1 loO 
October 2o, 
him. A wise farmer will study the different breeds 
to learn what particular advantages each can offer, 
and then, with a knowledge of his own conditions, 
and the requirements of his market, he will choose 
the one that seems likely to be most valuable upon 
his own farm. In doing this he should carefully 
consider the advantages of community breeding, 
however, and he may well sometimes give up some 
of his own preferences for the sake of joining his 
neighbors in the general choice. Where a com- 
STOVE FOR BURNING REFUSE. Fig. 434. 
niunity is substantially united upon one breed, it 
is possible to co-operate in securing males of im¬ 
proved breeding and thus vastly improve the herds 
of all, without excessive cost to anyone. Such com¬ 
munities also attract buyers of the breed generally 
kept, and thus enhance prices and opportunities to 
profitably dispose of surplus stock. m. b. dean. 
GARBAGE BURNERS. 
The disposal of garbage, where no compost heap is 
available, is a troublesome matter. Burning is the 
most satisfactory plan. Figs. 434 and 435 show two 
types of concrete stoves that may be built anywhere 
and are weather-proof. 
To build a garbage burner of the type shown in 
Fig. 435. dig out the dirt to the depth of six inches. 
For forms choose two barrels, one of which will set 
within the other with a clearance on all sides of 
six inches. Adjust the height by cutting off their 
butts. Make an opening through which a metal 
ash-box can be inserted or over which an iron door 
can be hung. Fill the foundation hole and the forms 
with 1:2:4 concrete. Remove the outside form 
after two weeks. The fire will later take care of 
the inner form. After three weeks the burner may 
be used. This furnace is a cone-shaped structure 
5 feet in diameter, 4 feet high with S-inch walls and 
24-inch screened openings. The fire-box or ash-box 
is 12 by 14 inches. 
The other burner consists of an old grate, a sec¬ 
ond-hand iron door and a length of terracotta drain 
pipe for a chimney or pipe. It is cheap and will last 
forever. As in the case of the first burner described, 
it may he constructed with a flat top and opening 
therein for a large cooking kettle. With the front 
door and grate at a higher level it would make an 
excellent outdoor grill for a permanent camp or 
country estate._ 
THE LEGHORN vs. THE RED. 
You say on page 1066: “Mr. Sweet is correct in 
saying that The It. N.-Y. is prepared to give the Red 
hen a fail 1 showing.” This is more than can l>e said 
for Mr. Sweet and the Leghorns. So the Reds can 
be kept out of the farmer’s garden with a two-foot 
fence, and the Leghorns scale 10-foot fences to get 
into the same kind of a place! Now about the 
fences. It is one thing lo fence in chickens and 
quite another to fence them out, the latter being 
much the easier. 1 have successfully fenced range 
Leghorns out of a garden with a four-foot fence, and 
I have failed to fence in Red pullets successfully 
with a four-foot fence. I fence in Leghorn hens, 
thousands in numbers, by an eight-foot fence, and 
have never know one to fly out. 
Now as to the reason why the White Leghorn is 
kept by the egg farmers instead of Reds. 1 will re¬ 
late my experience. My main laying-house holds 
2,000 pullets. One year I raised 1,100 Red pullets 
;*nd 900 Leghorn pullets, and placed them in this 
house, the 1,100 Reds occupying 11 pens at one end, 
the 900 Leghorns the nine at the other end. During 
the Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer the 900 Leg¬ 
horns laid more eggs than the 1,100 Reds every day, 
and one day a margin of 200 eggs; 500 of the Reds 
wanted to sit at the same time. We had to use all 
(he poultry and fruit crates on the place, and all 
we could get for miles around. They almost drove 
us all crazy. What kind of pullets do you think 
filled that house the next year and every succeeding 
yea r ?—Leghorns. 
The Reds are good stock. I have kept them 
The; rur.a.l nev\-vokkek 
in large numbers, as I have also the White Ply¬ 
mouth Rocks, and know their good qualities. But 
they are uo better layers than the White Rocks, and 
are much more given to sitting. I changed from 
the White Rocks to the Reds to get a more com¬ 
pact broiler at two pounds. With the strain of 
White Rocks 1 was then breeding, at two pounds 
the broilers had too much frame and not enough 
meat, hut aside from this advantage of the Reds, in 
my experience the Whites I bred were better than 
the Reds I bred, and were 1 looking for a general- 
purpose fowl, to keep in considerable numbers, I 
would prefer the White Rocks to the Reds. 
For egg production the breed required is the one 
that can produce the greatest returns for the least 
outlay, and my experience, limited to the White 
Rocks, the Reds, the Anconas and the Leghorns, and 
such observation as I have made of other breeds, 
leads me to believe that the S. C. White Leghorns 
are, as economical egg producers, in advance of any 
other breed to-day. The warning by Mr. Sweet to 
general farmers against “rushing into Leghorns” 
is a false note, as many of them are rushing in for 
the great good they see in them. 
Of the five that I picked at random from a flock 
of 1.800, for the first egg-laying contest, three laid 
200 each and better, the best one of the three made 
a record of 252 and took third place in the race. 
She won a $50 silver cup offered by the Connecticut 
Agricultural Society for the most profitable hen 
from Connecticut in the contest and laid 18 eggs in 
November after being returned from the contest, 
making a total of 270 from the time she commenced 
to lay, November S, 1911, till she quit to^moult De¬ 
cember 1, 1912. 
I believe that the American Leghorns can he 
bred along the lines suggested by Dr. Raymond 
BURNING RUBBISH AND COOKING. Fig. 435. 
Pearl’s experiments to the same degree of uniform 
excellence as the English Leghorns now making such 
great records in this Western Hemisphere. These 
Englishmen are teaching us that not only can Leg¬ 
horns be bred to lay, hut that a breed of our own 
make, the Wyandottes, can likewise be bred to lay. 
We must eventually beat out the English. We al¬ 
ways have, and the egg-laying contests must furnish 
no exception, but with what breed will our final 
triumph over our English cousins he celebrated? 
Connecticut. fred'k m. peasley. 
Reply by Mr. Sweet. 
The fence around my garden is of two-foot wire 
on an even-up board. You can straddle right over 
it almost anywhere, yet I have never seen but one 
of my Reds go over it. old or young, from inside or 
outside, (Fall and Winter we have the gate open). 
I have every strain of Reds that is in the lead at 
S to its or Mountain Grove this year, and all but 
one of last year’s leaders. Thus a two or three- 
foot fence, been there two years, l(i strains of 
Reds, never but one gone over it. 
On account of the males, I use three-foot wire 
between breeding pens and a wider bottom hoard, 
making a four-foot fence. Mr. Peasley says he 
uses an eight-foot fence for Leghorns. That is not 
only double the wire, double the work, double the 
posts hut ever so much more danger of an eight- 
foot fence getting tired and wanting to lie down. 
But, 1 don't see that this matter of height of fences 
lias anything to do with the case. The point is that 
the Leghorn doesn’t fit in well with the general 
farmer’s diversity of crops. He wants a hen that 
will forage and live largely on the waste products 
of his place,—his place, not on places half a mile 
from home! On the other hand the egg specialist 
does not want the Reds or any other sitting breed. 
Their broodiness is an intolerable nuisance to this 
man, while it is just what the farmer wants 
c. T. SWEET. 
AN OHIO MANURE SHED. 
A manure shed 24 feet wide by 64 feet long is at¬ 
tached to the dairy barn of the Ohio Experiment 
Station, the shed being located at the side of the 
barn and about 40 feet distant, so that its odors are 
not carried into the barn, the manure being con¬ 
veyed to it by trolley carriers. One end of the shed 
is open, and the other is closed with a large door, 
through which teams can be driven in emptying the 
shed. The foundation is about 2% feet high, and 
the floor is level with the ground. Under some 
circumstances it would be better to excavate a pit 
two or three feet deep, with sloping ends, the floor 
to he concreted and the exit end roughened to pre¬ 
vent horses slipping, on it in hauling out the load. 
This shed is found sufficient for the equivalent of 
about 100 cows during half the year. It is kept 
open so that the cattle can pass through it and thus 
keep the manure compacted. Cisterns were provided 
for the liquid excrement in the original construction 
of this barn, but these have been abandoned, as it 
is found better to keep the liquid and solid thor¬ 
oughly mixed together, both because the liquid por¬ 
tion is needed to prevent the drying out of the man¬ 
ure, which results in what is known as “firefanging,” 
and because the phosphorus of the excrement is 
chiefly found in the solid portion, the nitrogen and 
potassium being chiefly excreted In the liquid. At 
the Ohio Experiment Station, a combination of ni¬ 
trogen and potassium, costing $21, has produced in¬ 
crease to the value of $11, hut when phosphorus, 
costing $2.50, has been added to the mixture of nitro¬ 
gen and potassium the increase has risen to $39 in 
value, as a 19-year average, the phosphorus making 
a difference of $28 in value, when combined with 
nitrogen and potassium, although the increase from 
the same quantity of phosphorus, when used alone, 
has amounted to hut $17. 
Further experiments have shown that even the en¬ 
tire manure is deficient in phosphorus, as would be 
expected from the fact that the animals producing 
the manure have taken out of their feed the phos¬ 
phorus required to build their skeletons or to sup¬ 
ply their milk, and the effectiveness of the manure 
has been greatly increased by reinforcing it during 
accumulation with carriers of phosphorus. 
Ohio Experiment Station. ctias. e. tiiorne. 
A CANADIAN FEEDING CART. 
The picture shown at Fig. 436 is taken from a 
bulletin of the Canadian Department of Agriculture, 
entitled “Milk Production in Canada.” This is an 
excellent volume, giving in much detail the whole 
story of milk production from the cow through the 
barn and dairy house to the feed. The feed cart 
here shown is used on a good many Canadian farms. 
As will be seen, the cart is on three wheels, so that 
it’can be pushed readily down the alley. There are 
two compartments, one for the regular mixed grain 
ration, and the other for cotton-seed meal, oil meal, 
or any other feed needed to give a stronger ration. 
Then hanging from a stout upright is a spring bal¬ 
ance or scale, so that the ration for each animal 
can l>e quickly weighed. It is easy therefore to use 
this cart along in front of the cow and quickly 
weigh out the exact portion for each. As is well 
known the modern system of accurate feeding means 
adapting the ration to each cow’s taste or condition. 
A CANADIAN FEEDING CART. Fig. 436. 
For instance, there will lie a number of fresh cows, 
heavy in milk, who can make good use of strong 
food like cotton seed or oil meal, while others close 
by them, giving less milk, and further along in lacta¬ 
tion, would not require so much. With this cart the 
feeder can quickly weigh out enough of the regular 
mixture, and then throw in enough of the stronger 
grain to give what each particular cow requires. A 
box of salt or of charcoal can also be carried in this 
cart and fed out as required. 
