 
nesting does not injure the germ in an egg, and that 
dry mashes are better in every way than wet feeds. 
In breeding poultry as in every other operation in 
life we find engaged in the business those who have 
no natural adaptability for the business; they lack 
the sort of common sense which is necessary to that 
business, while, perhaps perfectly successful in every 
