1913 . 
33 © 
THE “UNIT” SYSTEM HEN BUSINESS. 
Mapes, the Hen Man, Talks. 
Part I, 
I would like to ask Mr. O. W. Mapes if lie still con¬ 
tinues to like the brooder heater ho has described, also 
if he will give a more specific description of the construc¬ 
tion and arrangement; and installation of the heater, 
ventilator, horizontal drum, deflector, distance of de¬ 
flector from floor, etc. J. w. T. 
Maeedon, N. Y. 
The heater referred to above was abandoned in 
1911, because it developed defects that I found a way 
of remedying. Various heating devices were tried, 
including gasoline, kerosene, and denatured alcohol, 
but all developed defects. Besides the fire risk, 
which was always present, and which gave me 
a number of bad “scares” by the way, they are 
always consuming the oxygen from the air of the 
room that is so vital to the health of the chicks- The 
idea of brooding chicks in large flocks, and in a room 
specially constructed to resist changes in outside tem¬ 
perature, with forced draft for ventilation, was all 
right, and is still in successful use. This, together 
with the improved method of heating referred to, has 
changed the proposition of commercial egg production 
for me from one of vexation and uncertainty, to one 
of confidence and pleasure. 
Fig. 115 gives an inside view of one of my Orange 
County poultry houses all ready to receive a flock of 
700 day-old chicks. Since using this device, in connec¬ 
tion with the Cornell feeding ration which has been 
published in The R. N.-Y., I have repeatedly raised 
95 per cent of all the chicks placed in 
it, and never less than 90 per cent. 
As will be seen by referring to Fig. 
115, the source of heat is a coal stove 
with a jacketed fire-pot, standing out¬ 
side of the brooder room proper. This 
is suitably connected by piping to an 
ordinary hot water radiator standing in 
the center of the brooder room, which 
is 12x24 feet. This is 32 inches high 
and has sufficient radiating surface to 
furnish all the heat that will be needed 
in any ordinary weather. If it were 
desired to operate it in dead of Winter 
in a cold climate a few more loops 
could be added to the radiators, of which 
there are two short ones standing side 
by side. The heater shown in the cut 
has a 12-inch fire-pot. I also operate 
one with a 15-inch fire-pot, but find the 
smaller one amply large for the ordinary 
Spring hatching season. Two inches 
above the radiator there is a wooden 
hover top feet square, with six 
inches of shavings or sawdust laid on 
top of it, and sheets of single-ply roofing 
felt laid upon the shavings. The roofing 
felt prevents the chicks from scratching 
off the shavings after they get old 
enough to fly upon the hover. Both the 
shavings and the roofing felt serve the 
purpose of retarding upward radiation, 
which is always greater than lateral ra¬ 
diation. 
Muslin containers extend from the 
hover top to the floor. Outside of the 
muslin curtains is placed a curtain of 
the single-ply roofing felt. This should 
lack three or four inches of reaching 
the floor. It was removed from one side when the 
photograph was taken. A fresh-air shaft with out¬ 
side connections and a forced draft is constantly 
delivering a current of pure cold air in the hottest 
part of the space under the hover. It must get out 
somewhere. The roofing felt is airtight, hence it 
is forced down to the floor and out under the felt 
curtain, right where the chicks need it. There are 
no products of combustion within the brooder room, 
and none of the vital oxygen in the room used in 
producing artificial heat. There is no danger of 
overheating the room, since boiling water can only 
get just so hot. 
If the fire gets too hot during your absence the 
surplus heat forms steam in the barrel above the 
stove, and escapes out of doors through the wire- 
covered front. The temperature under the hover is 
easily controlled by throwing the felt curtain back 
upon the hover top, and by looping up the muslin 
curtains with a few pins. If the fire gets low dur¬ 
ing your absence, the radiators are so protected by 
the packing above them, and the packing above 
and on all four sides of the entire brooder 
room, that they part with their heat very 
slowly. Once you get accustomed to banking your 
fire, you can go to bed at your usual hour and dis¬ 
miss the chicks from your mind until morning. The 
coal fire is surrounded by water and the heater stands 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
on a cement floor. The fire risk is a thing of the 
past. 
The wooden floor of the brooder room should be 
covered with chaff, cut straw, or hay seeds from the 
barn floor before the chicks are introduced, and the 
cement floor of the outer room 24x24 feet covered 
with coarse sand. At first I keep the chicks close 
to the source of heat by standing wide boards on 
edge about a foot away from the hover. These are 
gradually moved back and removed entirely after two 
or three days. A small drop door in the bottom of 
the brooder room door is opened after about a week, 
giving the chicks the run of the sanded floor of the 
outer room, which is in effect an open-front scratch¬ 
ing shed. Here they get fresh air and sunshine and 
are safe from cats, hawks, rats, etc. The most vig¬ 
orous flock of hens I have to-day were never out 
of this open-front shed until past six months of age. 
The brooder room is also used as a roosting room 
for adult birds. Part of the perches are installed 
as soon as the chicks begin to show any desire to 
perch at night, and when most of them leave the 
floor and take to the perches the hover and radia¬ 
tor are removed, and the sash removed from the win¬ 
dows on either side of the door. This practically 
makes an open-front roost when the wide door is 
kept open, with the perches far enough back to be 
free from drafts- o. w. mapes. 
BALDWIN FRUIT SPOT. 
The communication of C. R. on page 168 emphasizes 
the fact that in the minds of many there is confusion 
regarding the “Baldwin fruit spot.” Strange as it 
may seem, Prof. Van Deman’s statement that it is a 
“constitutional disorder from within,” and the quo¬ 
tation from Prof. Surface in which he refers to it as a 
fungus, Cylindrosporium Pomi Brooks, are both cor¬ 
rect, for there are two distinct troubles affecting the 
apple which have been termed the Baldwin spot. 
While of very different origin these two troubles are 
not unlike in appearance; indeed, so similar are they 
that a person perfectly familiar with both frequently 
hesitates to say definitely which is the cause of infec¬ 
tion in an injured fruit, especially if the disease is 
in the early stages. If, however, we once get the idea 
that there are two distinct troubles, and then, try 
carefully to familiarize ourselves with the appearance 
of each we should soon be able to differentiate be¬ 
tween them. 
Prof. Brooks in the nineteenth and twentieth an¬ 
nual reports of the New Hampshire Experiment Sta¬ 
tion, in which he calls attention to the two distinct 
diseases, proposed the names of fruit spot and fruit 
pit • It seems that his choice of terms is not a happy 
one, for, although I have read the article a half 
dozen times, the fact that they are both “spots” and 
both slightly sunken “pits” so confuses me that I 
am unable to remember which is which, whether T. 
M. stands for “’Tis Mince” or “’Taint Mince.” If 
we would speak of one as the physiological fruit spot 
and the other as the fungus fruit spot or the Cylindro¬ 
sporium fruit spot or (since Phoma pomi, according 
to pathologists, should replace the longer name) the 
Phoma fruit spot there would exist no cause for con¬ 
fusion. 
The physiological fruit spots are apt to appear when 
the apple has nearly or quite reached its normal size, 
but before any coloring takes place; they are from 
one-quarter to one-half inch in diameter, more or less 
circular, slightly sunken, slightly darker in color, 
and would suggest hail injury were it not that they are 
more numerous on the lower or blossom end of the 
apple. As time progresses these spots become more 
conspicuous, the color deepens, especially on the sunny 
side, and the depression is somewhat greater. At no 
time does the skin of the apple seem affected but in¬ 
stead there seems to be just beneath the skin, and 
showing through, discolored abnormal tissue. In fact 
this is exactly the case, for on cutting the apple open 
it is found that immediately beneath these submerged 
spots is a -mass of spongy, pithy tissue of a brown 
color and bitter taste. There is no known cause for 
this trouble. It sometimes seems to be associated with 
abnormal size, and during the “off year,” especially of 
the Baldwin, the scattering, overgrown fruits are apt 
to be affected. There, however, must be more potent 
causes than this, for in the orchard of the Ohio Ex¬ 
periment Station last year three trees of Lankfords 
which were well loaded and on which there was 
scarcely an unaffected apple. Baldwin, Lankford and 
Lowell showed the most injury in the Station orchard 
this year although some other varieties were affected- 
The fungus fruit spot does not make 
its appearance until about picking time 
or later. The external characters are 
much the same as those of the above, 
yet there are some characteristic dif¬ 
ferences. The fungus spots are apt to 
be smaller and to center around a lenti- 
cel, the large russet dots which some 
varieties have seeming especially favor¬ 
able for the entrance of the fungus. 
Unlike the other disease, in the fungus 
spot, the skin of the apple in the de¬ 
pression turns black and seems to be 
transformed into a hard shiny black 
substance, in the center of which is the 
lenticel from which the fruiting portion 
of the fungus emerges. Beneath the 
surface there is the same browning of 
the flesh as above mentioned, but with¬ 
out the bitter taste. There are some 
things which would indicate that this is 
a storage trouble, as fruit which is ap¬ 
parently sound when put in the cellar 
storage afterward shows the disease. 
Apples exposed in open crates show 
more spot on the top layer than on the 
apples beneath. There is either a rela¬ 
tion between the development of the 
apple and the growth of the disease or 
else the fungus does not do w r ell at low 
temperatures, since in cold storage, 
where the temperature is lower and the 
fruit matures slower, the appearance of 
the fungus is later and less than in cel¬ 
lar storage. Spraying in July and 
August promises to be of value in hold¬ 
ing this disease in check. Among the 
varieties especially susceptible are the 
Jonathan, Mann, Tolman Sweet, Belle- 
flower, Rhode Island Greening, Northwestern Green¬ 
ing, Grimes, Baldwin, Wagener, Northern Spy and 
Canada Red. c. P. b. 
A good many years ago Connecticut produced more 
corn than any other American State. There were very 
few States at that time, and not so much corn was re¬ 
quired to establish this record. Even to-day the New 
England States produce a larger average yield of corn 
per acre than any other section of the country. When 
corn was burned as fuel in western towns you could 
hardly expect it to be “boomed” in New England, but 
corn retailing at 70 cents and over is a very different 
proposition. Corn at one cent a pound can be made 
to pay a fair profit in New England when the value 
of the fodder is considered. Some of the flint varie¬ 
ties of corn which have been grown and selected for 
two centuries or more will, we firmly believe, produce 
more food for man and beast per acre than any other 
grain that can be grown in New England. The Con¬ 
necticut Agricultural Society offers $200 in four prizes 
for best acres of dent and Mnt corn grown in that 
State. Col. C. M. Jarvis, president of this society, 
goes further. He has noticed from time to time re¬ 
ports of great yields of silage, corn—70 tons or more 
per acre. Now Col. Jarvis does not believe that it 
is possible to raise 50 tons of silage corn on one acre, 
and he will give $100 to any person in Connecticut 
who will do it. There are no trade conditions—any 
kind of soil, any variety of corn and any kind of 
manuring or fertilizer will be accepted. All there is 
to it is that there must be 50 tons of corn on the 
acre. 
A NEST OF MAPES’ HENHOUSES. Fig. 114 . 
INTERIOR OF ORANGE COUNTY HENHOUSE. Fig, 115 . 
