1813. 
THE RUKAt NEW-VORKER 
1277 
TIIE DUCKS AT THEIR DINNER. Fig. 495. 
Your Grandfather Read it 
Your Father Read It 
Are YOU Reading It? 
Old 
Farms 
Made New 
An old man can never be made young. A worn-out reaper is 
fit only for the junk heap. A horse that is past usefulness must be 
retired. 
But an old farm can be made new! 
I he owner of a hundred-acre farm was beating all his neighbors 
in crops, yet his business was a fizzle. 
It looked as if he’d have to quit the game to make a living. But 
he told his troubles to a farm-management expert. The expert got 
busy and made that farm over from pasture to corncrib. He moved 
fences, started rotations—did just the things an expert replanning a 
factory would do. 
And when he was done the deficit had been turned into a profit. 
For several years the Department of Agriculture, through its field 
agents, has been experimenting with various farms, with the owners’ 
cooperation, along the lines of system and efficiency. We are able 
to publish the results in a series of four articles, of which this is the 
first, under the title, Old Farms Alade New. They tell how to replan 
a farm for economy in time and labor. 
PECANS—A Tree Crop of Tomorrow 
A plantation owner set out a sixteen-acre pecan orchard at a cost of $600. 
Three years later a friend asked, “What will you take for it?” 
“It’s not for sale,” the owner answered, and $1800, $3000, $4000, wouldn’t 
budge him. Why? 
“Because when it is ten years old I can sell it for $16,000 — $1000 an acre,” 
he declared. Now it is nine years old and he wouldn’t take $16,000, because it 
will soon be paying twenty per cent, on that valuation. 
Tree Crops is the next big thing in farming, says Dr. J. Russell Smith, and 
he understands this subject better than anyone we know. He studied the nut 
orchards of this country, and some friends of the l Jniversityof Pennsylvania thought 
so highly of his work that they sent him on an 18,000-mile trip through Southern 
Europe and North Africa, where pecans, chestnuts, walnuts, olives, dates and 
the rest have flourished for centuries. 
He returned with a new faith in tree crops. He tells in this series of articles 
how the nut industry must be reestablished in America. 
Fresh Fowl—or Frozen 
Cold storage is a saving grace to the farmer—it prevents glutted markets 
and equalizes prices the year round. 
The poultryman especially will find that the cold-storage plant is his best 
friend. Here’s a story that tells what it means to you as no other article you 
ever read has told. 
A Woman and a Windmill 
In the homesteading game on Uncle Sam’s free land women win out as well 
as men; women of pluck and common sense, like this woman who took a wind¬ 
mill along with her when she went out to try to make a home for herself. 
• “Any woman can do it,” she says, “if she will buckle down cheerfully and 
not try to be a parlor ornament.” 
This real story of a real woman is better than fiction. 
Out West —The Little Landers 
Can a family farm a quarter of an acre and get a living out of it? That’s the 
claim back of Southern California’s Little-Lander movement. Ever hear of the 
little landers? We have investigated them. You may be interested in the result. 
These A ve a Few of the Rig Features You Will Find in 
One of Our Four December Issues. But They Are Not All 
A LESSON FROM A DUCK DEAL. 
A few years ago one of our neighbors 
started a small flock of Pekin ducks. 
The first season he raised about 80. the 
second season he had 300, and the third, 
close to 3.000. During the Summer va¬ 
cation lie hired my youngest brother and 
another lad about two years older to 
help him dress the ducks for market’. 
They got six cents for killing and pick¬ 
ing and could do from 12 to 20 in a 
day. Grain was comparatively cheap 
that year, and ducks were high; the 
profits in growing them were generous 
and the boys decided to spend the next 
season in raising ducks for themselves. 
We. talked it over and at last I agreed 
to furnish the capital for my brother if 
he would do the work. We already had a 
good flock of hens together and we planned 
to use them, in part at least, for setting. 
We bought an incubator that would hold 
300 hen’s eggs, but as we had to buy 
our duck eggs when and where we could, 
we used hens entirely for the hatching of 
them and devoted the machine to custom 
hatching together with our own hens’ 
eggs. We had good success in hatching 
and the ducks grew rapidly; however, 
grain was steadily advancing, and reports 
said ducks were plenty and cheap. We 
could see our margin of profits growing 
thinner every day. 
We raised about 200 ducks and nearly 
as many chickens. We found that it paid 
to let the chickens have the run of the 
duck yard as soon as they were old 
enough to fly over the lS-inch fences 
which divided the different flocks. A 
four-foot fence around the entire plant 
kept out intruders and kept the chickens 
in ; at the same time it gave them a 
chance to spend most of their time on 
the fresh grass outside the duck pens. 
I would not care to try to grow chickens 
if they had to live in the filth made by 
the ducks. Keeping chickens in this way 
is on the same idea as the hogs of the 
Western cattle fattener. There they run 
a hog to every steer to pick up the corn 
that would be wasted by the cattle; with 
us we found that the ducks wasted 
enough grain by shaking their heads when 
eating, or in running to the water dish, 
which they do with every few mouthfuls, 
to keep a chicken to every duck. In¬ 
stead of picking as a chicken does they 
simply shovel up the feed as long as 
there is enough to fill their bills and then 
have the rest to waste, beside all that 
dropped otherwise. 
The other lad, Jimmie, raised about 
the same number of ducks as we did, 
using hens entirely for • hatching, and 
feeding the same as we did. When the 
first reached 10 weeks of age they were 
dressed and shipped to Boston. Both 
hoys shipped a lot at the same time and 
! oth to the same commission merchant. 
At this time the year before ducks whole¬ 
saled at 27 cents per pound; that year 
we {got lOt/6 cents and Jimmie got 1(5. 
' he next week we got a whole cent over 
Jimmie, and the next week a half cent 
again. I was working away all the time 
and saw little of the ducks except Sun¬ 
days. After the third shipment I went 
up to look over Jimmie’s birds to see if 
1 could find what the trouble was. I 
imply could not find it. His ducks 
looked every bit as good as ours, and his 
returns from the commission man showed 
that they weighed as much as ours did. 
Also fie was using new custom-made 
shipping boxes, while we were using 
empty cracker boxes, giving him any 
advantage there was in package. At 
around 16 cents per pound the profit was 
all but invisible, and the usual half cent 
or the occasional whole one helped us to 
see it when he couldn’t; It made from 
50 cents’ to one dollar on every box in 
our favor. 
We continued to ship through July and 
August, and always we came out ahead 
on price. When school began in Septem¬ 
ber and the boy had to go there were 24 
ducks left to dress. As he did not have 
time to dress them we hired Jimmie, who 
had left school, to do it. He was to 
dress them and leave them soaking in 
the icewater, and the boy would wash 
them up and pack them after school, ship¬ 
ping them before school next morning. 
When I got home that night I heard a 
steady string of grumbling coming from 
the old carriage shod which we used for 
a picking house. I strolled in to find the 
boy washing ducks and muttering about 
“Poor picking, more pin feathers left.” 
etc. He washed and packed those ducks 
as carefully as any of the others, but we 
got a half cent less for them than any 
others. Here then is the lesson; the 
farmer may grow as good stuff as there 
is in the world, but if he is careless about 
putting the finishing touches on it he 
will never get the top price, and it is 
the top price that pays. e. t. wood. 
Massachusetts. 
Depluming Mite ; Italian Bees. 
1. Can you tell me what is the matter 
with my chickens’ heads? They get bare 
on top of the head when they are about 
six to eight weeks old. Quite a lot of 
my old hens have been bare on top of 
their heads for two or three years, and I 
thought the little chicks got it from the 
mother hen. but I have some purebred 
ones that I hatched, from purchased eggs, 
the chickens raised by themselves, with¬ 
out a hen, and their heads got bare just 
the same. Can you tell me what to do to 
cure them of it? Will hens that have 
had the gapes when they were little 
chickens, but got over them when they 
were older, do for breeders, or to put on 
to the market for that purpose, or would 
I have no right to do so? Are poultry 
men particular about not putting poultry 
on to the market or advertising them in 
the papers for breeders when they have 
had the gapes when little, or the roup? 
2. Are the Golden-all-over Italian bees 
more vicious (or cross) than the Leather¬ 
back Italian bees? I read that they were, 
but I see that the bee papers say nothing 
about it; they seem to say that'one kind 
of Italians is as good as another. 
Frnnklinville, N. Y. i. e. b. 
1. A small mite, known as the deplum¬ 
ing mite, is probably responsible for the 
bald heads of your chicks. This mite bur¬ 
rows beneath the skin and is hard to get 
at, but the thorough rubbing in of some 
grease like lard or vaseline, to which one- 
fifth part of blue ointment.has been add¬ 
ed, should kill the mites and permit the 
new feathers to grow. There is no reason 
why fowls that recovered from the gapes 
when young and were not stunted in their 
growth by the presence of the gape worms 
should not be used in breeding pens, but 
fowls that have once suffered from true 
roup have received a check to their vital¬ 
ity which unfits them for reproduction of 
vigorous stock, and they should not be 
used or sold for that purpose. 2. A cross 
disposition in bees, like that of humans, 
seems to be very much a personal trait. 
In general, the Italians, of whatever 
strain, are as mild-mannered as they 
should be to protect themselves from their 
enemies, though occasionally some colony, 
the progeny of one queen, will develop 
dispositions that make them a nuisance 
in the apiary. Cross-bred or hybrid bees 
are apt to be more vicious than pure 
Italians. m. b. i>. 
Growing Alfalfa for Market. A 
hundred dollars an acre in a droughty- 
year looks good to Kansas farmers, 
and their cornfields are rapidly becom¬ 
ing alfalfa fields. Have you tried alfalfa 
as a money crop? 
When Dairymen Get Together. 
For a longtime the dairymen have been 
divided into many factions. Dealers 
and producers have waged continual 
warfare. Ice cream manufacturers have 
been misunderstood. Breeders have 
followed false gods and have maligned 
each other’s breeds. But harmony is 
coming. The last National Dairy Show 
was really a peace conference as well 
as a school for producers, dealers and 
manufacturers. Our article on the Dairy- 
Show will have a new point of view. 
It’s not merely a list of prize winners, 
but a foresight into dairy futures. 
Progressive Agriculture. A girl 
made $107 from tomatoes on a tenth 
of an acre. A boy raised 167 bushels of 
corn on an acre. Uncle Sam is teaching 
92,000 boy's and 33,000 girls how to 
get the most from the farm, and they 
are teaching their fathers and mothers 
Then there’s a great woman’s de¬ 
partment, with the advance guard of 
Christmas shopping suggestions and 
holiday recipes and helpful hints for the 
“Mainspring of the farm”—the wife 
and mother. And a dozen more articles 
dealing with the two important features 
of the farm business—economy in pro 
duetion; profit in marketing. 
IF FARMING IS YOUR BUSINESS YOU NEED 
‘UTe COUNTRY 
GENTLEMAN 
Five Cents the Copy, of all Newsdealers. $1.50 the Year, by Mail 
THE CUR I IS PL BLISH1XG COMPANY, Independence Square 
Philadelphia, Pa. 
