002 
when the hens were attending to business, as will be 
seen by the crowded condition of the nests, and the 
group of hens eating dry mash from the big hopper. 
On page 307 W. J. Dougan says that “if anyone 
can build cheaper ($1 per hen) for a good house, they 
can beat me.” This house cost $80 (without the 
brooding compartment) and houses 200 hens, with 
about three feet of floor space per hen. I am almost 
afraid to tell the truth about it in The R. N.-Y. for 
fear I will be accused of telling fairy tales. 
Fig. 204 gives an interior view of one of the 40-day 
houses without the brooding compartment This is 
unpatented, and equal to it for all purposes except 
for brooding young chicks. It is 24x36 feet and 
iarge enough to accommodate 300 hens. It is only 
partially stocked as yet, and has nests only on one 
side. More nests will be installed as needed, there 
being plenty of room against the roof. The base on 
which the dry mash bin rests is the only thing about 
the furnishing that obstructs any of the floor space. 
The hens have the whole floor space to themselves. 
The only way we could photograph such a wide room 
at close range was by joining two separate exposures. 
There are just six pieces of furniture, hirst on the 
right is seen the end of the drinking trough. This is 
metal lined, is raised from the floor high enough so 
that the hens cannot scratch litter into it, has a wide 
cover that protects the water from droppings, and 
extends through the wire front so that it can be filled 
without opening the door. It can also be emptied 
from the outside end by pulling a plug. The wide 
cover was shoved partly to one side when the picture 
was taken, better to show the trough. Next on the 
right comes the dry mash bin or hopper. This also 
is elevated from the floor enough to avoid litter being 
scratched into the feed. The cover to this is sloping 
so that the hens cannot perch on it. It is large 
enough to hold at least a week s supply for 300 hens. 
Between the perches and the feed bin and nests is 
a muslin curtain to be lowered on extremely cold 
nights. One part of the curtain was dropped in place 
while the picture was being taken. The perches are 
high and the curtains do not extend clear to the 
floor. This allows the floor to be cleaned if desired 
without moving the perches, and the curtains can 
be left down all day if desired, as the hens can easily 
pass under them. 
The nests are just high enough for a man to pick 
the eggs from them without bending his back. The 
foot-board running along in front of the nests is 
hinged to the nests. It can be folded up to close the 
entrance to the nests at night. There is then no place 
in the house a hen can get foothold except on the 
perches. A barrel shown near the window in Fig. 203 
holds a supply of mixed grain. This also has a slop¬ 
ing cover. 
Now we are ready for a true fairy story. The flock 
shown at Fig. 203, which has never known any other 
home, is cared for by the expenditure of two minutes 
of my time each morning, and three minutes again 
each evening, not guesswork, but by the watch. The 
price of eggs is unusually low this season, hut in the 
pasts 40 days they have laid not less than i02 and not 
more than 145 eggs a day, a total of 402 dozen, which 
have been sold by the crate at 26 cents per dozen, 
a total of $104.52. This more than pays the original 
cost of their house. In the 45 days just passed they 
have eaten 1,215 pounds mixed grain costing $14.58, 
and 000 pounds dry mash costing $14.40, besides 60 
pounds green cut bone costing $1.80, a total for feed 
of $30.78. The number of eggs laid in the 45 days 
has been 5,451, worth $118.10 at 26 cents per dozen. 
Five minutes labor per day for the 45 days amounts 
to 225 minutes, or nearly four hours. Here is clear 
return above the cost of feed and labor to pay for a 
good house in 45 days. Think of it, $S7.32 return for 
four hours’ labor on a farm! The 200 hens are 
worth about a dollar each, the price of two good 
cows. Where would two cows be in a contest with 
200 good hens? Suppose I could get 45 cents per 
dozen for eggs, as Mr. Dougan does, or that I had 
enough such flocks to keep me busy feeding for an 
hour before breakfast! 
How do I care for the hens so quickly? 
In the first place, I have my feed man fill the barrel 
with mixed grain and the bin with dry mash about 
once a week. The droppings pay for a man’s time to 
clean up as often as is necessary. The late Prof. 
Gowell taught that in connection with a dry mash 
constantly before the hens, it was good practice to 
give mixed grain in two feeds daily, one in the early 
morning, and the other about 10 a. m. I go him one 
better, and teach that it is good practice to give the 
entire daily allowance of mixed grain at one feed, in 
the morning, before the hens are released from the 
house. Mine find their drink, except in freezing 
weather, at a nearby spring brook. 
About 7 a. m. I unlock the door, open the nests, see 
that the dry mash hopper is not clogged, then remove 
•THE RURAL) NEW-VORKER 
the cover from the barrel and take out two pails of 
mixed grain. Of course, I don't scatter this by hand¬ 
fuls, but by placing one hand on the bottom of the 
pail, with the handle in the other hand, a few semi¬ 
circular motions of the pail distributes it in the litter 
as I walk across the floor. This is repeated with the 
second pailful, and the job is done until next morn¬ 
ing, except to come at evening and gather the eggs, 
close the nests and lock the door. With the basket on 
my left arm. I carry four eggs at a time from the 
nest to the basket with my right hand. Ten or 12 
dozen eggs can thus he transferred from these nests 
to a basket in short order. There is nothing remark¬ 
able about this record unless it be the small amount 
of labor required with the use of modern appliances 
and methods. Sixty per cent of eggs daily is not 
CONSTRUCTION OF APPLE STORAGE. Fig. 205. 
unusual, and 26 cents per dozen is not a big price for 
the eggs. There is danger that the publication of 
this true story may lead some novices to think that 
anyone can make an easy living by investing a few 
hundred dollars in hens. Alas, that there must be 
so many bitter lessons of failure and disappointment 
before success is apt to come to most of those who 
embark in the poultry business without previous ex¬ 
perience ! I neglected to say that twice a week I give 
that pen of hens five pounds of green cut bone which 
my butcher furnishes ready ground at three cents per 
pound. o. w. MAPES. 
SIMPLE APPLE STORAGE. 
I noticed in a recent number of The R. N.-Y. some 
observer said that apples were coming out of cold 
storage browned, having been in storage too long. 
I remember also seeing an item in the Hope Farm 
Notes, about April last year, where the writer mourned 
the departure of baked apple season. It is neither 
difficult nor expensive to build a fruit storage house 
that will give first-class results. My photograph shows 
such a house. Fig. 206. The frame and rafters are 
2x4 hemlock, and the siding is rough inch boards. 
The iron gutters will not be necessary if sufficient 
overhang is given to the eaves. The walls are 10 inches 
thick, and there are two doors, one opening inward 
and the other outward. Between the doors we put 
two mattresses made of cheap muslin or ticking and 
stuffed with hay. The walls are double, being 12 
FARM-MADE APPLE STORAGE. Fig. 20(5. 
inches apart, and filled in between with manure. We 
built this house last Autumn, too late to get the best 
results from it, as the fresh manure kept the house 
warm too late into the Winter. However, we wintered 
about 120 bushels of apples in it with about one per 
cent loss and about 50 bushels of potatoes with abso¬ 
lutely no loss. Apples and potatoes were packed in 
ordinary bushel crates and stacked to the roof. To¬ 
day, the first of May, there are about 20 bushels in 
the house, the Greenings and Spies and potatoes in 
perfect condition, hard and plump. The Russets are 
just a little off condition, not enough to show wrinkles 
or rot. Of course, the wood that is underground will 
May 20, 
rot, but such a house will stand up and give service 
for seven or eight years, and by that time we expect 
to need one ten times as large. f. a. k. 
Scranton, Pa. 
WIREWORMS AND MICE. 
I bought a farm of 120 acres, about SO acres being clear 
and remainder in timber. The farm has been neglected, 
and I have about 20 acres I am plowing for corn first. I 
burnt the fields over and I take notice that the land is 
just full of these short-tailed meadow mice. Could you 
tell me of any remedy to clear the land of these pests? 
1 know from experience that they do a lot of damage to 
the corn, eating it, and it is very hard to get a stand. 
C. H. G. 
You have a case of “clean culture.” Nothing except 
thorough working of that soil will clean out the ver¬ 
min. It will take two years at least of thorough stir¬ 
ring to get rid of those wireworms. The only thing 
you can do now to hurry up this process would be to 
turn a good-sized drove of hungry hogs into the field 
after rough plowing. Do not feed them much. Make 
it a case or “root hog or die.” They will rip the 
whole field over and get thousands of the mice and 
worms. Keep these hogs there as long as possible, 
delaying corn planting. The plan of killing out wire- 
worms with ashes or salt will not succeed. Y ou 
would have to use enough salt to spoil the land to 
kill the worms. The “Mark Lane Express” tells of a 
backyard gardener who lost radishes by the maggots. 
His friend advised the use of salt: 
“Well,” said the friend, when next they met, “and did 
you try the salt on those insects?” 
“Yes.” replied the gardener, tears once more in his eyes, 
“and the next morning, when T went to look, the little 
beggars were pulling up the radishes, dipping them in the 
salt, and devouring them by the dozen.” 
WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH THE MANURE? 
Nearly all dairymen and many stock feeders have 
concrete floors and covered feed lots, and the manure 
problem to them is when to apply it to the land; 
but there are a great many farmers who feed a few 
steers, usually around a straw rick or near an open 
shed, during Winter. Perhaps such methods are 
crude, wasteful and primitive, but the fact remains 
that there are many instances of the sort, and in most 
cases carelessness and shiftlessness are not responsible 
for the practice. T can prove the truth of the latter 
statement if any one doubts the assertion. Cattle fed 
roughage and a small grain ration usually run on pas¬ 
ture in the Spring as soon as the grass starts, or as 
soon as the ground gets solid, but the feed is con¬ 
tinued up to near May 1 in southern Ohio, and there 
is small incentive to clean up the feed lot accumula¬ 
tion of manure until near the end of the feeding 
period. However, it is usually during March and 
April that we must break the sod fields intended for 
corn or oats, and manure hauling at such a time inter¬ 
feres seriously with the plowing, to say nothing of 
hauling heavy wet manure over soft fields, with teams 
not yet accustomed to hard work after a Winter’s 
idleness. Of course the horse stables and all other 
stables are cleaned up, and the manure hauled and 
spread a? fast as made, or practically so; that is, 
no large quantities are allowed to accumulate, but the 
real problem is the manure in the feed lot where a lot 
of steers have been wintered. One would like to 
have such manure spread thinly on our sod fields be¬ 
fore breaking, but a large acreage under the plow 
and a late wet Spring, like the present one, compels 
one to make other plans. I am not writing this as one 
who has solved the problem, but as one who is seek¬ 
ing a way out of the difficulty. One way is to leave 
the manure in the feed lots till after wheat harvest, 
and then spread on the stubble to benefit the young 
clover. This is ideal if the manure is under cover, 
but in the cases under consideration it is not, and it is 
during the Summer that manure wastes so rapidly 
when exposed. 
Another way is to haul the manure after corn plant¬ 
ing and spread thinly over the cornfields. _ My experi¬ 
ence and observation is that the manure is too much 
in the way of cultivation. To put it on the meadows 
might do the hay crop good, but much of the coarse 
part would be raked up with the hay. Now it seems 
that we must compromise with some of these con¬ 
ditions, and which ones is the question. If anyone 
has a good working plan, will he please tell us about 
it? A covered feed lot is the best solution, but the 
present status of cattle feeding does not justify such 
an expensive one. We have had much wet weather 
in March and April this year, and though much sod 
is broken, but little oats have been sown yet, April 13, 
and there is lots of clover sod to break and manure to 
get out. We have had two days’ rain this week, with 
prospects for more soon. Two or three working days 
each week are about all we can count on, or at least 
that is about the number we have had in each of 
the past three or four weeks. One good feature is 
that the weather has been warm enough for the grow¬ 
ing grass, but that is a minor consideration when so 
much team work remains to be done. So far as the 
feed-lot manure is concerned, it will have to take care 
of itself until a more propitious time for getting it out 
on the fields. w - D * 
Hillsboro, Ohio. 
