860 
THE RURAL NJ3 W-YORKER 
.august 10, 
The Henyard. 
THE EGG-LAYING CONTEST. 
The thirty-seventh week of the contest 
shows a drop of 48 eggs from the previous 
week's record, the total number of eggs laid 
during the week being 1,803. A new breed 
makes the highest score this week, the 
American Buff Wyandotte Club entered a 
pen of Buffs, and their record of 80 eggs 
is the highest this week. The next highest 
is Tom's River Poultry Farm White Leg¬ 
horns with 27 to their credit. It is a 
pretty safe bet that W. J. Tilley's White 
Rocks, with their record of 34 eggs in a 
week out of a possible 35, will not be 
beaten in this contest, for the best laying 
period lias gone by for this year. F. G. 
Yost's White Leghorns have laid 70S; 
Thomas Barron's (the English pen), have 
laid 759, Marwood Poultry Farm 755. Beu¬ 
lah Farm White Wyandottes 740, White 
Rose Farm White Leghorns 739. Susie 
Abbott's White Leghorns 721. These are 
the highest scorers, and all but one pen are 
White Leghorns. Tom’s River Poultry 
Farm’s White Leghorns are entitled to a 
place in the above record, as their total 
score is the same as the White Rose Farm 
birds, viz., 739. The highest individual 
score is by O. Wilson’s Buff Orpington, 207 
eggs. The highest score among the Barred 
Rocks is by Henry I). Riley’s oullet No. 2, 
record 1G9; the highest among the White 
Wyandottes is held by three birds, two of 
McLeod Bros., pullet No. 3, and pullet No. 
5. Each have laid 1G1 eggs, and W. B. 
Candee’s pullet No. 1 has also laid 1G1 eggs. 
Among the S. C. R. I. Reds. Mrs. Harris 
Lehman's pullet No. 4 has 173 eggs to her 
credit, her nearest competitor being II. P. 
Deming’s pullet No. 2, with 155 eggs. W. 
J. Tilley’s White Rock No. 3 leads that 
breed with a score of 162. F. G. Yost’s 
pullet No. 1 leads all the White Leghorns 
with a record of 178, W. H. Peterson's 
pullet No. 1 and Marwood Poultry Farms 
pullet No. 2 have each a record of 173. 
The United States Census Department 
has just published an abstract giving the 
values of live stock on farms. The figures 
for cattle, hogs, horses and sheep are four 
billions, 7G0 millions of dollars; the value 
of poultry on farms is given as $154,663,- 
220. It is a great pity that effort was not 
made to obtain the real value of the poultry 
in the whole country. By leaving out the 
poultry kept in the suburbs of cities and 
in the small towns all over the land, the 
figures that are obtained are of little 
value, and probably do not represent one- 
half the value of the actual poultry in the 
United Stated. Iowa ranks first among 
the States, both in the value of poultry 
and of all live stock. New York leads in 
the number of dairy cows. Even with the 
partial record of the poultry, the gain 
in the last 10 years is over 80 per cent. 
In Arizona the gain in the value of farm 
poultry in 10 years is 1,400 per cent. West 
of the Mississippi River has 43.4 per cent 
of the value of all poultry, leaving 56.6 
per cent of it east of that river. 
GEO. A. COSGItOVE. 
Enteritis in Fowls. 
I have trouble with some of my hens. 
They first appear drowsy, then quit eating; 
droppings yellow and watery. They live 
from two to four weeks after affected. I 
have a very fine rooster, White Orpington, 
that is now hardly able to stand up; has 
been sick for three weeks. J. z. l. k. 
West Virginia. 
You give a description that fits very well 
the disease known as enteritis, or catarrhal 
inflammation of the intestines. This form 
of inflammation may be due to the over¬ 
feeding of condiments or stimulating foods, 
to the eating of moldy or tainted food, to 
the drinking of water contaminated by 
filth, or to exposure to cold rains, and con¬ 
finement in damp, filthy, and draughty 
coops. The remedy is to seek out and re¬ 
move the cause present in any given case, 
and meanwhile all affected birds should be 
removed from the flock, and confined by 
themselves, in order that their droppings 
may not spread the infection to others. 
si. B. D. 
Sickly Chicks. 
Can you tell me what is the matter with 
my chicks? I get along with them finely 
until they are about the size of a pigeon, 
and then some of them will begin to mope, 
their combs turn a purplish red, and they 
grow weaker every day for eight or 10 
days and then die. Their run is about 50 
feet wide and 400 feet or more long. I 
have 97 in that space, and surely they have 
room enough, as we cut hay from the yard 
this season. I feed wheat and commercial 
chick feed in the morning with an occa¬ 
sional n.ash, and cracked corn at 
noon and night. I have gravel in 
a heap where they can scratch, and 
charcoal by them all the time. The 
breed is White Wyandotte, but I have a 
few Leghorns and they are just as sickly ; 
that is a few of them. Can you suggest 
a remedy? The house is cleaned every 
week and floor and roosts are painted with 
kerosene, so I do not think it can be lice. 
Connecticut. r.. g. s. 
The symptoms that you describe are not 
indicative of any one particular disease, 
but characterize various affections from 
which your chicks suffer. You do not men¬ 
tion the presence of diarrhoea in your flocks, 
and I suspect your trouble is due rather 
to a lack of vitality that often manite'ts 
itself at about their age. This may be due 
to some definite, though obscure, disease, or 
may simply indicate insufficient inherited 
vigor to carry the chick past the stage of 
life in which your chicks die. If investi¬ 
gation discloses no definite ailment, 1 would 
suggest that you look carefully to the con¬ 
dition of your breeding stock, and see to it 
that all conditions surrounding them are 
such as to start the youngsters out in life 
with a vitality that will carry them through 
the period of infantile diseases M. b. d. 
How to Sprout Oats. 
Will you advise me about sprouted oats? 
I have been growing them in boxes about 
two feet apart, oats laid down an inch 
deep; watered every day with warm water. 
They sprout pretty well. The bottom of 
the box of course has plenty of holes. 
Printed information sometimes advises oats 
two inches deep. I cannot see good results 
from such a deep layer. My inquiry in par- 
tieualr is. how to make them sprout evenly, 
how to avoid mould, and how to feed them? 
The mass is usually wet, and I wish to 
know if it is wrong to feed the sprouts 
and root mass unless dry. n. w. m. 
Milburn, N. J. 
R. N.-Y.—Will some of our hen men put 
this through a course of sprouts? 
Bees in the Contest. 
How would it do to enter one or more 
colonies of Italian bees when you start your 
contest to determine the most profitable 
stock to keep on the farm ? I believe the 
results would astonish a few of your read¬ 
ers and perhaps interest others. Person¬ 
ally I do not think Mr. Dougan’s 10 hens 
or the $60 cow would be in the running 
against Italian bees of equal value. Per¬ 
haps you might persuade some queen breed¬ 
er to enter the lists. It is certain that 
the value of the honey bee as a pollinizing 
agent in fruit culture is little understood 
by a large majority of farmers. I do not 
remember any account of the apiary at 
Hope Farm. I wonder why? s. 
Concord, Mass. 
R. N.-Y.—To tell the truth our children 
were, in some way, badly stung on their 
first introduction. 
Value of Anconas. 
Are the Anconas easier to raise than the 
Leghorns? I seem to have trouble to raise 
Leghorn chicks. Their wings grow too fast 
and they soon die. Are the Anconas good 
layers, and do they get broody like the 
heavy breeds.? w. h. k. 
Ulster Park N. Y. 
The Anconas are of the Leghorn type, 
and resemble them rather than the heavy 
breeds in their tendency toward broodiness, 
and other characteristics. They are good 
layers of large white eggs, but probably no 
easier to raise than Leghorns from equally 
vigorous stock. The common belief that’ 
the wings of Leghorn chicks sometimes grow 
so fast as to become a serious drain upon 
their vitality, is not. in my opinion a ra¬ 
tional one. The large wing feathers are 
the first to develop, and the fact that young 
chicks which are weakened from any cause 
allow their wings to droop lends color to 
the idea that this rapid growth has sapped 
their vitality. The cart is probably placed 
before the horse, and it is not the large 
drooping wings that have exhausted the 
strength of the chickens, but rather the 
weakened condition of the chickens that 
produces the drooping of the large wings. 
It would be a rather strange physiological 
freak if food that normally should nourish 
the entire body became diverted to any par¬ 
ticular organ" at the expense of all the 
rest, and the idea has, so far as I know, 
no analogy in nature to support it. 
M. B. D. 
I notice the inquiry on page 673 regard¬ 
ing number of hens to a rooster for farm 
flocks. After several years experience with 
a flock of about 300 hens in one flock I 
find that with 12 to 15 roosters I get a 
remarkably high per cent of fertility. When 
hatched under hens some hatches run very 
close to 100 per cent, and one year 43 
hens set on about 13 eggs each hatched 475 
chicks. My fowls are mixed Leghorns and 
Rhode Island Reds. s. s. c. 
Hardwick, Yt. 
Cannibalistic Chicks. —Noticing several 
methods of putting a stop to cannibalism 
in young chicks I wish to give our method, 
which is very simple and effective. At the 
first sign of a wound the misused chick is 
removed and the raw place covered quickly 
with carbolated vaseline. In an hour or 
two, when there is no danger of fresh 
bleeding, he is put back in his own flock 
or, if possible, with chicks a trifle smaller. 
One taste of the carbolated vaseline is gen¬ 
erally enough to satisfy the cannibalis- 
tically inclined that they have made a seri¬ 
ous mistake. We also use this on the 
combs and wattles of brood hens when re¬ 
turning them to the flock, or in any case 
where birds are scrappy. h. b. 
Hempstead. N. Y. 
Stone Concrete Henhouse. —On page 
388 M. inquires about building a henhouse 
in the Spring. I see M. B. D. objects to 
concrete. So would I. as it would surely 
draw moisture inside of house. I have a 
concrete block house that I built four years 
ago; I have two other frame houses, but I 
would not give the two for the block house. 
The blocks are 8x8x16. with a hole in the 
middle 3x6 for air space. I have never 
seen a drop of moisture or frost inside, 
and it is much warmer in Winter and 
cooler in Summer. Last Winter was the 
coldest since I have been in the poultry 
business; in this house not one comb was 
nipped, but the other two were touched 
with the frost. I have a machine and 
make my blocks, which reduces the cost 
considerably. The house is 12x50, with a 
five-foot space in one end and curtain; 
glass in four other windows. It is filled 
with cobble stones inside and concrete bot¬ 
tom ; no moisture in this house. I have a 
mow overhead of straw. The blocks are 
smooth inside. I have mine whitewashed 
with lime, and nests under the drop 
boards; if I build another one it would be 
a concrete block house. d. v. w. 
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AGRICULTURAL 
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17,329 Entries in 1911 
—Attendance 200,000 
GREAT HORSE AND CATTLE SHOWS 
ENTRIES CLOSE- 
- 1 
Dept. A—Horses 
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Aug'. 12 
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Aug. 24 
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■ Aug'. 31 
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