26 
THE RURAL* MEW-YORKER 
excessive feathering that denotes poor laying capacity. 
The White Leghorn is the standard laying machine, 
and if its capacity as an egg-producer could be main¬ 
tained if bred to a Wyandotte or Rock size of body the 
ideal general purpose fowl might thus be realized. The 
White Wyandotte has been for some years regarded 
as the center of attraction for general utility and fancy 
combined. Meanwhile the White Rock has by recent 
improvements been rapidly embodying its ideal of type 
and so winning new favors constantly. The White 
Cornish might be mentioned as a breed of more excel¬ 
lence for the carcass than any of the foregoing, not 
yet recognized in the popular class, but full of promise, 
excellently fulfilling the requisites of a genuine-purpose 
fowl. 
When we get outside of the list of solid white 
varieties we meet serious impediments in breeding 
owing to the difficult}' in reproducing the desired type 
of color. The solid red, as seen in the extremely 
popular Rhode Island Reds, would appear to the un¬ 
skilled to breed fairly uniform. The truth is that a 
specimen is rarely found which meets the exacting 
color demands of the fancy trade in this breed; and 
the beginner who is to make a proper start should be 
prepared to go deep in his pocket to secure stock which 
would make a fancy investment worth while, and then 
to grow enormous flocks to enable him to compete on 
equal terms, with the strenuous rivalry in this breed. 
Speaking of their practical merits, the Reds are among 
the most dependable layers to be found in the general- 
purpose class, quick maturing as pullets, but with such 
persistent brooding instincts as to be quite trouble¬ 
some to break up. 
The buff color is one that is attractive to most folks; 
and .while it is held difficult to breed true, it suffers 
little in this respect in comparison with the Reds. 
Only a few years since there was a decided boom on 
buffs, which has waned of late years, if we expect the 
Orpington of this color. The fact should be more 
generally known that there is a relationship among 
all the buff breeds, they having derived their color 
from a common ancestor—the Buff Cochin; which 
breed combined utilitarian qualities, both as to carcass 
and egg-production, in a marked degree. In this way 
the Buff Leghorn has had qualities engrafted upon it 
which differentiate it from Leghorns of other colors, 
and accordingly many regard it as approaching the 
ideal for a general-purpose breed. As an all-around 
utility fowl the Wyandotte in buff color has a large 
following, and the claim is made that this is the best 
layer among the eight recognized varieties of Wyan- 
dottes. These buff breeds (if we except the white 
flecked Orpington) have the merit of a more golden 
yellow appearance to the skin than the modern white 
fowls possess, as it has been proved that a pure white 
plumage is not to be had without some sacrifice as to 
color of skin. I have a belief that the Buff Rock is 
not at present meeting with its due share of attention. 
The great vogue of the Reds has left the true merit of 
the buff fowls somewhat in the shadow of late; but 
the wheel of popularity, which is always turning, is 
bound to bring these three yellow-fleshed buff breeds, 
which have remained fairly popular, into more notice. 
The exacting demands of color for a white fowl of 
late which must he a dead white and is often reached 
artificially by the process of bleaching, will inevitably 
aid in this matter. Everything considered, the buff 
color sums up more desirable points for a universally 
popular type than any other. f. vv. proctor. 
(To be continued.) 
THE SIGN NUISANCE IN NEW JERSEY. 
It is said that the New York Legislature has passed a 
law making it a misdemeanor to place advertising signs 
along the public highways. If such a law is needed on any 
part of the earth it is needed in New Jersey. There is a 
disposition here to move for such a law. Can you tell 
where the text of the New York law can be secured? So 
many people are taken with a chill when it is proposed 
to do something which somebody else has not done that it 
would probably be a good point to have our bill modeled 
after the New York law. making ours perhaps almost a 
duplicate of the New l 7 ork law. A. N. a. 
Sussex Co.. N. J. 
The New York law referred to (Chap. 316) went 
into force June 13, 1911. This law refers to injury 
or destruction of property along the highway. The 
section to which our friend refers is as follows: 
A person who wilfully or maliciously displaces, removes, 
injures or destroys a mile-board, milestone, danger sign 
or signal, or guide sign or post, or any inscription thereon, 
lawfully within a public highway; or who, in any manner 
paints, puts or affixes any business or commercial adver¬ 
tisement on or to any stone, tree, fence, stump, pole, build¬ 
ing or other structure, which is the property of another, 
without first obtaining the written consent of the owner 
thereof, or who in any manner paints, puts or affixes such 
an advertisement on or to any stone, tree, fence, stump, 
pole, mile-board, milestone, danger-sign, danger-signal, 
guide-sign, guide-post, billboard, building or other structure 
within the limits of a public highway is guilty of a mis¬ 
demeanor. Any advertisement in or upon a public highway 
in violation of the provision of this subdivision may be 
taken down, removed or destroyed by anyone. 
New Jersey is peculiarly cursed with highway ad¬ 
vertising. Travel from New York to Philadelphia 
and you can hardly see the country through the forest 
of signs announcing corsets, milk, razors, pills or 
‘bitters” and whisky. They a are both hideous and 
useless. If the owner of the land will rent it for this 
purpose such a law as is here mentioned might not 
stop the nuisance, but it would help. 
HENS THAT WRITE RECORDS. 
You many find it hard to believe, but those hens pic¬ 
tured on the first page will earn far more clean money 
than many a cow now eating her head off in a farm¬ 
er’s barn. They are about the top notch of White 
Rocks, and they know how to write their egg record. 
A hen write? Certainly; these hens take their pen 
in hand every time they lay an egg and leave the nest. 
Mrs. Greene, who has her eye on them, is the wife of 
our correspondent, C. S. Greene, and she can read 
their writing. But a hen write! Certainly. Do you 
see that sharp little weapon sticking out from the 
hen’s leg? That is not a spur to prove her right to 
do a man’s job in protecting the home! The pen or 
pencil is mightier than the spur. What you see is a 
little colored crayon or chalk fastened securely to 
the hen’s leg by a band. Trap nests are arranged 
like those shown at Fig. 12. The hen goes in and 
let us hope, lays a fertile egg. The door swings so 
she can crawl out ofter laying, and she soon learns 
to do so. In order to get out she must squat and 
crawl and cannot avoid stretching her shanks out flat. 
You see what happens. That crayon comes in con¬ 
tact with a piece of paper put in front of the nest 
and must make its mark on. It may be blue for 
Peggy, red for Mag or yellow for Biddy, but which¬ 
ever it is she writes her egg record on the paper and 
WHERE HENS LEARN TO WRITE. Fig, 12. 
goes off to sing and praise herself. The egg is left 
inside and no other hen can get in until the door is 
opened and “set” once more. A glance at the paper 
tells the story, for you have documentary evidence 
against the hen. Sometimes the hen makes a dot or 
a short mark, sometimes a longer one, but she can¬ 
not get Out through the door without writing her 
record. Some men are accused of writing “hen’s 
tracks,” yet we would welcome them at the foot of a 
check. The hen signatures made in this trap-nest are 
certainly good for one egg. 
THE PROBLEM OF WINTER WHEAT FLOUR. 
The letter of W. W. Cole, on page 1210, brings up 
a new question to my mind, that is. why should the 
farmer of New York, Ohio (northwestern part), 
Pennsylvan : a .and other Eastern States sell his good 
wheat for English mills to grind and turn around and 
pay a fancy price for Spring wheat flour, so-called 
by all mills located in the Northwest? The truth of 
the matter is that the American has been living in too 
big a hurry—sometimes we are away ahead on one 
item only to be away behind on many others. Baking 
Winter wheat flour is one item where the housewife is 
often behind. There was a time when the flour pro¬ 
duced in these States commanded the export trade. 
People baked their own bread almost altogether. 
Spring wheat came about 40 years ago at a much 
cheaper price, the farmer could sell his Winter wheat, 
buy Spring wheat flour, and make a little money by 
the transaction. The nutritive value of bread from 
Spring and Winter wheat flour is equal, according 
to bulletins of the U. S. Department of Agriculture/ 
The Spring wheat flour has two claims made for it; 
January 13,' 
first, that it makes more bread and is therefore more 
economical; second, that it makes better bread on 
account of its stronger gluten. The Winter wheat 
mills are all small, the largest in the United States 
being a 3,000-barrel mill at Louisville, Ky., and there 
are only a few with 1,000 barrels or over capacity. 
There are, however, a very large number of small 
mills, 10 barrels to 50 barrels daily capacity. When 
you compare this with the large Spring wheat mills, 
5,000 to 30,000 barrels daily capacity, and consider 
that there are only a few of them in number, you can 
perhaps realize why the above claims could be made 
by the Spring wheat mills and the small mills could 
do no concerted advertising to counteract it. These 
claims are what I call untrue, so far as the house¬ 
wife who bakes her own bread is concerned. 
For the commercial baker it is of course an ad¬ 
vantage to buy that which will produce the largest 
loaf from the least amount of flour. The more water 
it will absorb, the more gas or wind the gluten will 
hold, the more his profit. Bulletins of the U. S. De¬ 
partment of Agriculture show the nutritive value to 
be equal. Why, then, should a farmer pay more 
money for a flour because it will absorb 35 to 50 
pounds more water (water costs nothing and is worth 
nothing) ? The nutritive value per barrel and not the 
number of loaves, is the measure of value to the con¬ 
sumer. I deny that Spring wheat flour is more eco¬ 
nomical to the consumer at the present price, or even 
at the same price, as Winter wheat flour, and I defy 
anybody to prove by facts (not myths or unsupported 
statements) that this assertion is untrue. As to 
quality of bread the Spring wheat flour’s claim to 
quality is based on the strength or toughness of its 
gluten and its ability to make a lighter loaf. (The 
inference is that a loaf of bread from Winter wheat 
flour is heavy like a brickbat; that is, if you believe 
the advertisements.) The baker wants his loaf to 
look as big as possible for the money. It is an ad¬ 
vantage to him but not to the consumer, not near as 
much as the $1 or more saved if you buy Winter 
wheat flour. The quality of bread from Winter wheat 
flour excels Spring in flavor according to a bulletin 
of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, and is fully 
equal in ever}' other particular. 
The real reason why Spring wheat flour is used 
by so many New York farmers is because their wives 
don’t know how to bake with Winter wheat flour. 
They quit it when the Spring wheat was cheaper, and 
then later when population increased and bakeries 
sprang up and the price increased they kept right on 
at it because they were persuaded by advertising (di¬ 
rect and indirect) that it was better and more eco¬ 
nomical. There are two economic reasons why East¬ 
ern farmers’ wives should learn to bake bread from 
Winter wheat flour; first, it is generally cheaper; 
second, it is eating their own produce. Remember, 
that if everybody quit eating Winter wheat bread, 
New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania wheat would be 
worth about 60 cents per bushel to-day instead of 
about 90 cents. 
You will note that many teachers of domestic 
science come from Minnesota and North Dakota. 
They are taught to use Spring wheat flour exclusively, 
and are taught to believe the claims that are made 
for Spring wheat flour. They go out and teach it in 
the schools where they are employed. That is one 
form of indirect advertising. The above schools keep 
their domestic science departments up to the scratch, 
turn out lots of graduates and naturally the mills 
work for their support to the limit, and they get it. 
You can’t blame the mills or the teachers they turn 
out. I simply state it as a fact. 
At the beginning I referred to “so-called Spring 
wheat flour.” To illustrate, on a certain date so 
many cars of Spring wheat were received at Minne¬ 
apolis, so many cars of Winter wheat, etc.; on other 
dates, so many cars of Spring wheat were shipped out. 
All this is a matter of public record in the State 
Weighing and Inspection Department. Millions of 
bushels of Winter wheat shipped into Minneapolis, 
millions of bushels of*Spring wheat shipped out, mil¬ 
lions of barrels of Spring wheat flour (so-called) 
shipped out, but no record of all this Winter wheat 
being shipped out. You can’t get any mill to admit 
that they use it. What becomes of it? Do they dump 
it into the Mississippi? There is a whole lot of food 
for thought on this subject, especially for those who 
raise Winter wheat. Every man who raises Winter 
wheat should eat it and insist that its use be taught 
in the schools and colleges which he pays taxes to 
Support. J. W. GREENFIELD. 
Ohio. _ 
Chasing jack rabbits with automobiles was the leading 
feature of a recent rabbit round-up at Garden City. Kan., 
and 1.200 of the animals were shipped to Topeka, where 
they were distributed to the poor. Jack rabbits are a 
nuisance to farmers, but Kansas expects to exterminate 
them in the course of a few years. 
